The lock did not open all at once.

It breathed.

A pulse rolled through the void—slow, seismic, reverberating through the marrow of a world that had forgotten what “real” meant. Elaria felt it first as a tremor under her ribs, then as light threading through her veins, thin as spider silk and twice as cruel.

She had thought she would die in the silence—trapped forever in that white cage of consciousness, where thought was both her tormentor and her only company. But death never came. ...