Samara froze.
For a moment, everything inside her went still, as if her mind had refused to move forward without permission from reality.
"If I am alive… then how?"
The words left her lips slowly, uncertain, as though speaking them might break whatever fragile illusion she was caught in.
She pushed herself upright.
The sheets slid from her body, whispering softly as they fell. Silk pooled across the floor in pale folds, shimmering faintly in the dim light like spilled moonlight. It was beautiful. It was delicate.
She did not care.
Her heart pounded too hard for her to notice anything beyond the frantic rhythm echoing in her ears. Her thoughts chased each other in tight, panicked circles, each one colliding with the next.
"I swear I was stabbed," she murmured, pressing a hand to her stomach. "I felt it. I remember it. Or… was that a dream?"
Her fingers trembled as they moved across her skin.
No pain.
No blood.
No wound.
