The first sensation was the rain.
Not the chilling seep of dungeon water through fractured stone, nor the wet, echoing clicks that had followed his every step through labyrinthine corridors. Just ordinary rain. A soft, rhythmic patter against nearby glass.
Then the world slowly assembled itself around that sound.
A faint fluorescent hum overhead. The subtle pull of tape against the back of his hand. A thin blanket drawn to his chest. The clean scent of cheap detergent. Air conditioning set just slightly too cold.
His breathing steadied before his eyes even opened.
Not awareness. Not thought. Just the slow, instinctive realization that he was somewhere safe.
No grinding stone.
No screams.
No wet crunch of ruptured flesh.
Only rain.
The sound drifted through the darkness in a soft, uneven rhythm, distant enough to feel unreal. For a suspended moment he lingered somewhere between sleep and memory while a deep heaviness slowly loosened inside him.
Alive.
The thought surfaced slowly, almost reluctantly, carrying no relief with it. Only confusion.
Something important lingered just beyond reach.
He tried to grasp it, but the memories slipped apart the instant he touched them. White hair. Amber eyes. A supporter girl shouting something desperately. Emerald light flooding the dark. A massive black scythe cutting through it—
Then nothing.
The fragments dissolved like a dream collapsing beneath daylight, leaving behind only a restless, shapeless urgency.
His eyes finally opened.
A white ceiling. Hospital lights. Rain threading down the window beside his bed. To his left, a heart monitor pulsed in slow, measured beeps.
For a long moment, he simply stared.
Relief should have come. Instead, his body remained tense, as though it still expected something to emerge from the dark.
The door slid open softly.
A nurse stepped inside, offering the practiced smile unique to hospitals. "Good morning. Feeling any better today?"
His throat felt dry. "...Yeah."
"Good." She adjusted the IV line, glanced at her clipboard, then gave a brief nod. "The doctor will probably want to speak with you later."
He stared at her for a second longer than necessary, still struggling to anchor himself to the present.
Then she left.
The door clicked shut behind her, and he let his head sink back into the pillow.
Plane crash.
Right.
That was supposed to be his last clear memory. The flight. Turbulence. Panic. Then nothing.
So why did his pulse keep climbing like he'd forgotten something important?
A wall—
His back slamming into stone hard enough to steal the breath from his lungs.
His shoulders tightened before the memory could fully form, his body flinching on instinct. His right hand had curled tightly into the blanket.
He looked at it.
Why did I—
A girl's voice. Too faint to understand. Not words exactly. Just the feeling of someone calling out to him before the sound itself arrived.
His pulse spiked.
Something heavy settled into both palms for the briefest instant. Handle-shaped. Familiar. The phantom weight of a weapon that no longer existed.
Then it vanished.
The images dissolved again, leaving behind only a tightness beneath his sternum that refused to loosen.
Slowly, he breathed through it.
And watched rain trace slow paths down the glass until his hands finally opened again.
Rain against the window. The monitor beeping its patient rhythm. Somewhere farther down the hall, a trolley wheel squeaked briefly before silence settled back into place.
The tiredness felt wrong.
Not the exhaustion of effort. More like weight. Everything seemed slightly too heavy. His eyelids. His arms. Even the blanket across his legs, though it barely weighed anything at all.
A slow tick... tick... tick tugged faintly at the edge of his attention, distant somehow, as though he were hearing it through deep water.
His gaze drifted toward the wall.
A clock.
3:12 PM.
He looked away again. Back toward the rain.
The fatigue pulled at him once more, low and patient. He didn't resist it. There was nothing waiting on the other side of staying awake.
Somewhere in the grey middle of his thoughts, the rain sounded strange for a moment.
Not louder.
Not softer.
Just identical.
The same rhythm. The same spacing between impacts. The same soft tapping against the glass.
Like it had reset.
Like it was repeating the same sentence again.
He blinked.
The trolley wheel squeaked faintly down the hall. Approaching, fading, then gone.
He frowned.
...Haven't I—
The monitor beeped. Even. Unchanged.
He let the thought slip away.
The door slid open.
The same nurse walked in.
He recognized that immediately. Same hair. Same measured steps. Same easy movement toward the IV stand.
For half a second something snagged inside his chest, a strange hesitation, like stepping forward and finding empty air where the floor should have been.
Then she smiled.
"Good morning. Feeling any better today?"
He opened his mouth.
"...Yeah." The word came slower this time. "I'm— yeah. Fine, I guess."
"Good." She adjusted the line, checked the clipboard, then gave the same small nod. "Doctor will probably want to speak with you later."
The door slid shut behind her.
He stared at it.
Then looked at the clock.
3:12.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
The second hand moved normally. He watched it complete a full rotation.
3:13.
A slow breath left him.
Okay.
His eyes shifted back toward the door. Then the clock again.
Okay, so.
He'd drifted. Obviously. Drifted between visits and surfaced again without noticing the gap. That was the only explanation that made sense, because the alternative didn't.
The brain did things like that after trauma.
After medication. After shock.
Time became unreliable around exhaustion. Minutes collapsed into each other. Hours disappeared.
He knew that.
Or at least he knew that was the explanation he was supposed to accept.
He watched the rain slide down the glass.
You're fine.
That's all this is.
The room stayed quiet in a way that didn't feel restful.
No voices beyond the hall. No distant television. No muffled conversation. No intercom.
Just the monitor.
The fluorescent hum overhead.
The rain.
He glanced at the IV in his hand.
Then toward the door again.
The trolley wheel squeaked once somewhere far away. Faded. Left nothing behind.
Slowly, he became aware that the rain still sounded exactly the same.
Not similar.
Exact.
The same rhythm. The same pauses. The same soft tapping against the window.
It probably always sounded like that.
Rain was rain.
He looked at the clock.
3:31.
He stared at it for a long moment.
Then looked away.
The door slid open.
His eyes snapped toward it immediately.
The same nurse.
Something cold moved through his chest. Not panic. Not recognition. Something slower than both.
He watched her cross the room. Same pace. Same motion. Same hand reaching toward the IV line with effortless certainty.
She looked up and smiled.
"Good morning. Feeling any better today?"
This time he didn't answer immediately.
She waited patiently, her smile calm and practiced.
"...Yeah," he said quietly. "Better."
"Good." She checked the clipboard. The same pause. The same nod. "Doctor will probably want to speak with you later."
She had already started turning toward the door.
"Wait—"
She paused.
He suddenly realized he had no idea what he intended to say.
Something about the clock.
Something about whether she had already been here before.
Something that would sound insane spoken aloud in a hospital room.
He closed his mouth.
She tilted her head slightly. "Yes?"
"Nothing. Sorry."
The professional smile returned immediately. "Get some rest." She glanced back once before opening the door. "You have a visitor waiting, by the way. Whenever you're ready."
The door slid shut behind her.
He sat with that.
A visitor.
For nearly a minute he simply breathed, staring at the rain while the monitor continued its slow, measured rhythm beside him.
Then the door opened again.
Different this time.
Slower. Hesitant.
Someone stepped inside with the careful movement of a person who had spent far too long waiting outside that room.
He looked up.
His throat tightened instantly.
"Sera...?"
Relief broke across her face the moment he said her name. Relief, exhaustion, and something dangerously close to tears.
Then she smiled.
"You finally woke up, brother."
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