VALORIA WILDEROSE
I stir and turn all night, fighting my thoughts and fears—images of Azrael, the man I wounded, and the others awaiting their own deaths before I left.
It's laughable—foolish, really—that I'm worried for anyone other than myself. Or maybe it's guilt for having played some small part in their suffering.
I keep hearing the arrow whizzing through the air, the sound of flesh tearing, and Azrael's laughter taunting me for hours, keeping me awake and wallowing in torment.
Then—suddenly—the world goes still and quiet.
Something in the atmosphere shifts. Even the sounds of the outside world stop, as if time itself has frozen.
The change is instant, rattling me to my bones. Goosebumps rise along my skin, and I'm forced to take in my surroundings from beneath the pillow clenched in my hands.
The room is different. My bed now sits under a bright, blinding lime-green light; everything beyond that glow is shrouded in pitch-black darkness too terrifying to approach.
