"Samael."
My eyes snapped open.
A soft glow pulsed before me—two deep, abyssal orbs of dark blue light peering through the darkness of a black blindfold. I couldn't see the eyes themselves, only their faint luminescence, eerie and calm like twin stars caught in mourning.
Nemes.
She hovered inches above me, her long obsidian hair brushing against my cheeks as she stared silently, her face as still as carved marble.
I was lying on the ground—cold, barren, featureless. The entire world was swallowed by darkness, endless and suffocating. There was no up or down, no light or air—only her.
"I'm dead," I said. The words sounded strange in this void, like they didn't belong to me.
But Nemes shook her head slowly, strands of her midnight hair grazing my skin like falling feathers.
