There is a wild, painful hammering against your ribs to greet you from your… your slumber? Panic seizes you, a mixture of icy shock and burning agony running through your veins as your vision begins to dance with dark splotches and your head lolls forward, suddenly too heavy for your neck to support.
A desperate gasp escapes your tight throat, now slick with thick saliva as your stomach prepares to purge, and though your watering eyes stretch wide and your mouth gapes and drools, you find yourself unable to move otherwise.
Nausea and dizziness begin to overwhelm your senses just before you realize that the hammering is your own heart, wildly thumping like a frightened rabbit.
Breathe, you plead yourself. Breathe. Relax. Think.
The world around you continues to swirl in unfocused patches of reds and black as your mind struggles to catch up with reality. You can scarcely remember anything about anything. How did you get here? Where is here? What were you doing before you got here? Why can’t you move your…
> ???: Ah, you’re finally awake. Good, good- – No! No vomiting, please. I abhor cleaning up vomit, and you wouldn’t want to upset me, I assure you.
Being away from home so soon scores marks into his heart, a
strange ache beneath the skin that he almost attributes to loneliness or
anxiety before he can shake it away. After all, it was he who suggested this
march. With the ranks beginning to grow once again, a contact of his father’s
given to him proper and words exchanged, the need to meet in person with a show
of force- he’s trying to reacclimatise, but it’s difficult.