I became aware of air before I became aware of myself.
Not sight, not sound, not the blessed realization that I hadn't been permanently stapled to the afterlife—just air. Thick, choking, dust-laden air that clawed down my throat and filled my lungs with the kind of grit usually reserved for underpaid chimney sweeps.
I coughed. Violently. The sort of cough that rips its way up from the soles of your feet and makes you briefly reconsider whether you should just lie back down and accept death instead. Unfortunately, death was apparently on vacation, so I hacked, spat, and clawed my way forward until my fingers broke through into something looser, lighter.
And then, like the world's most confused mole, I erupted out of the darkness.
The street greeted me—or, rather, what remained of it.
