Contracting Iris
Novelette 10,285 words Recommended by 2 award/anthology sources
"Iris is deep in an empty ocean, gray-green twilight fading to black everywhere she looks—and she can breathe. She’s a thousand feet above the ground, climbing a fractal cliff suffused with flickering veins of electricity—and she cannot. Iris is flat on her back at home in bed, and her right hand is moving."
Content warnings 2
death-of-a-loved-oneillness-and-pandemic
Quasar links out; the story lives on Lightspeed, where the author gets the click.