Ever since Paige stirred—rising slowly, impossibly—none of them had spoken a word. Not Cecilion, who had screamed her name moments before she gasped back to life.
Not Daniela, who had dropped to her knees beside her with trembling hands that refused to touch her, afraid she might vanish again.
Not Harith who only stood nearest to her, and not Zixuan who knew she'd come back to life like she did.
Everyone had seen Paige die and Zixuan fall and yet, they're both alive—breathing the same air as them.
Paige slowly pushed herself up, one hand on her head. She moved like a corpse regaining memory of its muscles—slow, jerky, as if the body had to remember how to be alive again.
Her eyes were vacant at first, ivory, reflecting nothing. Then they flicked, just slightly, toward the rising dawn. There was something unnatural in them—and yet who cares? She's alive.
