(Scars do not appear to be cause of death –shock ... - Bad Request

And I knew Deionarra was right. I suddenly remembered how to coax the
dimmest spark of life from a body, and bring it forth... the thought both
horrified and intrigued me.
I could feel it, the barrier between this world and the next, soft and thin like
an oil slick floating on the surface of a pond. I didn't want to get closer to the
body, but I had to search, probing for an edge along that smooth wall. I
followed the ripples of Annah's death, listened for an echo in the silence.
Conscious goals rarely fuel exploration. At first it was morbid curiosity, and
then it was intent, first one wave, then another, weakening as they passed.
And there, my fingers felt it... a hole in that soft barrier, like the space left by
a popped bubble.
It yielded when I pushed, wrapped my probing like cold jelly. There was a
nothingness to what lay on the other side: a forgotten name, a lost shoe. It
was the void between dream and consciousness, the mindless gulf that
seemed so familiar and yet so foreign, like the lands beyond the boundary of
an uncrossed river.
The portal was closing fast.
I called her soul back from the Silent Shore, pulled it from the Isle of
Whispers where the unborn sing their lamentations. There was a snapping
sound as the portal squeezed shut, as if I had pulled something from the
jaws of a predator, and with it in hand I quickly wove Annah's essence back
into her body, willed spirit and flesh to join again.
I let out a pitched yelp and jumped back at the first spasms.
Yeah, now that was damn dignified.
Annah coughed, her eyes snapping wide open. She shivered, pale and
moaning as if she were in the grips of a fever. The wound was gone, but the
blood still stained her belly and carpeted the ground.
"Don't talk," I said quickly, bending over to pick her up. She trembled in my
arms, and her blood was cold and damp against my skin. The air smelled like
salt and iron and the rawness of lacerated flesh, "Let's get you to Grace."
A few Sensates still milled around the halls at this hour, and music and
698