Wake up
The whisper slid in Raizen's mind while he couldn't think anything.
An antiseptic and lemon smell reached Raizen's senses first — cool air moving through a clean vent, the soft thrum of machinery somewhere behind the walls. Not smoke, not dust, not the bitter edge of blood that had rimmed his last memory, it was cleaner than anything in the Underworks.
Light pressed against his eyelids, and after a long moment he pried them open.
A white ceiling waited above him — not plain white, but veined with thin glowing cables that pulsed in a slow, steady rhythm, each pulse skimming a faint blue reflection across the polished floor. A diagnostic machine clicked and whirred nearby. A second, gentler rhythm whispered at his bedside, his vitals scrolling on a screen with green lines, beeping softly at every heartbeat.
He tried to turn his head and his vision sloshed, heavy and thick. The pillow crackled under his cheek, and a cool weight slid a little on his forehead.
"Careful."
