Darkness pressed in like velvet.
Not suffocating. Not cold.
Just there, like it had always been, waiting patiently for me to return.
The kind of silence that hums louder the more you listen.
I opened my eyes. Slowly. I didn't remember falling asleep.
Wasn't I just… dead?
No. That wasn't it.
This wasn't death.
But rather something else.
When I blinked awake, it wasn't to the hum of a server or the headache of a broken login. It was… silence. An eerie kind.
The kind that makes you wonder if the world forgot how to exist.
Pitch-dark.
The room looked like a bedroom at first glance—if bedrooms had no windows, no ceiling fan hum, no hint of reality. Just shadows, still air, and a soft, fabricated scent.
Faint lavender. Overcompensating.
I sat up slowly. My body felt light—almost too light.
No HUD. No menu. No notifications.
By the sheer of coincidence, I looked down.
"…Huh?"
…Wait.
Was that a bump on my chest?
I stared at my chest once more, just to make sure.
