"Wahh?!…"
Judge jolted awake, breath hitching as his body reacted faster than his thoughts. His eyes snapped open, unfocused at first, staring into a space that took a moment too long to recognize.
Weirdly, it felt as though he had been awake the entire time. Not drifting, not gone. As if he had been lying just beneath the surface, listening, waiting. And yet, at the same time, his limbs were heavy with the dull resistance of sleep, his mind lagging behind the sudden return of awareness.
As his vision slowly settled, what greeted him was not the battle site where he had fallen asleep after hugging his grandfather. Nor was it his bedroom, which would have been the sensible destination, had the world been feeling cooperative.
No. He was somewhere else.
Somewhere all too familiar, despite having been here only once.
The recognition came quietly, without shock. The space felt unchanged, preserved in the exact way memory refused to distort. That alone was enough to unsettle him.
