There was no sky in this place.
No ceiling either — just light.
It pressed from every angle, bright and bloodless, until Avery couldn’t tell where the walls ended and she began. She thought she was lying down, but even that felt uncertain; her body seemed to float, half suspended in weightless air.
Her first thought was am I dead again?
The second came slower: was I ever alive to begin with?
A faint hum ran through the light, low and rhythmic, like the pulse of some distant machine. Each vibration crawled beneath her skin, matching the beat of her heart — or maybe the tether, whispering faintly against her ribs.
She tried to move.
Her fingers twitched, sluggish, as if dragging through water. When she looked down, she saw her own hands — or what should have been her hands — outlined
