EMMALINE
Light presses against the darkness.
Not sudden.
Not bright.
Just… there.
A slow, warm glow that pulls me toward it, as though someone is gently peeling away layer after layer of fog wrapped around my body.
I don’t know where I am at first.
I don’t know when I am.
All I know is the weight.
The heaviness.
My body feels like it’s been buried under stone.
Then a sound reaches me.
A voice.
Low.
Shaken.
Familiar in a way that cracks something inside me.
“Em?”
I try to move toward it, but my limbs won’t obey. My thoughts drag like they’re being forced through mud. Everything is slow. Thick. Silent.
Except that voice.
It’s him.
Alexander.
The realization hits like a burst of color behind my closed eyes. I try to follow it—follow him—and something in my hand twitches.
