The first thing I noticed wasn't the light, but the silence. It wasn't the peaceful quiet of a sleeping house or the hushed anticipation of a library; it was a heavy, pressurized vacuum that seemed to ring in my ears. I opened my eyes and gasped. I wasn't in my bed. I wasn't even in the world I recognized.

I was standing in a place of absolute, blinding purity. Everything was white. There were no shadows to define corners, no horizon to separate the ground from the sky. It felt infinite and ...