When Celestina came to, the first thing to reach her was sound—distant, fear-filled screams tearing through the stillness like something fraying at the seams of the world.
"Uhm..."
Her eyelids were impossibly heavy, as though weighted with something more than sleep, and a terrible pain pulsed at her back—deep and rhythmic, like a second heartbeat she had never asked for. In truth, she felt utterly drained, hollowed to the marrow, and some dim, exhausted part of her only wished to remain there, suspended in that strange, cottony half-consciousness where her body seemed to float just above the ground.
Yet the moment she surrendered to that desire, the memories came—not gradually, but all at once, crashing through the fragile quiet like a wave breaking against stone.
Celestina's eyes flew open.
