For a long time, there was nothing.
No voices. No pain. No sense of time. Only darkness. Emma could no longer feel her body or tell whether she was breathing. It was as though everything she had ever known had slowly slipped away, leaving her suspended in a place where nothing could reach her.
Somewhere beyond the darkness, voices came and went. They sounded distant and muffled, as if they were coming from another world. She tried to listen, but she could not understand the words. She tried to move, to open her eyes, to reach toward the voices, but her body refused to respond. It felt impossibly heavy, almost as though she no longer had control over it.
Then even the voices disappeared.
The darkness grew deeper, swallowing every sound and every sensation until there was nothing left. No pain. No fear. No warmth. Nothing to tell her that she was still alive.
Until a faint sound broke through the silence.
Beep.
A long pause followed.
Then another.
Beep.
