Maggie awoke.
Not like one wrestles with a heavy dream or a clinging nightmare—no. Simply: her eyes opened, and lucidity crashed down on her all at once, sharp, clean. She lay still for a moment, staring at the canvas ceiling, listening to the camp's bustle filtering in.
She felt… normal. Strangely normal. As if her body had never known pain, as if she were just an ordinary woman waking one morning, cradled by the warmth of sunlight through the tent.
Slowly, she pushed her back off the hard-packed earth and sat up. Her joints barely protested—only a faint stiffness, nothing more, as if she'd merely slept too long in one position.
She flexed her fingers, cracked her knuckles, then pressed her palms to the ground and rose to her feet. No hesitation, no wavering: she stood on the first try. Upright. On both legs.
