Chapter 15

Aurora's POV

I feel like I'm floating. I'm weightless, just shifting around the endless darkness like a kite without a string. I don't feel my body. Nothing physical, really. Just a vast expanse of black that gives way to nothing and no one.

It feels peaceful. It feels like that moment before you fall deep asleep, that period of darkness that will only become a colorful dream later on. I know that I should be somewhere else. I have a vague memory of needing to get away from something, but the nothingness is so comforting that I just make no effort to get out of it.

Memories start to come back. I remember Beta Benjamin telling me to leave to spare everyone the scandal, and I remember wandering into a forest only to meet a scary figure in the dark....

Am I dead now?

If this is death, then what people say is not true at all. This feels like genuine tranquility, and nothing like the suffering they all tell me.

I prepare to get lost in this forever if it is indeed death, but then I feel a