I stood on my feet after one of the sentinels lifted me up, their rough hands gripping my arms like iron clamps.
At least, I tried to.
I straightened with everything I had left, forcing my spine to lock into place, lifting my chin high as if the world hadn't just watched me bleed and fight and nearly die in front of a roaring, crowd. I tried to pretend everything was okay, that my body would obey the way it always had before, strong, reliable, mine.
It didn't.
My body refused to play this game any longer.
Everything stopped at once.
The deafening noise of the field, the savage shouting, the chaotic movement around me, it all faded and drifted away. The world didn't vanish; it simply receded, like I was sinking slowly underwater. Sounds stretched and warped into distant echoes, light bent into smeared, hazy patches of torchfire and shadow. The blood-soaked sand beneath my feet, the sentinels, the entire field blurred into something unreal and far away.
