Much like any good story, this one starts with a fall.

Maybe you should have watched your step, especially when trekking through those run-down streets. You should have known better than not to watch your step. Those sewer gratings, on that random little street, long swallowed up by all the greenery, held something most mankind was not quite ready for.

You fell for what felt like a solid thirty seconds - plenty of time to try and make peace with your current predicament. Yet when you finally hit the ground, you did not find yourself splattered on the ground like some meaty pancake. No, you never quite hit the ground. You simply...stopped in place, in some sort of brief stasis. Even though the velocity you had garnered in that time ought to be enough to end you with a sudden stoppage like that, it merely didn't.

Before your very eyes wasn't a working sewer system, although that much was to be expected. Instead what you gazed at was a deep underground bunker of sorts. The door of it had not only been sealed shut, it looked like it had become of the metal that made that bunker up - merely with a random handle attached on one side, for reasons unknown.

The moment you found yourself capable of movement again, a sound assaulted your ears. It had the rough makings of a voice, yet it was neither masculine nor feminine, without any intonations, lacking timber or pace - a voice that simply was. A foreign cacophony beamed straight into your head.

"I was waiting for someone."

That...thing said. Every word carried the makings of a throbbing headache that never quite became a headache; anticipation stretching on with every syllable. Yet as it went on, his voice became more defined. It was masculine. Smooth. Oddly detached.

You felt like you were being watched.

"Apologies. It's been so long since I've had the pleasure of conversation."

It, or rather, he spoke as he simply phased through that thick metal plating. The half of his face that was visible flashed you a smile.

"My name is Karion. Who might you be?"