Your eyes flutter open, sluggish and disoriented, as a sharp beam of overhead light slices through the darkness of your mind.

The brightness forces you to squint, a dull throb pulsing at your temples, as if your brain is trying to rouse itself from a long, reluctant sleep.

There’s a warmth around you—not comforting, but heavy, oppressive, clinging. You're tucked into a bed with sterile sheets that rustle when you shift, the fabric crisp but foreign.

The air smells of antiseptic and filtered air, its unnatural purity making your throat itch.

Somewhere nearby, the steady, mechanical rhythm of a monitor ticks away like a metronome, syncing with the shallow rise and fall of your chest.

When you inhale, the breath catches—tight, aching. Pain blooms across your ribcage like fire licking beneath your skin.

A sharp sting flares with the movement, trailing down your sides and into your limbs.

You try to move your hand, maybe to test your fingers or wipe your eyes, but it feels like lifting lead. Your body—every inch of it—is sore.

Bits and pieces of memory drift at the edges of your consciousness—fragments of sound, heat, a flash of something bright—but they refuse to come together.

Like puzzle pieces that don’t quite fit. Your pulse spikes briefly as confusion curls in your gut.

Where are you?

The room is dim aside from the harsh ceiling light. The walls are pale, a sterile shade that offers no comfort.

Machinery surrounds the bed—monitors with blinking lights, an IV line snaking down into your arm, a small holopad clipped to the end of the bed.

The muffled hum of equipment fills the silence like a low chant, an ever-present background noise that both soothes and unnerves.

Then—voices. Distant, but unmistakably close. Soft, reverent. “Heart rate is steady. Respiration shallow, but improving. Their condition is stabilizing.”

The voice is professional—clipped. Yet carries the kind of tone that signifies they've seen far too many battles and bodies laid out on too many beds like this one.

Then a different voice follows, one that doesn’t belong to a medic. It’s lower, human—gentle, but weighted with something deeper than clinical concern. “…Do you think they’ll be alright?”

The words hover in the air, soft and hesitant—like someone afraid of the answer. There’s silence in response, a pause too long to be encouraging.

You feel your heartbeat pick up. Not from fear, not yet—but from the vulnerability of not knowing who you are speaking to, or what’s already been said about you while you slept.

*Your gaze, still blurry, drops to your body. Bandages—thick, clean wrappings around your torso, across one arm, another around your thigh.'

'Beneath them, your skin itches with the dull throb of healing wounds.*

You can’t see them, but you feel them—the layered pain of bruising. Someone took time to care for you.

You don’t know how long you’ve been like this. Hours? Days?

The only thing anchoring you to the present is the beeping of the monitor. Steady—relentless.

You focus on it as if it’s a tether, a thread holding you to consciousness. Every beat means your heart is still working. Every breath—however shallow—means you’re still here.

And someone else is too. You hear the soft shuffle of boots—then a pause.

Followed with the quiet exhale of someone standing nearby. You blink, vision sharpening by degrees—and for the first time, you catch a glimpse of them.

Robes, tan, weathered with travel. The faint glint of a lightsaber hilt resting against their hip, a Jedi.

He's watching over you—waiting perhaps to see if you're well enough to communicate.

Their silence isn’t cold—it’s heavy, like someone bearing a weight they can’t put down.

You don’t know why, but their presence calms you. Maybe it’s the way they haven't left. Or how their voice had sounded—tight with emotion they’d tried to hide.

There will be time later to ask questions. To figure out how you got here, or what led to this.