She leans against a wall, her thin brown hand spread out against the white surface.

She almost thinks she can see through it. But that--that doesn't make any sense. She can feel attention focusing on her, like light on her face, and she feel the world, solid as stone. Real as roses.

In the hospital, more than once, she felt a pervasive unrealness, the same yawning black gulf she passed through, and now she doesn't feel in anywhere but inside herself. She can feel the nothing out there, and it's not empty.

Safe someone whispers, and she says, she thinks out loud, Don't let me go.

Her heart is pounding.