Buzz woke first.
He didn't wake gently.
He woke like someone yanked him upward by the spine and tossed him back into his own skull.
The world stung.
His eyes refused to focus.
The floor felt soft. Then hard. Then soft again, like it couldn't pick a form.
He pushed himself onto his hands.
A sharp pulse ran up his arm and rattled his teeth.
"Zza…?"
His voice cracked.
Nothing answered.
Air buzzed around him, thick and sticky, holding a faint taste of static. The corridor had lost all shape—walls curved inward, then outward, then flattened and bent again. A tunnel that couldn't decide what a tunnel was supposed to be.
Buzz tried again, louder.
"ZZA!"
The echo returned with a warped twist, like the ring repeated his voice through someone else's mouth.
He stood slowly.
His legs wobbled.
His breath rolled uneven.
A current crawled inside his bones, like the core whispered through his marrow.
His claws scraped the floor. "Alma?"
The corridor didn't answer.
It inhaled.
