The door stuck a little when I pushed it open. Not surprising, things tend to forget how to work when they’re not used.

I stepped out slowly, blinking hard against the brightness. The sun hit me before I was ready, and for a second, I froze. Not because it hurt, but because it didn’t.

It was… warm. Not scorching. Just that deep, slow kind of warmth that sinks in. The kind that doesn’t just sit on your skin — it settles in your bones, like it remembers you.

My face tilted up on instinct. Eyes closed. Breath in.

I had forgotten this.

Not just the heat, but the way the light has a texture. It moved across my skin like silk and dust and memory. I could feel it on the bridge of my nose, on my forehead, even in the hollow between my collarbones. Like it was trying to stitch something back together.

I stood there like that for I don’t know how long. Long enough to remember what it felt like to belong to the world again. Not to hide from it. Not to wait it out. Just to be part of it, warm, blinking, breathing.

Alive.