"Ren... sweetie, it's time to wake up."
The gentle, familiar voice echoed through a thick fog, pulling Ren upward through layers of dark unconsciousness. 'Mom?' Ren muttered in her mind, her eyelashes fluttering rapidly as she fought between the blinding light and the lingering darkness.
She shot up with a desperate gasp for air, her hands instinctively flying to her throat as if expecting to cough up a gallon of water.
But there was no water.
Ren blinked, her wide, panicked green eyes swimming with confusion. She was sitting upright on the smooth stone table in the middle of the scullery. She wasn't drowning. She wasn't freezing. She was bone-dry, and she was dressed in her emerald silk dress.
Ren frantically patted her chest, her arms, and her thighs. She pinched her own cheek hard enough to leave a red mark.
"Ouch! What the..." she whispered, her voice echoing in the empty kitchen.
