Darkness swallowed her whole.
Not the gentle darkness of night, not the kind that faded when light returned. This was something deeper—thicker. It clung to her skin, pressed into her lungs, wrapped around her thoughts like an unseen force determined to erase everything she knew.
Emily couldn't breathe.
Or maybe she was breathing.
She couldn't tell.
There was no sound.
No ground.
No direction.
Only the endless void stretching infinitely in all directions, as if she had been dropped into the center of nothingness itself.
For a long moment—
There was only silence.
Then—
A pulse.
Slow.
Heavy.
Deep enough that she didn't just hear it.
She felt it.
Thump.
Her chest tightened violently as air rushed into her lungs. She gasped, her body jerking as if she had just been dragged back from the edge of death.
The darkness shifted.
The void trembled.
And suddenly—
She was falling.
Weightless.
Endless.
