Silence.
Warm, painless, too perfect.
When Verena opened her eyes, she was no longer in the labyrinth, nor beside Vivienne or Isolde. Instead, she lay in a field of soft, silver grass beneath an unmoving sky. The stars above didn't twinkle. They just... watched. Frozen. Like tiny judgmental eyes refusing to blink.
She sat up—or tried to. Her body responded slowly, like her limbs were submerged in honey. No walls, no monsters, no sound of crackling torches or Isolde's snark. Just stillness. Absolute, suffocating stillness.
"Where... am I?"
The words came out muted. As if the air didn't want to carry sound too far, lest it disturb the serenity of this place.
Then she remembered. The flash of fangs made of shadow. The moment she was swallowed. Not whole—but still. That thing hadn't eaten her flesh.
It had devoured her drive.
