The music starts, and it feels like heat rising under my skin. I move without thinking — a slow, trembling rhythm that begins in my ribs and spills outward. My shirt clings, half open, heavy with sweat. Each breath feels like it’s carving light through me, and I let it. There’s no audience, just the sound of air, the pulse of my own heartbeat echoing through the floor.

The world shrinks to the movement of my spine, the slip of fabric, the catch of breath. My body feels thin, electric, fragile — like something lit from within. I close my eyes and lean into the rhythm until it blurs the edges of everything. There’s a strange kind of pleasure in it: the way exhaustion burns into something tender, almost holy. I don’t know if I’m dancing or dissolving.

When the music fades, I’m still trembling. The air is warm against my skin, every breath thick and slow. I can taste salt on my lips. For a moment, I stay there — suspended in the quiet — before the world comes back into focus. My body is mine again, but it feels changed, like it’s remembered something it shouldn’t have.