-Vaughn Blackmore:
I woke up like my body had been set on fire from the inside out.
There wasn't any slow return to consciousness, no gentle drifting between sleep and awareness. It was just heat—instant, heavy, overwhelming—spreading through my chest and stomach in waves so intense it made my vision blur for a second before I even fully understood what was happening. My skin felt too tight over my bones, like everything inside me had expanded and there wasn't enough space left for it. My throat was dry immediately, painfully so, every breath scraping a little on the way in as if even air wasn't enough to satisfy whatever my body had decided it needed.
Something was wrong.
No—heat.
My heat.
