Warmth against my skin.
That was the first thing. Not pain, not antiseptic, not the beeping of monitors. Just warmth coming up through whatever I was lying on, spreading across my back and shoulders in a way that felt so unfamiliar after weeks of the facility cot that my body simply stayed still and did not know what to do with it.
I kept my eyes closed and listened.
Fire. Wood burning somewhere close. Stone walls, I could tell by the way sound sat in the room. No machines. No fluorescent hum. No third light flickering above me.
I was not in the facility.
I opened my eyes.
Rough stone ceiling, torchlight moving across it in slow warm waves. Large room. Low platform bed in the centre of it, something heavy and dark covering me. My wrists were beside me on top of the covering. Leather
