The small vortex of glistening diamonds didn't shoot into Kelly like it had before.
This time, they moved differently—slower, almost deliberate—as they swirled around her in a tightening spiral, like a silent, waiting storm.
And then, without warning, they closed in.
Swallowing her whole.
Kelly shut her eyes—or what felt like her eyes.
And she drowned.
***
She felt it before she understood anything at all.
It came all at once.
The air itself seemed alive, brushing too sharply against her senses, filling her nose with something that stung and her ears with a tangled mess of voices that refused to separate into anything coherent. The wind bit against her skin, cold enough to make her shiver, while a strange metallic taste settled uncomfortably on her tongue.
It was too much.
Too real.
But... this was supposed to be a memory.
So how was she feeling any of it?
How could she taste, smell, hear—like she was standing right in the middle of it instead of remembering it?
