POV: Daniel

There was no sky when I woke.

No horizon. No air.

Just gold.

Light coiled through itself like smoke underwater, taking shape, almost making sense: trees that burned without fire, rivers of light instead of water, clouds that drifted when I breathed. The world was soft and unfinished, like the half-dry ink of a dream that hadn’t quite decided what it wanted to be yet.

And I was standing in the middle of it.

Barefoot. Bare. Alive.

The ...