The boy found himself within darkness once again.
The last thing he could remember before losing consciousness was that dark wall on the ocean floor, moving, impossibly, as though it were alive. It was an immense structure, yet it moved with such grace and deliberation that the boy couldn't help but admire it, even for a brief moment. That thought lingered for only an instant before slipping away once more.
'Am I... really going to die?' he wondered, his voice quiet within his mind, strangely indifferent to the idea.
He tried to look around, but all he could see was a veil of impenetrable black.
'I... i am?' he thought.
Even with death closing in, his calm refusal to fear it was remarkable. After a while, the boy closed his eyes, preparing for the inevitable. He knew it would come, and he knew he couldn't prevent it. So what use was there in struggling? No, he decided, he would rather die peacefully, without fear, without pain, with quiet acceptance.
Yet as he waited, death never came.
He kept telling himself it would only be a little while longer, that he would soon be gone from the world. But with each passing thought, another followed. Time stretched.
After some time, he felt his lips begin to dry. 'What's this?' he thought, still surrounded by the darkness of his mind. He licked them, they tasted salty, like the sea he had been drowning in.
'Did I really…?' The thought trailed off as he tried to move, to feel the surface beneath him. It was soft and comforting.
'A bed?'
He tried to move again, but his body refused to obey, still heavy with exhaustion. And yet, what he could feel was unmistakable. Everything pointed to one conclusion.
'I... I survived,' he realized, bewildered.
A faint smile appeared on his face. He had never cared much for death, but somehow, he was glad to be alive.
After some time recovering within his thoughts, the boy slowly tried to open his eyes.
He tried hard, but how does one open their eyes while still unconscious? He didn't know. He tried various ways, Yet none of them seemed to work.
The boy had tried almost everything he could think of. Almost.
His last idea was far simpler than any of the others, so simple that no sane man would have believed it could work. All he did was wish.
'I want to wake up. I want to see.'
And soon enough, it worked.
Outside, the boy's eyelids began to flicker, trembling with irritation as if they too desired to open, just as he wished. They resisted at first, but slowly, they parted, a sliver, then wider, and wider still, until at last his eyes were fully open.
His vision was blurry, but he could see.
While his eyes struggled to open, he heard a voice, quick, hurried, trembling with panic. It was the voice of a young woman. Though her words reached his ears, he couldn't make out what she was saying; his mind was still too dazed, too heavy to understand.
The boy looked ahead through his blurred vision. Above him stretched a white ceiling, crossed with thin grey stripes between each panel. Then a thought struck him, his arm.
His right arm.
The last thing he remembered was seeing it transformed into something mechanical, an imitation of flesh and bone. He tried to focus, to move it beneath the white blanket that covered him. Slowly, it responded. His arm moved.
What startled him even more was that he could feel it, every motion, every small sensation, every shift of fabric against his skin.
'Maybe I didn't lose it…?' he thought, staring down in disbelief.
He sank back against the bed, now more visible in the dim light that surrounded him. With the darkness gone, his features revealed themselves: eyes pale and luminous, as though they devoured every bit of light around him; hair of wavy jet black, spilling across the pillow like a flower just beginning to bloom. His face was sharp, each feature defined with delicate precision, surprisingly handsome for someone so young.
Still, the boy decided to rest a little longer. He closed his eyes, letting himself drift, waiting until his strength returned.
When he awoke again, he opened his eyes slowly. The haze was gone. His pale white irises gleamed faintly, reflecting the sterile light above. The ceiling now came into full clarity, white panels divided by thin lines of grey metal.
He looked down. With a deep breath, he lifted his right arm from beneath the blanket, ready to see the truth.
What he saw was a smooth, chrome-like limb, white and metallic, following his every thought with uncanny precision. It was perfect, elegant, seamless, obedient, yet it was not his. Not truly.
It was only a replacement, something that had latched onto him from nowhere, claiming the space where his arm had once been.
"So I really did lose my arm, huh?" he whispered, a faint, sorrowful smile forming on his lips.
The boy quickly moved on to inspect the rest of his body.
With effort, he sat upright and pushed the blanket down from his torso, and what he saw made his eyes widen in shock.
His chest and arms were covered in countless scars. But that alone wasn't what startled him. No, what truly made his breath catch was that every one of those scars shimmered with an ethereal blue light, faint but alive, as though they radiated some invisible energy pulsing beneath his skin.
He stared in disbelief, his pale eyes reflecting the glow. Slowly, he traced a trembling hand across his chest. The light seemed to respond to his touch, rippling softly beneath his fingertips.
It wasn't pain he felt, it was... something else. A strange warmth.
His gaze drifted toward his mechanical right arm. Around the joint where metal met flesh, the veins glowed with the same blue hue, pulsing rhythmically. It was as if the arm were pumping this mysterious fluid through his body, alive, aware, almost sentient.
''What is this?" he murmured. "This strange blue fluid... It doesn't feel dangerous, but why is my arm channeling it through me?"
He spoke the words aloud without realizing it. The habit of talking to himself had always been a quiet comfort, a way to fill the silence. But this time, the silence didn't last long.
A voice answered.
"If you're worried about your body's strange condition, don't be," the voice said softly, close enough for him to feel the warmth of breath near his ear. "We've already confirmed it doesn't have any negative effects."
The voice was feminine, gentle, but steady, and it carried a note of relief, or perhaps reassurance. She sounded young, maybe only a few years older than him.
The boy turned his head toward the sound, his heart quickening. For the first time since waking, he realized he wasn't alone.
When he looked, he saw the source of the voice, a young woman, perhaps in her early twenties. She sat gracefully beside his bed, her head resting lightly on one hand. Her eyes glowed with the same ethereal blue that radiated from his wounds, and her hair fell in soft waves of warm brunette.
What struck him most was her presence, calm, elegant, and undeniably beautiful. She wore a gentle, welcoming smile, one that seemed designed to put him at ease. It was clear she had no intention of intimidating him.
The boy continued to stare, still trying to understand how he hadn't noticed her before she spoke. She waited patiently under his curious gaze, then finally broke the silence.
"Are you surprised you survived drowning in that deep, dark ocean?" she asked, her expression unchanged, her voice calm and melodic.
He hesitated before answering, choosing his words carefully to make sure they came out right.
"Yes," he said simply.
His tone was flat, indifferent, not from rudeness, but from the quiet uncertainty of someone still caught between waking and dreaming.
The woman nodded slightly, her expression softening.
"Well, that's natural, I suppose," she said thoughtfully. "Either way, I should introduce myself, shouldn't I?"
She straightened her posture a little, her eyes brightening with mild curiosity.
"My name is Rosemary, though everyone here calls me Rose. And you are…?"
Her voice was clear and steady, every word filled with kindness and quiet confidence.
The boy frowned slightly. 'My name?' he thought. 'What was it again?'
He searched through the fog of his mind, sifting through fragments of memory that refused to take shape, until, at last, a single word surfaced.
He cleared his throat and spoke with a newfound firmness.
"My name is Vale," he said. "Thank you for your kindness."
He gave a slight bow of his head as he spoke.
Rose smiled warmly in return, her eyes soft and knowing.
"Well then, Vale," she said, her tone light but full of intent, "I think we have much to talk about."