Arianne woke slowly, the way she had once woken from a fever that had kept her in bed for three days when she was fifteen years old. The light came first—soft and diffused through a window she didn't recognize. Then the smell: antiseptic and clean linen and something faintly medicinal. Then the sound: a steady, rhythmic beeping from somewhere to her left. A monitor. A hospital monitor.
She was in a hospital room.
The ceiling was white. The walls were white. The IV line in her hand was taped down with medical precision, and when she tried to move her fingers, they felt heavy and uncooperative. She felt dizzy. Weak. A bone-deep fatigue unlike anything she had experienced before. Even her worst illnesses had not felt like this—this complete depletion of energy, as if someone had drained her while she slept and left only the hollow shell behind.
