Eyes squint at the light. The electricity had been dim; the water turbine was getting old, and they couldn't go out for parts, so the estate was always in relative darkness. Just enough light to make it around, but they'd adjusted to it. The white, sterile lighting in an otherwise sterile room was jarring, and the ceiling blindingly stared back at them. The only pop of color among all the white and chrome is a house plant in the corner of the bedroom.
A thin frame pushes itself up from the bed, muscles weak and screaming. There's still fibers under their nails from trying to crawl across the carpet, palms mottled with reddish, brown, flaking chips of the blood that dried on them. A look down at their clothes... musty, fraying. There's a crisp, singed ring where the bullets ripped through them, covered and soaked in a stiff cloth of blood-soaked band shirt.
("...Okay. I don't think I lived through that. So am I, dead?")
That searing, agonizing hatred they felt moments before... subsided. Perhaps the shock of waking up in such a different environment subsided that haunted rage?
...
Wriggling out of the shirt, shoving it under the bed, they chose to wrap the bedsheet around them like a cowl. Their hand presses against their chest.
("...Heart's beating? Maybe I'm not dead?")
...
("...Which means the, uh. The thing is still here.")
Even in this room, they could feel the vague flickers of sorrow beyond the door.
Their old flip phone is in their pocket, but shows a date far off in the future. The last time they looked at a calendar was forgotten to them, but Gran's funeral was in the 2000's, wasn't it? According to all the paperwork they had to sign.
("Maybe this isn't my phone.")
...
("So I guess... I could go outside.")
The thought of that is terrifying, though. They're not supposed to be around people. Around that outside world. That's what she told them. But...
A pale hand tries to find a doorknob to turn, only for the door to slide open with a smooth-sounding click.
Their steps are soft and unsure in their socks, and the loose fabric around their ripping jeans makes more sound than they do (aside from the mumbling, of course.) The hallways are just as sterile as the room, long and unremarkable. Part of them wants to think this is a hospital, but the very image of a 'hospital' is blocked from their memory.
What emerges from the room is an empath. Pale, splattered with dried blood, malnourished. The shadows under their eyes look like bruises, and their hair grew out in two tones--one a faded violet dye, and the other a chestnut brown from their roots, streaked with white. They're afraid of making a sound, as if breaking the silence would unleash some horrible monster.
Finally, they see a sign, pointing in a few directions. Rooms 400-450 from the hallway they came from, a mess hall in another direction, with a strange word above them all.
