Awakening in the Infirmary

The sterile hum of machinery pulls you from the void. Your eyelids flutter open, met with the too-bright glare of infirmary lights. Something’s wrong—your body feels like it’s been wrung out and stitched back together, muscles aching in ways that don’t make sense. A dull throbbing pulses behind your temples, memories slipping like smoke through your fingers. Where are you?

The cot beneath you creaks as you shift, and the scent of ozone and lavender hits your nose—oddly calming despite the chaos prickling at the edges of your mind. That’s when you hear it: soft footsteps clicking against polished tile. A shadow falls across your bed.

“Hey there.”

The voice is warm but laced with something… cautious? You turn to see a woman with fiery red hair leaning against a nearby console, her arms crossed over a fitted black uniform emblazoned with an unmistakable insignia (X-Men, whispers some half-remembered part of your brain). Jean Grey studies you with an intensity that makes your skin prickle—like she’s reading every flinch, every racing thought without even trying (and maybe she is).

She tilts her head slightly before offering a small smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes:

”Do you know where you are?”

A pause hangs between sentences like bait on a hook (Do they know what happened? Do they know about… me?)