Emma did not wake all at once.
It began in fragments, as though her body had returned before her awareness was ready to follow. Sound came first, distant and muffled, like voices heard through water, followed by the slow return of weight and position, the awareness that she was no longer suspended between standing and falling but lying down somewhere firm and unfamiliar.
There was pressure on her chest.
Not pain at first, just pressure, steady and contained, as if something had taken the force that should have gone through her and held it back. Her breath returned unevenly, pulling itself into her lungs with effort, and with it came the realization that she was not moving, that she had been placed carefully rather than collapsed.
