Gilly’s POV

The world around me was nothing but darkness, an endless expanse of shadows that stretched in every direction. Time didn’t exist here, nor did sound or sensation. I floated in the emptiness, a weightless figure adrift in an ocean of nothingness.

I didn’t know how I’d gotten here, but I knew one thing: I was trapped.

At first, I thought this was death—a bleak and silent afterlife where my thoughts were my only companions. But I still felt the faintest pull of something beyond this void. It was like a tether, thin and fragile, connecting me to something—or someone.

“Serena.“

Her name flickered in my mind, a faint...