EMMALINE
There’s a sound. It’s faint. Distant.
Like waves crashing against a faraway shore.
I reach for it, or maybe I’m just trying to remember how to move, but everything feels wrong. My body is heavy. Too heavy. As if I’ve sunk beneath the surface of something thick and endless, a black ocean pulling me deeper with every breath I can’t take.
Darkness wraps around me, soft and suffocating all at once.
I can’t see anything. Everywhere is pitch black.
But I can hear.
A beeping.
Slow. Steady. Mechanical.
It echoes through the darkness like a heartbeat that isn’t mine. It shouldn’t be comforting, but it is. It’s the only proof that I’m still here—wherever “here” is.
Then, voices break through the fog.
Muffled. Warped. Like they’re speaking through water.
“Her vitals are holding.”
