Hmm...
The sound comes from somewhere deep in my chest—not a word, not a thought, just a breath given shape. My lips part. The air leaves me. And with it, the last thread of whatever dream I was drowning in.
My eyes open. Slowly.
Not because I want to, but because the light forces them. Something bright presses against my lids, warm and insistent, the way summer presses against the last days of spring—warm, inevitable, alive.
Too bright.
Everything is too bright. I blink. Once. Twice. My vision swims, then settles. And I see them.
Leaves.
Green. Hundreds of them. Thousands. A canopy of shifting, rustling green suspended above me like a ceiling made of living things. Sunlight pours through the gaps between them—not in steady streams, but in broken pieces, fractured and golden, spilling across my face in patterns that shift with every breath of wind.
