My consciousness snapped back into my body with the jarring force of a high-G re-entry. The transition from the edge of the solar system to the Avalon penthouse was instantaneous, but the sensory whiplash was immense. My mind, which had just been stretched across billions of kilometers of void, felt compressed, the new, vast perspective of my Divinity crammed back into the confines of a human skull. The strain was profound, a sharp, conceptual ache behind my eyes.
I stood in the darkness of the living room, the city lights of Avalon glittering far below, oblivious. The quiet hum of the penthouse, the faint scent of Stella's slumber, felt impossibly fragile, like a whisper in the face of the hurricane I had just perceived.
