Ariane:
I don't know when sleep claimed me, only that when it did, it wasn't a gentle thing.
Darkness swallowed me whole. It happened so quickly that I didn't even realize I had fallen asleep.
One moment, I was lying above the covers, feeling the fabric beneath my fingertips, and then… darkness.
Not the kind of darkness that soothes or cradles you. No, this was the vast, breathtaking kind that moved when you least expected, making your skin crawl.
Cold seeped into my body, threading through my bones, until I stood again barefoot on the black stone that stretched forever in every direction.
I was back in the place between all things, where the living and the dead whispered, where fates were spun and undone and waiting for me. Just beyond the mist that bled along the ground like living
