"AHHH!"
Arzhen woke with a violent, full-body spasm. Sweat drenched his sheets, soaked through his nightshirt, plastered his dark hair to his forehead in wet, clinging strands. His chest heaved, breaths came in ragged, gulping gasps that did nothing to satisfy the terrible, suffocating emptiness in his lungs.
The room spun.
The ceiling above him swam in and out of focus like a reflection in troubled water. He pressed his palms flat against the mattress, trying to anchor himself, but the bed seemed to tilt beneath him.
"URP—UHWG—"
Nausea rose in his throat, hot and sour. He gagged, turned his head, but nothing came up.
Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong. But he couldn't remember what.
The dream? Was it a dream? If it was, it was gone. Erased. Swallowed by the void between sleep and waking, leaving behind a pressure in his skull.
His body remembered, though. His muscles shrieked with the ghost of a trauma they had not endured.
