Hollow Awakening

~VALERIE’S POV~

The first thing I felt when I woke was pain.

Not sharp—no, it was heavier than that. A slow, dragging ache that sat deep inside me, like my body had been hollowed out and filled with lead.

I floated in it, pinned down, trapped.

The ceiling above me was white, too white. The kind of sterile brightness that made my eyes sting. Machines hummed around me, a steady rhythm, as if the wor