"Hmm?" William jolted, consciousness snapping back like a rubber band stretched too far.
He dragged in a breath that tasted metallic and sour, pushing himself off the cold ground. His palms slid on something wet. It clung to his skin like a film. He scanned his surroundings with a sluggish gaze—dim, colorless, as if someone had washed the world in murky ink.
Then, over his shoulder… he froze.
Suspended in the air was that figure.
Blood-soaked. Motionless. Watching him.
The same being that had haunted him since his childhood and recently for the first time, they conversed.
"You… again…" William rasped, clutching his skull as a throbbing ache pulsed behind his eyes.
He found himself sitting on a floor that rippled faintly like wet stone, or flesh. "Where am I? What happened?"
His memory was a fractured blur—Nana… a swirling storm… the world tearing open above her—and then, nothing but a snap of darkness.
