CASSIAN
The grass was the first thing I felt, thick, cool, and smelling of a recent rain that had left the earth damp and heavy.
It was a familiar scent, the scent of the Wolfe estate in mid-summer, stretching out in every direction like a manicured kingdom that I was allowed to inhabit but never truly own.
I lay there for a long time, my eyes closed, feeling the specific, startling lightness of a body that hadn't yet been broken. My limbs felt long and lithe, unburdened by the scars and the stiffness that I somehow felt I should have.
I was waking up, but the process was slow, like hauling myself out of a deep, dark well.
There was a residue clinging to my skin, the greasy remains of a dream so vivid it felt more like a life I had lived than a trick of the mind.
In that other place, there had been blood. So much blood.
