I want to sleep…to dream of something new…

  The wind howled around me, tugging at my clothes as the city lights swirled ever closer. It drowned out my screams as those sharp, terrified sounds fell behind me with every story I passed. My stomach pitched violently as the world below surged closer and closer.

  The neon skyline twisted, colors streaking across my vision like warped paint smears on shattered glass. It was beautiful in a way. Everything felt so sharp and vibrant. Time seemed to slow, granting me this final chance to see the world around me.

  I was scared.

  I was at peace.

  The distant honking of horns warped into a distorted hum. The glass windows of a skyscraper guiding my descent reflected my plummeting form. Air burned and slashed against my skin, hot and suffocating despite the icy wind tearing through my hair. My limbs flailed, but nothing could slow me.

  Then—impact.

  A sickening crunch rippled through me. My body caved under the weight of gravity and its inevitable conclusion. A blaring horn sounded, followed by screams. The scent of burning rubber filled the air as tires screeched.

  I felt and heard all that for only a second.

  And then, silence.

  White consumed everything.

  Shades of black ran across the white tint like racing birds in flight, twisting and writhing against the pale glow. Desperate and fleeting, they clawed through the light until the brightness swallowed them whole.

  A lurching sensation overcame my body. The feeling of falling returned, but I wasn’t moving. My limbs tingled, my breath snagged, and the space around me seemed to breathe, expanding and contracting like a living being.

  Then…nothing. Everything went away. I felt death consume me. Cold seeped into my bones, hollow and endless.

  Suddenly, light slammed back into existence.

  My body convulsed, my chest heaving as I sucked in a breath.

  My skin pressed against something cold and metallic. The sharp tang of iron filled my nose. Overhead, a cage of silvery, glimmering bars loomed. Its vastness clawed at my senses. It felt ancient and…wrong.

  “What…where am I?” My voice wavered, barely above a whisper.

  Sweat clung to my brow as I pushed myself upright, my fingers scraping against the smooth metal floor. My legs trembled, weak and unsteady, as I took in the impossible sight before me.

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  An endless sky surrounded me, seeming to defy the very concept of distance. Wispy clouds moved about like colonies of fish amongst the blue that stretched far beyond what my eyes could see.

  I walked toward the edge of the cage. Looking down, the view was the same. Every direction was like a reflection of the others. There was no ground, no sun, no life—just an endless, suffocating sky.

  A prickling sensation skittered down the back of my skull like icy fingers running through my hair. My body seized with unease, my breath shallow as an unnatural silence swallowed the space around me.

  Someone else is here.

  Slowly, I turned my head.

  A woman stood at the far edge of the cage, motionless, watching the sky-like abyss as if she could see far beyond what I could. Her back was to me, her posture unnervingly still. She didn’t breathe. She didn’t shift. Not from what I could tell. She just…existed, as though she were a statue carved into the cage.

  Her hair was too long, cascading down her back in thick, white strands that pooled at her feet. It clung to her body, not like hair, but like something alive, possessing a mind of its own.

  A God? A warden? Something worse?

  I didn’t have the answer. I couldn’t even make myself breathe normally or stand without shaking, let alone speak.

  The woman turned to face me. As she did, tens of thousands of people appeared. They floated outside the cage and encircled it. Their faces were distorted, yet I could feel them all staring at me. They observed me and judged me. They scrutinized me and the life I lived with great interest. I could feel it in my soul.

  The world then distorted painfully. My hands latched onto the sides of my head as a piercing sensation assaulted my mind. Blinding lights like distorted color wheels violated my cognition.

  I dropped to my knees.

  “Pitiful girl,” said the woman in the cage with me. “Your mind’s shattering.”

  I could feel pieces of my past tearing away—memories of my childhood, my pain, my successes, my failures, and even my name. Where were my memories going? Who was I?

  A pair of warm hands wrapped around my neck. I felt energy flowing into me.

  My memories ceased to shred apart, but I had already lost my past. I was nobody. I didn’t even have a name. Was I a terrible person? What kind of past had I lived? Why did I feel so…relieved?

  The world trembled.

  At first, it was subtle, like a faint thrum in the air. Then, the world trembled again. The second time, it felt more menacing, akin to a heartbeat, as if something colossal were stirring from its slumber.

  The bars of the cage around me began to shift and warp into strange patterns, as if they sensed an unseen force.

  Something was coming.

  I could feel it down my spine. It was a primal level of fear, innate and ingrained.

  A voice broke through the sky. “That’s where you were.”

  The heavens tore apart.

  A hand—larger than a planet, vaster than reason itself—punched through the endless sky, its sheer size reducing the world I once thought infinite into fractured, insignificant glass. It reached down with deliberate, crushing certainty, its fingers curling around the cage like a child picking up an insect.

  The cage burst open suddenly like a blooming flower.

  The woman immediately pushed me out.

  Horrified, I stared fearfully at the Godlike being as I plummeted through the endless sky. She stood defiant, her gaze remained upward at the hand plummeting down upon us.

  For some reason, though, I sensed the woman was…smiling?

  Confusion wracked me. Eventually, my mind gave way to exhaustion, and everything went black.