Blackness. Absolute, suffocating blackness.
There was no pain. The tearing agony in her body, the crushing weight of the blood-soaked linens, the agonizing cries of her newborn child, it was all completely, entirely gone.
Roxy floated in a silent, temperature-less void, completely unmoored from the devastating reality of the Iron-Wood Manor. She felt nothing. Her heart wasn't beating, her lungs weren't drawing air. It was the absolute, perfect stillness of death.
Is this it? she thought, her consciousness drifting sluggishly. Am I going to find Ren now?
But the universe, it seemed, was not entirely finished torturing her.
Without a single microsecond of warning, the serene, silent void violently shattered. The sensation of falling hit her like a physical blow, a terrifying, stomach-dropping plummet through empty space.
Roxy hit the ground hard. The impact knocked the breath completely from her lungs, scraping her bare arms against rough, unforgiving terrain.
