The silence of my bedroom pressed against me like a physical weight.
'It feels wrong that there's no danger anywhere,' I thought, staring at the ornate ceiling of my room.
The Well of Miasma had been hell incarnate—a place where even sleep offered no sanctuary. I'd survived on water conjured through magic, sustained myself on miasma-resistant plants that somehow thrived in that corrupted environment. Day after day, I'd fought miasmic beasts whose very existence defied natural law.
My senses had adapted, evolving to detect the subtlest shifts in my surroundings—the whisper of movement in the dark, the almost imperceptible change in air pressure before an attack, the distinctive scent of different predators. That heightened awareness had kept me alive.
Now, those same finely-tuned senses searched fruitlessly for threats in a place where none existed. The safety felt alien. Unnatural.
A fresh breath, yes. But profoundly disorienting to the creature I'd become.
