-~*-~
::Awaken::
Methodical beeps sound out, signaling movements of recovery from the patient.
Kolto slowly drains away from the sleek glass and metal tank. The impersonal machine-arm latched to the kolto tank lifted, and the top of the glass tube rises languidly, kolto dripping thickly down the sides.
The automated square at the bottom of the crystalline basin extends the top of its layers carefully, to ensure the person slumped on top remains unharmed. Sliding backwards again, it gently deposits its occupant on the space encompassed by twenty eight blinking medical computer panels. Having accomplished its preprogrammed goal, they return to the ordained position, lowering the glass casing and allowing the tank to once more fill with healing fluid. The panels fastened to the floor monitor the entity, regulating the heartbeat.
Waiting for the patient to awaken.
-~o~-
Air.
Harsh, cold, air.
Whispering against puckered skin, stealing the moisture from healing kolto.
A voice swimming at the edge of consciousness.
::Awaken::
The contracting of the diaphragm.
Then the stinging, acrid, air forced a pathway through to her lungs, dragging her back from the edge of sweet, nihilistic, oblivion.
"Nnn…"
A face pressed against cold metal.
-~o~-
Air.
Stale, bland, air.
The same air that had been bouncing in the contained space for days.
Nothing in here but him and the air.
He sighed.
-~o~-
Air.
Caressing, life-giving air.
Oxygen.
Inflating the chest with almost imperceptible risings and fallings and rasping breaths almost too slow to come.
Unexpected air, twisting before her.
She breathed on.
-~o~-
'Cold', was her first thought.
Unmercifully, unrelentingly, cold.
"Unhh…" She moaned, sluggishly extricating her limbs from the frigid embrace of the metal floor.
"Who turned on the lights?" She murmured. Her head swiveled slightly, seeing only the glare of light.
"An' who's… who's idea was it to…to make the ground outta--outta ice blocks, anyway?" She demanded groggily with half-lidded eyes, the cognitive part of her brain slow to wake from its haze.
The girl stumbled around a bit, arms outstretched, searching for some sort of a light-switch. Failing in this regard, her searching fingers reached up to rub tired eyes and brushed wet material. "Ah."
Eyes finally open stared in open-mouthed shock at the medical room. Five kolto tanks lined the sides of a circular room. All but one contained a withered human. The decorator seemed to have gone on a shopping spree at Metals 'R' Us on clearance day. The walls, the ceiling, the floor—all were distanced and functional-looking. Far too many interface consoles lined the walls, with a million little unlabeled, forbidding, buttons.
A short hallway led to a door that looked far too complicated and impossible to open.
All in all, the whole of her surroundings seemed bleak, and her options few and far between.
The girl frowns slightly, thinking."This isn't my room. What is-?"
"AH."
The startled exclamation could be traced back to the horror-struck eyes traveling down to their connecting body. More specifically, the body clad in tight, beige, undergarments. Undergarments that had never before been seen by the wearer.
The girl then did something that, if asked about later, would deny profusely.
She opened her mouth and let out a long, inhuman, shriek.
-~.~-
(Did anyone else ever wonder how the person managed to get out of a steep, liquid filled tank, crawl to the middle of the floor that's several feet away, all without regaining consciousness?)
