The heavy, chemical fog that had blanketed Roxy's mind for days was finally beginning to thin, unraveling into wispy threads of consciousness.
She was no longer completely submerged in the dark, but she wasn't entirely awake, either. She hovered in that fragile, liminal space just below the surface of reality, her breathing slow and even, her body entirely still against the crisp hospital sheets.
The room was quiet, save for the rhythmic, steady beep of her heart monitor and the low, mechanical hum of the terrestrial air conditioning unit.
But the atmosphere inside the small hospital room had profoundly shifted.
The playful, casual exterior the Alpha Kings had so effortlessly projected for the swooning terrestrial nurses had entirely evaporated. The daylight was gone, the visitors' hours were long over, and the dark, oppressive quiet of the Earth night had settled over the city outside the window.
