I let myself drift.
The darkness is warm here—not cold like I expected, not the frigid emptiness of a grave. It wraps around me like a blanket, like arms I haven't felt in ten years, like the embrace of someone who loved me before love became a liability.
Mom.
Dad.
The names surface unbidden, dragging emotion up from depths I thought I'd sealed shut years ago.
If I'm dying—if this is really the end—will I see them again?
Will they be waiting for me somewhere on the other side of this void, arms open, ready to hold their daughter one last time?
The thought makes something in my chest crack.
A fissure in the carefully constructed walls.
A leak in the dam I built to hold back the grief.
I miss you.
The admission echoes through the darkness, bouncing off nothing, absorbed by everything.
I miss you so much it hurts to breathe sometimes.
I miss your voice, Mom. The way you'd hum while you cleaned your blades.
I miss your laugh, Dad. The way you'd sweep me up and spin me until I was dizzy.
I miss feeling safe.
I miss feeling loved.
I miss being someone's daughter instead of someone's target.
The darkness shifts.
Not dramatically—no sudden flash of light or dramatic revelation. Just a subtle change in texture, in temperature, in the quality of the void surrounding me.
Colors bleed into the edges of my vision.
Soft ones at first. Warm golds and gentle browns. The particular shade of sunlight filtering through curtains on a lazy afternoon.
What—
The void dissolves.
And suddenly I'm somewhere else entirely.
I'm small.
That's the first thing I notice—the shrinking of my perspective, the way the world looms large and unfamiliar around me. My feet don't touch the ground properly; they dangle from whatever I'm sitting on, swinging back and forth in that restless way children have when they're too full of energy to stay still.
Swing-swing-swing-swing.
Four times.
Even then.
