Sutured Soul sneak preview

CHAPTER ONE: THE FIRST BREATH

Pain. Not the clean, sharp pain of a cut or the dull ache of a bruise, but pain that existed in every dimension simultaneously. Pain that was color, sound, and taste. Pain that was the entire universe contracting to a single point of white-hot agony and then exploding outward into a thousand screaming nerve endings.

She tried to scream, but her throat would not obey. She tried to move, but her limbs were distant countries, unreachable and foreign.

I am dying, she thought, and the thought was a relief.

But then the pain began to differentiate. To separate into distinct streams of sensation. The burning in her chest. The tearing in her shoulders. The grinding in her spine. The electric fire raced along pathways that felt both familiar and utterly wrong. Underneath it all, a rhythm and a pulse. The slow, laborious thud of a heart that should not be beating.

CHAPTER TWO: THE MUSIC OF MEAT

She woke to the sound of a violin. The music was beautiful—a slow, mournful melody that seemed to bypass her ears and resonate directly in her bones. She lay still, eyes closed, letting the sound wash over her. For a moment, she could almost forget what she was. Almost forget the stitches and the patchwork skin and the body that was not her own. But then the music stopped, and reality crashed back.