The first thing I felt was silence, not peace.

The kind of silence that follows destruction. The kind of silence that comes after everything has already burned.

Everything is a deja vu; it felt familiar. I’ve seen and witnessed and felt these things before days ago: when they’re forcing me to chug down a medicine or potion or whatever that is.

My eyes fluttered open, raw and aching. My limbs were heavy, my veins were dull with the remnants of whatever they’d used to sedate me. The world tilted, then steadied, and then tilted again.

Yet, I forced myself to recognize where I am: white walls, a single window with...