Kaiden drifted.
There was no ground beneath him, no sky above, just a vast, muted expanse that felt neither warm nor cold. Not darkness, exactly. More like the absence of urgency. The absence of pain.
He became aware of his body slowly.
Breath came first. Shallow. Then deeper, steadier. His chest rose and fell without resistance, without fire. Limbs followed, heavy but intact, nerves no longer screaming. When sensation finally settled in full, it brought with it a dull, bone-deep exhaustion that had nothing to do with injury.
He opened his eyes.
The space around him resolved into something like a shore of pale light, hazy and indistinct, stretching endlessly in all directions.
Kaiden pushed himself upright with a groan, sitting there for a long moment with his elbows braced on his knees, head hanging forward. His body was healed, perfectly so, but it felt like he'd been hollowed out and left to dry.
The anger was still there.
Not raging. Not screaming.
