The first sensation I felt across my body was dull pain. I wanted to rub my throbbing head, but that would have included raising my arm and, with it being so heavy with drowsiness, I decided against it. From the sounds of my surroundings, I could tell there was a fan spinning above me, but lightly, and I was sure that the TV must have been on in the other room because I could hear the sounds of dozens of cars, all of them beeping at each other in the endless war to be the loudest. My arm was lying on top of a very soft, fluffy blanket which was warm and comforting as opposed to the thin sheets that absorbed the cool air in the room.
Finally, with a groan, I opened my eyes and my brow furrowed immediately, my body tensing. The room I was in wasn't mine. It was large- too large to be a bedroom, really- and brightly lit with natural daylight that came streaming in from the wall behind me which was constructed completely out of glass. Looking down, I found that the sheets were a deep, dark red while the blanket was a rich gold. The rest of the room was not decorated all that much except for a few pieces of art hung up on the wall. However, there was a dresser standing across from me, a large mirror attached to it. Going from furrowed to high onto my forehead, my brow shifted as I looked up and saw the reflection of outside- straight out the window, clear above everything else, was the Empire State Building, its lightning rod just barely making it up to the halfway point of the window. It was then that my brain put together the fact that there was no TV on; the honks were coming from outside.
"What the hell?"
I went to sit up and try to get a better grasp of what was going on, but my shoulder shouted out in pain and I fell back down, my upper body weight now being supported by my elbow. I looked over myself and, other than a few bruises dotting my skin and a white bandage wrapped around my left bicep, I seemed fine. But, as my right shoulder continued to yell for attention, I pulled down the sleeve of the too big AC/DC shirt I was wearing (why was I wearing an AC/DC shirt?) and exposed another bandage- this one much larger- wrapped around my shoulder and upper chest.
"You may want to take it easy getting up."
My head shot up toward the door and a man was standing there, leaning against the threshold; I could tell he was trying extremely hard not to grin. His dark brown hair was styled nicely, brushed back and away from his face. He had bright, large brown eyes and his small smile (he wasn't succeeding in his attempt not to) was framed by a unique beard- one that I recognized, but had never seen in person before. His arms were crossed over his chest, and just above them, a small circle of blue light shined dimly through the dark fabric of his Black Sabbath t-shirt.
"No way."