HARPER
I was… alive?
That was the first thought that echoed through my mind as I clawed my way out of the darkness, drawn unwillingly toward the light.
I came to with the slow, rhythmic beeping of a machine beside me. Persistent. Loud. Too fucking close.
My throat burned. Dry as a bone. I tried to swallow and winced.
Every part of me ached. My head. My ribs. My face.
I couldn't move. Not really. My limbs felt leaden. My eyes? Worse. Heavy. Glued shut.
When I finally managed to pry them open, the light pierced straight into my skull. I hissed, squeezing them shut again as pain pulsed behind my eyelids.
White.
That was the first thing I registered. A white ceiling. White walls. White sheets wrapped too tightly around my body.
There was only one place that looked and felt this sterile, this suffocating.
A hospital. Of course.
