Darkness.
A profound darkness that was not frightening, but strangely… peaceful. Then, a pinprick of light, growing, expanding, until Suzy found herself standing, not on the cold cobblestones of Aldridge Port, but in a place that was achingly, terrifyingly familiar.
She was in a hospital room. Bright, sterile, filled with the quiet hum and beep of medical equipment. And in the bed, pale and still, lay a young woman with familiar brown hair spread across the pillow. Her own face. Her real self.
Her parents, her dear mother and father, sat hunched by the bedside, their faces etched with a grief that tore at Suzy's heart. Her mother was holding the still hand of the figure in the bed, murmuring soft, loving words. A doctor, a kind-faced man in a white coat, stood nearby, his expression somber.
