ARIA POV
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
For a second, my brain refused to process it properly, as if it were a scene playing out behind glass, distorted and slightly unreal, and I was still somewhere safe and sterile under hospital lights pretending to be rational. Or unconscious. Unconscious would have been a good option right now.
The forest started to change under my very own eyes.
It smelled wrong.
Thick.
Metallic.
Heavy with something warm that did not belong in cold air.
Ellis’ body had gone rigid beneath me long before I fully understood why, his muscles tightening under grey fur, breath fogging in sharp bursts, and when I followed the direction of his stare I felt something twist, slow and sickening, in the pit of my stomach.
White.
So much white.
Except it wasn
