Sound came first. A high, distant ringing, punctured by something rhythmic. Breathing. Not yours.

Then pain. It did not bloom; it arrived, fully formed, a brutal pressure behind your eyes that made the darkness fracture into pinpricks of light.

Relief followed, thin and artificial.

You tried to move. Your body answered with nothing.

You forced your eyes open. Light stabbed in, greenish and wrong, filtered through enchantments you recognized but could not name.

St. Mungo’s.

You exhaled shakily.