At first, there was light—blinding, unnatural, and brief. Luke remembered it flickering against the black walls, shimmering like ripples of molten glass. Then came the sound—his own breath, ragged and uneven, followed by a grunt, a snap, a scream that might've been his or someone else's.
He wasn't sure anymore.
Everything felt fractured, out of rhythm—like a deck of cards thrown into the air, each memory fluttering down in the wrong order. The climb, the fall, the tug on his leg, Grandmaster Malgarius' bloodied face—all of it blended, a reel of chaos that refused to play straight.
He blinked hard, trying to realign his thoughts, but even that felt wrong. Sometimes, he saw himself still dangling by the rock, his fingers white and raw from gripping too long. Other times, he was already on the ground, his left shoulder throbbing like it had been struck by lightning. He wasn't sure which came first—the pain or the fear.
