Author's Note: This chapter is meant to be read as a lot of rambling, fragmented thoughts. Subsequent chapters will be more coherent and more cohesive. In other words, I promise it gets better
Usual disclaimers apply - I don't own the characters and I make no profit off of this.
The questions I provide may have no answers and the answers I provide may have no questions.
Welcome to Night Vale, Episode 9, "The Pyramid"
Regaining consciousness was akin to rousing from hibernation. There was a detached, fuzzy quality to everything, like a television picture distorted by incoming static. There was no concept of space or time; he could have been waking up twenty years in the past or forty years in the future. His mind was as sluggish as a turtle making its way through mud. He took stock of his situation, a mental inventory cataloging new information. His thoughts were fragments, scattered across universe.
Eyes that refused to open. A momentary panic - how does one see without sight? Other senses rattled their cage doors, begging to be let out, to be put to use. Energized and frantic, his senses reached out to seek answers.
He sniffed the air. It reeked of smoke, cigarette and otherwise. The cilia in his nose prickled and recoiled in a fierce tango of simultaneous desire and disgust. Reaching out further, the pungent odor of mold, urine, and sex assaulted him. It smelled like a truck stop restroom, of depravity.
He became aware of his tongue then, thick and useless as a slug in his mouth. Teeth felt slimy, like moss on rocks. There was a sourness in his saliva, like something had crawled in and died. There was a tangy, metallic taste on his lips. Blood.
There was a buzzing in his ears. Was it coming from within his head or from somewhere else? It hummed as shrilly as cicadas and threatened to drive him mad. Groans, low and deep. His? Or someone else's? Eyes needed to start working and soon. In the distance, voices. Angry, muffled.
Body was becoming real again. Everything hurt. Throbbing. Pain resonated down his spine like piano wire striking out a discordant melody. It was unbearably cold. There was a dull, icy ache that he might be able to get rid of if he set himself on fire. Limbs were stiff, like a marionette left in the trunk too long. Damp air on his skin. Was it the room or something else making his skin crawl like spiders?
A frustrated command from his brain to his eyes. He needed to see. Lids finally peeled back. He was swimming in pallid, yellow light. A dingy room. Cot against one wall that wouldn't support the weight of a feather. A single door. Locked? Come on now. Of course. A carpet that might once have been - blue? Maybe? Hard to tell; stained by mildew and neglect. No windows. Two motionless bodies.
Wait - what?
Brain still scrambled. Put the individual components back together into something recognizable, like stacking pixels to make a picture. Faces. Familiar.
Oh God.
John. Lestrade.
They'd been investigating -
Oh.
Oh no.