[VOLUME 11: THE ETERNAL CHASE][LIFE: #48][LOCATION: NEBULA CITY]
The alarm clock didn't ring. It screamed.
Elara Vance woke up with a gasp. Her right hand shot out instantly, grasping for the hilt of a rolling pin that wasn't there. Her left hand came up to block a sword strike that never happened.
She grabbed the alarm clock instead.
CRACK.
She squeezed it too hard. The plastic casing fractured. The digital numbers flickered and died.
"Great," Elara muttered, staring at the broken clock in her hand. "That's the third one this month."
She rolled out of bed. The room wasn't a pirate ship. It wasn't a haunted mansion. It was a cramped, messy dorm room in Nebula City University. Textbooks on Quantum Physics lay open on the floor. A half-eaten cup of instant noodles sat on the desk. Outside the window, the grey, rain-slicked skyline of the city loomed, pierced by neon signs and corporate towers.
Elara rubbed her chest. There was a dull ache there. A phantom pain.
