Serafina MarazonaThe first thing I felt upon regaining consciousness was a sharp, throbbing pain pulsing relentlessly behind my eyes, as though my skull had been cracked open and carelessly stitched back together. Nausea followed swiftly, twisting my stomach into violent knots that made me gag even before I could fully surface from the heavy layers of darkness. I coughed hard, the sound echoing strangely in the sterile space around me, and forced my eyes open. White ceiling. White walls. White floor. A barren, windowless room stripped of any warmth or personality, like a cage designed to break the spirit before the body. For several long, disorienting moments, I simply lay there staring upward, my mind struggling to piece together the fragments— the wrong turn in the taxi, the locked doors, the driver’s cold eyes in the mirror—until panic slammed into me like a tidal wave.I sat up too quickly, the room spinning wildly around me as my vision blurred with dizzying streaks of white.
Read more