The afternoon sunlight spills across my face like honey poured from a jar that's been left too long in the sun—thick, golden, almost unbearable in its gentleness. It seeps through my eyelids, warm and insistent, pulling me from the depths of a sleep I didn't want to leave.
For a moment, I just lie there, suspended in that strange space between waking and sleeping.
I open my eyes slowly. The brightness is too much, yet soft at the same time, filtering through the glass wall of my room and casting long golden rectangles across the floor. Dust motes dance in the light, lazy and indifferent.
It's been three days since I returned from X Country.
Since then, I've cut myself off from the world—from the noise, from everything.
