Julien Grayson:
Darkness didn't stay for long.
At first, it was completely thick, silent, endless. My mind floated somewhere inside it, disconnected from everything. There was no sound, no movement, no sense of time passing. Just a heavy, weightless void that wrapped around my thoughts.
Then something shifted.
Slowly, awareness began to creep back in, like light bleeding through closed eyelids. My head felt heavy again, but not the same dizzy, spinning heaviness from before. This was duller, slower, like waking from a deep sleep you didn't remember falling into.
I became aware of warmth first.
A deep, steady warmth surrounds me.
It took a few seconds for my brain to process what that meant. My body felt lifted, supported somehow, not pressed against the hard wooden floor like before. Something solid was beneath my back and under my legs.
My eyelids twitched.
Then slowly opened.
The first thing I saw was skin.
