There is a moment after impact where the world forgets how to behave.
That is where I am now.
Not unconscious.
Not awake.
Something in between—balanced on a fault line that keeps shifting beneath me like it can’t decide which version of reality deserves to survive.
The last thing I remember clearly is light.
Then separation.
Then nothing that feels like “me” in any stable form.
Now there is sound again.
Slowly returning.
First: breath.
Then: distant movement.
Then: a voice calling my name like it is trying to pull me back through water.
“Lyra.”
Rylan.
That name hits something inside me immediately.
Not memory.
Reaction.
Like a door that recognizes the key before it remembers the lock.
My eyes open.
This time, there is no overlap.
No dual courtyard.
No fractured sky.
