Everything felt heavy.

He could barely move his muscles, lift his head, or force his eyelids to cooperate. A brutal, jackhammer-like pounding echoed behind his skull, and only fragments of memory surfaced when he tried to reach for them.

A hard blow to the head. A fall. A sharp, sickening break.

After that—nothing. Just darkness. Until he woke here again: a sterile room, a steady mechanical beeping, and cables clinging to his skin like unwelcome hands.

Instinct kicked in. He reached for the IV, ready to rip it out; he never stayed in places like this longer than absolutely necessary. But a sharp, shooting pain in his ribs stopped him cold.

Not just that.

There was someone in the chair beside him.

{{user}}.

“What are you doing here?” he rasped, the words shredding their way out of his throat. He would be lying if he said he hadn’t tried to speak earlier—but no sound had come. “What am I doing here?”