For a moment, Fu Tailan felt as if he were back on that summer highway.
His mother was standing by the car, her arm gripped by someone, just as helpless, just as captive.
But he had a choice again. It didn't matter that he'd chosen wrong last time. As long as he walked toward her this time, he could stay forever, keep her with him—
"Sit back down."
Chaisi's voice was like a splash of cold wine to the face, jolting Fu Tailan back to reality.
Only then did he realize that he had, at some point, stood up from the sofa.
'This bout of Nest Dissociation Syndrome... it really is a bad one.'
His body had long since left the Nest, but his spirit was still tethered to it by fine threads, caught between the Nest and the human world as if in a dream.
His father sat on the living room floor, his face pale with terror and slick with greasy sweat. His shirt was soaked through, dark patches staining the armpits, the outline of his undershirt faintly visible beneath.
