They did not arrive gently and there was no gradual re-entry or the soft return to the world as one might wake from a dream.
The fabric of space itself thinned for a fraction of a moment—strained, trembling under something it was never meant to contain—before splitting open just enough to vomit them out like something the void had grown tired of digesting.
Cassiopeia came first, expelled with violent indifference. Her body slammed into solid ground hard enough to drive the air from her lungs in a wet, choking gasp. She stumbled forward and collapsed onto her hands and knees, fingers scraping desperately against rough concrete she hadn't yet registered in her mind after all the shit show of power she's just witnessed.
Her mind lagged somewhere behind in that suffocating absence she had just escaped, still clawing at the edges of nothing. Her chest heaved in broken, ragged rhythm, lungs dragging in air like it was poison she had to relearn how to swallow.
