Chapter 201 Not Me

• Callum’s POV
• I’m floating somewhere between awareness and oblivion, caught in a haze where time has no meaning. When I went to meet them, I was sure it would be the end. I expected to die. But now, all I know is pain—searing, relentless pain that claws at every part of me. Sometimes, though, it shifts. There are moments when it numbs, like the pain itself is exhausted. To start with, it was everything. It consumed me.
• Then, something else broke through. Warmth. Not the sterile heat of the hospital, but something softer, something human. The warmth of a hand wrapped around mine, holding on as though refusing to let me slip away. Voices follow, faint and muddled at first, but familiar. Dante’s sharp, grounding tone. And then hers—Lilly’s. Sweet and broken, like a melody caught on the wind. I hear them again and again, their words brushing against the edge of my consciousness. I try to respond, to tell them I’m here, but all that comes out are incoherent mumbles.