Ruby couldn't breathe. But did she ever need to breathe?
The place she was drowning in wouldn't allow her to breathe air, letting her lungs fill with water instead. But it didn't hurt.
Just... suffocating. Extremely.
She was suspended in it and somewhere in the distance, through the murk, the muffle, and the crushing weight of the deep, she saw it again.
On the surface of the upside-down lake, a little girl with black hair—
***
Ruby opened her eyes with a violent, choking gasp. Her chest heaved and her throat burned.
She tried to grab her neck immediately. The instinct was overwhelming, the phantom sensation of her head threatening to violently separate from her body still screaming through every nerve.
But she couldn't move her hands. Something was restraining her wrists. Soft bindings… Linen strips, tied to the bedframe. She thrashed against them, panic surging fresh through her veins, and then—
"Ruby..."
