He woke with a start and immediately knew something was wrong. He couldn’t say what of course. The lack of a sharp intake of breath when waking was something so expected he didn’t even look to its absence when it wasn’t there. It was more assumed than anything else. Just like the dull roaring of blood in his ears. While more like a dull slosh, the blood still flowed. Voluntary replaced involuntary for at least a couple seconds. The oddity of conscious movement were overshadowed at least momentarily.

Maybe he was used to controlling his breath. So often meditation brought the mind back to that. Control of breath was closely associated with controlling the heart beat. Do it enough an you automatically tried to slow your breathing when panicked and it linked inexorably with the flow of blood.

Yet while the automatic reactions might over for a short while, they couldn’t forever.

“Welcome back, little Stormcrow,” said the woman only now being registered as within his view. She smiled with an uncanny glee “How do you feel?”