There was pressure.
Not pain at least, not at first but a crushing weight from every direction, compressing him until there was no room left to drift. The warmth that surrounded him, once comforting, turned thick and suffocating, pressing in until even the idea of movement felt impossible.
The rhythm pressed against him again. And again. It wasn't his.
Suddenly, the space contracted. The pressure spiked, sharp and overwhelming, forcing him downward, expelling him from the only safety he knew anymore.
Then, the void broke.
Air rushed in.
It didn't feel like life; it felt like fire. The sensation tore through him, harsh and abrasive, flooding lungs that had never known expansion. His chest spasmed violently, pulling in more of the burning substance than he could handle.
A raw, broken cry ripped free.
It was thin, uncontrolled, and echoed far too loudly in his own ears. He tried to stop it some instinct of dignity remaining from a life he couldn't remember but his body rebelled.
The pressure eased, leaving him exposed.
Light followed. Not the blinding kind, but a diffuse, shifting brightness that assaulted his eyes. Shapes pressed in from above, indistinct and terrifyingly close.
He tried to pull away, but his body responded poorly. The movement was clumsy, a chaotic flailing of heavy limbs that refused to obey his will. The effort drained him instantly, leaving behind only a profound sense of wrongness.
Then came the cold.
The warmth vanished, stripped away by the biting air. Something rough brushed against his wet skin, followed by hands large, calloused, unmistakably real lifting and turning him. The world spun sickeningly.
The cry returned, louder this time, drawn out by sheer biological desperation. It wasn't fear.
It was need.
A sound tore itself from him again and again, his awareness fracturing under the strain. Each breath came easier than the last, but none of them felt natural.
Something wrapped around him.
Fabric.
He didn't know the word, only that it dulled the cold and pressed his flailing limbs into a shape that felt… contained. Safe.
Gradually, the light dimmed. The assault on his senses softened, blurring at the edges.
Voices reached him then muffled, distorted, layered over one another like sound underwater. They carried tone and urgency, but no meaning.
Relief.
Tension.
Awe.
He tried to focus on one voice in particular a deep, resonant rumble that felt like stone grinding on stone but the effort slipped through him. Thought itself felt heavy, sluggish, like pushing through thick mud.
His body trembled, then stilled. Exhaustion, complete and absolute, washed over him. The crying weakened, breaking into uneven hiccups before stopping altogether.
The world didn't disappear.
It simply became too much to hold.
Darkness pressed in again not the empty void from before, but a heavy, biological sleep that claimed him without asking.
Awareness returned in fragments.
Warmth. Gentle motion. A steady rise and fall beneath him that felt familiar.
He shifted weakly. The movement earned a soft sound from above a voice, fragile and exhausted followed by a change in pressure as he was adjusted, held closer.
His breathing slowed. The instinctive panic dulled.
Something brushed against his cheek. Skin. Smooth and feverishly warm. The contact lingered, careful and deliberate.
A sound followed not loud, not urgent. Low and steady. The vibration carried through him, settling somewhere deep in his chest. He didn't understand the words, but the intent was unmistakable.
You are here. You are ours.
For reasons he couldn't explain, the tension he hadn't known he was holding loosened. The steady rise and fall beneath him continued, unbroken. Each movement was subtle, repetitive, predictable in a way nothing else had been.
The rhythm seeped into him slowly, smoothing the rough edges of his awareness.
His body relaxed in small increments, muscles releasing tension he hadn't realized they carried. The urge to cry dulled further, replaced by a quiet stillness that felt fragile, as though it might shatter if disturbed.
The warmth held.
Whatever surrounded him now did not push or pull. It simply remained constant and patient allowing him to exist without demand.
He clung to that feeling without knowing why, sinking into it as his awareness softened once more.
He drifted again.
Time passed.
Or maybe it didn't.
He surfaced once more, awareness blinking in and out like a faulty light. Hunger surfaced abruptly sharp, insistent, unignorable.
His body reacted before thought could form. Small, pathetic sounds escaped him. He hated them, but he couldn't stop them.
Movement.
Adjustment.
Then warmth again closer this time, paired with something unfamiliar but soothing. The pressure against his mouth triggered a reflex he didn't recognize, but obeyed anyway.
The sensation eased. The hunger dulled.
His awareness floated at the edge of it all, too dim to question, too tired to resist. Thoughts tried to form ghosts of names, fragments of a resolve made in a dark room but they lacked structure.
Only impressions remained.
Safety.
Warmth.
Presence.
Much later or maybe only moments his eyes opened again.
The world was still blurry, still overwhelming, but it no longer felt hostile. A face hovered above him, indistinct, features soft and unfocused, yet carrying something heavy and sincere.
Care.
He stared at it without understanding why. A hand brushed his head, careful and hesitant, as though afraid he might break.
The face moved closer. A sound followed quieter this time, strained with an emotion that felt like grief and joy tangled together.
His chest tightened briefly.
Not with pain.
With recognition.
He didn't know who these people were. He didn't know where he was. But as his eyes grew heavy, pulling him back into the dark, one thought managed to solidify before sleep claimed him.
I am alive.
This time, he didn't resist.
Sleep came again, heavy and unavoidable.
But this time, it wasn't empty.
Somewhere beneath the haze of instinct and exhaustion, something stirred faint, incomplete, but persistent. Not a memory. Not a thought.
More like a sense of weight, settling into place where drift once existed.
He didn't understand it yet.
But whatever held him now was not temporary.
This was not a pause.
It was a beginning.