Her eyes opened to a dead swamp where corpses littered the water and twisted, leafless trees rose into an empty, grey sky. Bones of fish mingled with caiman skeletons and bird remains. Bodies that had once been foxbuns, mongooses, eaglehounds now lay bleached and stripped by sun and insects long since gone. The water was still, viscous with death, smelling of rotted past. The silence crowded her ears, so utterly complete that not even her own breathing seemed entirely real.
She struggled to her hooves after a moment, legs stumbling at first. She stood silent, then began to walk, aimless. Her eyes were closed, but that didn't stop her from marking the sound of breathing other than her own as she walked, the soft chirrups and low growls that marked her passage. Ahead of her, the swamp was dead, but behind her....
Behind her, it came to life anew, flesh knitting and growing, breath heaving, bodies sliding free from the orgy of decay. She heard it all, saw none of it, and marked only the voice echoing in her mind.
Death has no dominion.