Dani:
At first, there was nothing, just warmth—thick and heavy—like sinking into a too-hot bath or being swaddled in a blanket underwater.
My body felt distant, floating somewhere above the pain, above the chaos, as if I existed in the space between waking and sleep. The sensation began to creep in, slow and inevitable.
I heard a rhythmic beep and the soft hum of fluorescent lights. I could smell the sterile bite of antiseptic in the air.
I blinked. Once. Twice. The world sharpened around the edges in pieces.
White walls.
A ceiling fan spinning lazily overhead.
Voices—low, murmuring.Then the pain—dull, then sharper, blooming in my chest like a bruise long-forgotten but newly remembered.
I was alive.
A soft, broken sound escaped me before I could stop it—a groan, weak but enough
