Morning arrived the way mornings arrived at sea.
Not the gradual, terrestrial kind that crept in from the east with the apologetic quality of light that knows it's interrupting. The ocean morning was immediate — the porthole going from black to the specific, disorienting grey of open water reflecting a sky that hadn't committed to colour yet, the ship's ambient sounds changing register, the particular creak of a hull that had been in conversation with the sea all night and was now summarizing the exchange.
Nara came back to consciousness the way you came back from somewhere you hadn't meant to go.
First: the ceiling.
She didn't know this ceiling. The fact registered before the why of it registered, the specific, pre-panic moment of a body doing inventory before the mind caught up and provided context.
Then the context caught up.
