'I feel cold, so terribly cold. I want to surrender to sleep, yet something is violently pulling me back into consciousness. I feel as though I have slept for an eternity. Why am I hearing a scream? A female scream? Wait... is that... is that Eijar's voice?'
Isiah forced his eyes open, his vision blurry as he stirred for the first time since collapsing in the desert. He found himself inside an vast, cavernous hall framed by architectural structures entirely alien to the Summit layer.
The icy chill still gripped his bones, yet the sensation was no longer immediately fatal as it had been out on the dunes.
He possessed zero understanding of how his condition had stabilized, assuming he had simply awakened by chance. In reality, Eijar had funneled a portion of her own vital life force into his frame to pull him back from the brink of death.
