Darkness.
Not the gentle kind that exists behind closed eyelids, nor the quiet hush that comes with nightfall.
This was suffocating — a void so absolute it felt alive, pressing against skin, crawling under fingernails, swallowing breath, swallowing warmth.
In the middle of that endless black…
a tiny shape trembled.
A little girl, no older than seven, sat curled into herself — arms wrapped tight around her legs, chin buried against her knees. Her hair, impossibly pale and soft as winter snow, was the only thing in this lightless world that glowed — a faint, fragile halo of white in a sea of nothing.
Her eyelashes fluttered.
Her small fingers twitched.
Then — slowly — she lifted her head.
Wide amethyst eyes blinked into the void, and the moment she realized she wasn't home, wasn't anywhere she knew, her breath hitched sharply in her throat. Her tiny hands clutched each other, knuckles whitening with fear.
"W-Where… am I…?"
