"You don't have to carry all of this, Cel..."
Cecilion twisted and writhed beneath the thin, damp sheets, limbs entangled as though the bed itself were trying to hold him down.
His breaths came in broken gasps—shallow, ragged, desperate. Each inhale burned like smoke clawing down his throat. A low, guttural groan tore from his chest as his muscles seized in resistance, then his eyes snapped open.
Darkness.
Not the comforting darkness of sleep or midnight shadows—but something deeper. A suffocating black, thick and pulsing, like the inside of a locked coffin buried miles below the earth. There's something wrong in the air—too still, too warm, and thick with the metallic tang of something old and wounded.
Sweat clung to his skin in cold beads, crawling down his face like fingers. His heart thundered against his ribs, not with life—but with a warning.
He tried to move—and froze.
