Celeste
I woke up to sunlight instead of the fluorescent hospital light, which felt like its own small miracle.
For a long moment, I just lay there, staring at an unfamiliar ceiling in an unfamiliar room, doing the same inventory I'd done every hour since I'd opened my eyes in that hospital bed — name: Celeste. Family: unknown. Life: unknown. Everything before yesterday: a locked door with no handle. It should have terrified me more than it did. Instead, there was a strange, quiet calm underneath the fear, like some part of me had decided panic wasn't going to solve anything and had simply declined to participate.
The ankle throbbed dully when I swung my legs over the side of the bed, but it held my weight well enough to hobble to the window. Trees, dense and green, stretched out furthe
