Just like a tightly stretched rope suddenly snapping, Julian's consciousness was violently yanked back to reality by some invisible force.
He snapped his eyes open.
"Hah... hah..."
Julian's chest heaved violently, his mouth open as he gasped for air like someone who had just narrowly escaped drowning at the bottom of a freezing ocean and finally breached the surface. His vision was blurred and swaying, cold sweat broke out, trickling down the sides of his temples and soaking the strands of hair that clung tightly to his deathly pale forehead.
His right hand was still fiercely gripping his own left wrist. He gripped it so tightly that his pale fingers showed protruding blue veins, his fingernails almost digging deep into his flesh, as if that spot still retained the burning, heavy sensation of a massive iron chain having just sliced across it.
Ethan was already right beside him, though it was unclear when he had gotten so close.
