Aranea woke to the sound of her own breathing.
It came back to her first. Too loud in the small space, too fast, like she'd been running and suddenly found herself nowhere at all.
The cold hit next. Not the kind that pricks your skin, but the deeper kind—the kind that feels like it's sinking into your bones, drinking the warmth straight out of you.
She forced her eyes open.
No sky. No trees. No campfire. No familiar faces.
Just a circular room—stone, pale and polished smooth, with no seams and no doors. The walls curved around her like the inside of a bell, and faint lines ran along the floor in rings, meeting at the center where she… floated.
Not floating. Suspended.
A sphere as clear as glass and as alive as breath held her in the middle of the room. When she shifted, the bubble shivered like water and hummed, the sound almost too soft to hear.
She pressed a hand to its inside surface.
