As soon as Lauren wrapped her fingers around the dagger's hilt, the cold metal pulsed in her hand, and in a blink, the endless white world disappeared.
She didn't even feel herself falling, but suddenly, she was no longer in the strange place filled with weapons.
Lauren stood frozen in the broken hallway of the academy, the smell of burning wood and blood filling her nose, her eyes darting around as if trying to understand what she was seeing, what she was feeling.
But the moment she saw the cracked walls, the collapsed ceiling, and the scattered belongings of students something inside her started to ache deeply, something that told her this wasn't just a nightmare or a vision, it was something real, something happening right now.
Her footsteps echoed as she walked slowly and she didn't know how or why she was there only that her feet were moving on their own, that her heart was pounding louder with every step.
