Hope blinks and looks around him.
Nothing that he sees is familiar.
The moment that his vision clears, searing pain lances through him, burning a blazing trail through his body. He screams-he can't help it, and clutches his forearm.
It's almost unbearable. Tears stream through his eyes, and he lies back onto his back, clenching his palm into a fist. He turns his head, lying down on something prickling and soft at the same time. Right before he loses consciousness, he focuses on one image in front of him.
It's a dandelion. The thought chases through him, and then he knows no more.
"You need to wake up, Hope." The voice is unfamiliar, jarring, feminine. He struggles to open his eyes, feeling weight and sleepiness behind them. There is a throbbing on his brand, but it's not the intense pain that he distinctly remembers from earlier. His eyes focus, and a young woman is presiding over him, dutifully administering to his wounds. He's on a table of some sort, and though the instrumentation is unfamiliar, the machines around him reflect medicinal information.
"Wh-Am I home?" He asks aloud, and his voice is loud inside the room that he's lying in.
"You're on Earth." The voice responds back, and the woman bobs once more into his immediate field of vision. The others, his mind warns him. He tries to sit up, and realizes that there are all sorts of monitors and IV's strapped to him. He panics momentarily, but keeps his cool with effort.
"What are you doing? What are these things?" He waves to the gauges around him, feeling a slippery sense of unease. Nothing looks familiar-and he was intimately acquainted with the most up-to-date technology that money could buy before his little…trip.
"We found you. All of you. And before you ask, yes, you were in a prone position with others. They are all here-close by. You were weak, needed fluids. We tended to you, and then noticed these bizarre marks on your bodies. THOSE kept us occupied, let me tell you. They still do-tell me, Hope, do you know what these things are?" The voice is kept jovial, but Hope instantly recognizes a probing question when he hears one, couched in false politeness. His eyes narrow to slits. The young woman is reading something off of what looks like a clear clipboard, digital numbers flying across its screen.
"You seem to have me at a disadvantage. You know my name-somehow-and I don't know yours. What is your name?"
"You see, that's the funny thing." The girl brightens into a crooked, lopsided grin. "You kept babbling things in your sleep. So did your friends. You all had some crazy dreams in your sense of stasis. Enough to let us all know your names. So, you see, you kind of gave that one away yourself." She blows an errant hair strand away from her face, and glances up at him over rimless frames. "Besides, my name is Hope as well. I was named after my great grandfather."
Upon hearing this, Hope Estheim's heart skips a beat, but he doesn't let it show on his face.
"You-you were named after your great-grandfather, huh?" His smile is weak. "Tell me, miss, just what year is it?"
The girl blinks in response to the question. "That must have been quite a bender all of you were on. It's the year 2400."