Callie’s POV
The return wasn’t immediate.
I didn’t wake all at once, nor with any comforting clarity that would let me understand where I was or what had happened. Instead, I surfaced slowly, as if my mind had to push through dense, heavy layers—filled with something I didn’t fully recognize, yet somehow felt as mine. As if every thought had to carve its way through a new structure, more complex, more… inhabited.
The first sound wasn’t external.
It was internal.
A pulse.
Then another.
Three distinct rhythms, out of sync, yet connected in a way I couldn’t explain—as if there were more than one presence inside me, breathing at the same time, more than one awareness observing from places I couldn’t locate.
That alone was enough to make the awakening feel not like relief…
but like som
