Chapter 1: Chapter 1: Welcome to the World

Silence. Darkness, cozy, cradling.

Thudding. The beat of a heart.

Sensation seeped into the dark void. Slight movements, a body. A vague sense of the world around it, of up and down.

She opened her eyes. That should have made things better. It didn’t. Instead, she was assaulted by a screaming, blinding confusion of colors and light. Those only made the disorientation she felt worse.

Disorientation. She felt disoriented. She realized that now, although she hadn’t before.

A few moments of silence stretched out, far too long, then the painful intensity of the light faded, the world putting itself into proper order. Now, she realized it really wasn’t that bad. Her surroundings were kind of dim.

She tried to turn her head to see better, but stopped, claimed by another bout of disorientation with a side note of vertigo. She took a deep breath and sensed her torso expand slightly. It felt odd. She was cradled in what felt like a cozy, unyielding container of some kind. The hardness of her back and her limbs brushed against its sides, letting her know it was roughly cylindrical.

She raised her head again. This time, she realized that it was perilously close to a jagged edge of whatever held her. Angrily, she pushed outwards with all of her limbs, or at least all of the ones she could get to properly move. There was some resistance, then the material gave way.

She almost tumbled out and fell flat on her face, but reflexively caught her balance. Now she stood on her legs, on uneven, stony ground. She was in a dark space with a high ceiling, with gray walls and a rocky floor. She blinked, suddenly noticing the box floating at head height.

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