I came back wrong.
That was the first thing I knew, before I had opened my eyes.
I came back with weight in my chest that had not been there in any previous wake, and with a cold spot inside me that I could not place.
It was as if Death Touched was registering a threat, but this threat was not coming from outside. It was already inside of me.
"Up, up, lazy cur. Elric, I say, wake up!"
Mel's voice… My annoying little munchkin, only you would make me want to rise from the dead.
I let the orb finish its phrase, and it rang a second time, and a third.
My hand did not move toward it, and my eyes did not open, and the sound of my sister's voice repeating the wake-up phrase three times washed over me without producing the lift it usually did.
That was the first sign that something was wrong inside of me.
