Elysia's world was a haze of shadows and cold. Her mind felt like a foggy landscape, distant and untouchable, but her senses began to stir. Something soft brushed against her skin, and a faint, sterile scent filled her nose. Slowly, awareness crept back into her body, pulling her from an abyss she didn't remember falling into.
Her eyelids fluttered open. The first thing she noticed was the blinding light above her, stark and unfeeling. The second thing was the hard surface beneath her, a metal table, icy against her bare back.
Wait.
Bare?
Panic surged through her as her head snapped to the side, trying to piece together where she was. Her gaze locked onto a figure at the edge of the room. A man. His broad shoulders were draped in a black coat, his head tilted down as he busied himself with something on a tray.
Her heart stuttered in her chest. He was breathtaking. The dim light caught the sharp planes of his face, high cheekbones, a strong jawline, and dark, tousled hair that fell just above his piercing gray eyes.
Her admiration lasted all of three seconds before the reality of the situation hit her like a freight train.
She was naked. On what looked suspiciously like a mortician's table.
And he was reaching for the sheet covering her.
"Stop!"
The word ripped from her throat, loud and panicked, startling them both. His hand froze mid-air, and his eyes darted to her face. For a moment, they stared at each other, neither moving, neither speaking.
"You're… alive?" he said finally, his deep voice laced with disbelief.
"I– I think so," Elysia stammered, clutching the thin sheet around her chest as if her life depended on it. "Where am I? Who are you? And why are you– oh my God, were you about to unwrap me?"
He blinked at her, his expression utterly deadpan. "That's usually what one does when preparing a body."
"I'm not a body!"
"I can see that now," he said, his tone so calm it bordered on infuriating. "But you weren't breathing. No pulse. Nothing. You were as dead as they come."
Elysia's mind raced. She tried to remember what had happened before she woke up, but her memories were like shards of glass, sharp and disjointed. There was darkness, a flash of light, and then… nothing.
"I don't… I don't know how I got here," she admitted, her voice trembling.
The man sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose as if this were an inconvenience. "Fantastic. Another mystery to deal with. Just what I needed."
"Wait, another?"
He ignored her question and instead grabbed a nearby clipboard, jotting something down with practiced efficiency. "Name?"
"Elysia," she said cautiously.
"Last name?"
She hesitated. Her memories were still a blur, but something about her last name felt… off. "I don't remember."
His pen paused. He looked at her for a long moment, as if trying to figure out whether she was lying. Finally, he shrugged. "Elysia it is, then. I'm Damien, by the way."
"Damien," she repeated, testing the name. It suited him, dark, enigmatic, and just a little too serious for his own good.
"You can stop ogling me now," he said dryly, not even looking up from his clipboard.
"I wasn't– " she sputtered, her face flushing.
He raised an eyebrow, finally meeting her gaze. "Uh-huh."
For someone who had just woken up in a morgue, Elysia found herself more annoyed than scared. "Look, Damien, or whatever your name is, can you at least tell me what's going on? Why was I here? Why did you think I was dead?"
"Because you were," he said simply.
"That's not an answer!"
He smirked faintly, the first hint of emotion she'd seen from him. "You're asking the wrong questions. The real question is, how are you alive?"
Elysia opened her mouth to retort but froze. He had a point. By all accounts, she should be dead. The thought sent a chill down her spine.
"I don't know," she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper.
Damien sighed again, running a hand through his hair. "Well, Elysia, you've officially ruined my night. Congratulations."
"Ruined your night? I just woke up in a morgue!"
"Fair point."
The absurdity of the situation finally caught up to her, and a laugh bubbled out of her throat before she could stop it. It was half-hysterical, half-genuine, and to her surprise, Damien's lips twitched as if he were suppressing a smile.
"Glad to see you're taking this well," he said dryly.
"I'm not sure 'well' is the word I'd use," she replied, clutching the sheet tighter around her. "But hey, at least I'm not actually dead, right?"
"Debatable."
"Excuse me?"
"Nothing."
His tone was casual, but there was something in his eyes, a flicker of something he didn't want her to see.
Elysia had a feeling her strange awakening was only the beginning of something far more complicated.