Chapter 2: Awakening in an Unknown World
I am dead.
Lucas was certain of it.
He had felt the train shatter. Heard the screams. Felt his sister’s fingers slip from his grasp before the crushing weight of impact took him.
He had drifted through the void, lost in an endless abyss, his very existence unraveling like threads pulled from a tapestry. Then, just as he had begun to fade into nothingness—something pulled him back.
And now... pain.
A deep, relentless throbbing in his chest. A searing, skull-splitting ache in his head, as though someone had driven a metal spike through his brain and left it there to pulse in agony. His lungs burned as if he had been suffocating moments ago, and every inch of his body felt as if it had been hammered and broken before being poorly stitched back together.
A weak, rasping breath left his lips, barely more than a dry whisper. The simple act of breathing sent another wave of pain rolling through him, rattling deep in his bones.
How?
How was he feeling pain if he was dead?
Is this a dream?
No. Dreams didn’t hurt like this. Dreams didn’t make his ribs feel as though they had been cracked apart and hastily shoved back into place.