Word Count: 640

She awoke in a room filled with soft white light.

For a moment Paris wondered if she was dead. She decided against it soon after, for if it was true she thought she would be in a realm beyond pain. Though the pain had dulled—from her wrist, from her shoulder, from the dark hollow in her stomach where she imagined the starseed would forever reside—she had not escaped from it completely. It lingered deep, deep in her bones, the constant throb of fatigue and wounds that were slow to heal.

She thought it seemed that fate would not be so kind as to end her suffering, all the long, endless hours spent in captivity. She expected she would remain there in that cage for the rest of her life, short as she knew it would be. There was no hope for her, no hope for any of them. They would all die or become servants of Chaos. No other option seemed feasible.

But she remembered voices, faces, the soft brush of fur against her face and shoulder. She remembered hearing her name called out, all of the voices familiar, even those she knew she'd not heard before that day, because she'd known them in that not too distant time only a few years from now. She remembered fair hair and a feathered hat, and steady arms that cradled her close to a chest clothed in pink.

Only then did Paris realize the surface upon which she lay was too soft to be the floor of a cage. Gone was the cold and the dark, replaced by the bright lights overhead and the warmth of stiff sheets and a thin blanket. Bland white walls greeted her, decorated here and there with impersonal pictures meant to make the room feel homey. There was a window on the wall ahead of her. The pale green curtains had been pushed open.

For the first time in what felt like decades, Paris saw blue skies and sunlight.

Tears welled in her eyes. She cried her relief there in the light.

“Baby...?”

There was a voice on the right, and a familiar face slid into view.

“... Mom...?”

Her mother smiled and brushed the tears from her face, tucked a strand of matted blonde hair behind her ear.

Paris noticed many things in the next few seconds. First, that her left arm had been placed in a light blue cast from thumb to elbow. Second, that a needle had been placed in her right hand, taped to the back and connected to the clear tubing of an IV. Third, that two people sat in the room with her—her mother hovered over her, having just vacated a chair to her right, and her cousin was curled up on a cot beneath the window.

“Where's Chris?” Paris asked. Groggy though she was, fear still gripped her heart and squeezed the breath out of her.

“It's okay, it's okay,” her mother said. She took Paris by the shoulders like she meant to keep her still. “Chris is fine. He's fine. He's just down the hall.”

“I want to see him. Please, I need to see him.”

“Shhh, Baby, calm down.”

“No, no, you don't understand. I need to see him.”

“Paris...”

The stern tone of her mother's voice and the solid grip her mother had on her shoulders stopped Paris from rising. Her mother stared into her eyes and said, “I understand.”

“But—”

“I know what happened. You don't have to explain.”

Paris lifted the hand attached to the IV and clung to her mother's shirt.

“Please...” she said. “Please...”

Her mother shushed her, brushed at her hair, placed a kiss upon her forehead, and mumbled soothing words and quiet reassurances as Paris cried softly in her arms.