Lucian's POV...
Where am I?
The question was a solitary spark in an ocean of nothing, a thought adrift in the silent, weightless dark.
I tried to open my eyes. A monumental effort. My eyelids were slabs of granite, sealed shut by some unseen force. I pushed against the resistance, a dull, throbbing ache behind them.
Come on. Open.
A sliver of light. Then a flood—blinding, searing white. I flinched, squeezing them shut against the assault, before forcing them open again, letting the world bleed slowly into focus.
A white ceiling, textured and sterile. White walls, interrupted by a bland landscape painting. The smell—antiseptic, bleach, and underneath it all, the cloying sweetness of decay. It was all wrong. This wasn't my world.
Tinnn... tinnn... tinnn...
The sound was a tiny, insistent drill boring into my temple. Rhythmic. Mechanical. A ghost of a heartbeat that wasn't my own.
