"Get up hero!", a voice pierces the cloudy overcast that is my consciousness. Opening my eyes I see a unfamiliar space above me, the sky strangely mirroring how my body feels, the subtle whoosh of the wind in the tall worn spires of this strange place. Rain starts to sprinkle lightly, falling on my strangely warm skin, the cold shocking me to fully realize I am outside. Something just feels wrong, unfamiliar, the air feels sticky clinging to my slightly smoking clothing, an overbearing sweet smell invading my nostrils intensifying the pounding in my skull ever so slightly. Its as if I am coated in molasses struggling to move, as if the ground was magnetized and I was the metal.
"It worked! A hero....!", A strange voice nearby seems so close yet so far as if traveling through water, it trails off as I begin to not pay attention to it, I feel so exhausted yet so awake and ready to do anything. Its as if the air itself is laced with caffeine. I feel contact under my arms, whatever is touching me seems to be made of liquid nitrogen, the feeling of frostbite seems to be setting in from the touch alone, the shivering starts and quickly ceases. Muffled voices seem to be trying to communicate to me but that is not my concern at the moment. Feeling lightheaded from the sudden movement my vision clears and I can see my situation better however the lenses of my glasses seem to be distorted and clouded. The glasses are removed by the person in front of me, it is a little blurry and squinting is the best I can do but it doesn't really help what seems to be a head splitting migraine. The person in front of me seems to be a older gentleman with short almost buzzed white hair on his head, but a long beard that seems to never end. I can see that he is saying something but I haven't fully adjusted and can only catch snippets of his glass on chalkboard like voice.
" Oh.... hero.... to our..., God..... prayers...", it seems like the nonsense that priests I saw in videos would spout to their cult. Its hard to make out but the expression this man is making has my hair stand on end, like when a spoiled child gets a puppy for Christmas. Everything still seems heavy, I look over to my left and then to my right, its two people holding me up they are both in full metal platemail, I cant make out what their faces look like, but the metal gauntlets they are holding me up with feel like shoving glass shards into every pore of where contact is being made, without the decency to have my clothes in between the metal and my skin. I can sense movement now, it seems that I am being dragged away from this place, the rain now becoming a full downpour as I lose consciousness, the raindrops that sound like hail on Sheetmetal reverberating in my head as I do so.
I wake up to a foreign feeling, as if I am out of place, somewhere I am not supposed to be. Not akin to entering a new city or country, its as if the place itself is telling me I do not belong. The temperature is strangely comfortable in stark contrast to the freezing of before. The sickeningly sweet smell still lingers in the air, and it is still hard to move. This room I am in seems to have some warm colors as the interior but it is strangely silent, it is a little challenging to breathe. Where am I? Why is merely existing seeming to be such a challenge?
A creak slices through the silence, its fleeting comfortability dissipating. With challenge I lift my head to look at the source of noise, and there is the door, ajar with a beautifully androgynous almost ethereal figure standing in the now open doorway. Its hard to make out specific features, they look almost familiar. However it was a fleeting moment, it seems to just be someone in a strange suit like outfit, their voice almost echoing in this strange room that seems far to small to echo at all.
"Hero, are you awake?", this person just enters the room without actually confirming if I am awake or not, not even glancing at me before entering and closing the door. His cold and almost monotone voice just seeming to float through the air, as if talking to no one in particular, perhaps it is just part of a schedule to say these words now. After finally actually looking at me he looks almost surprised he does a double take I can hear a sharp breath. He seems to excuse himself under his breath without actually doing anything muttering something about being right back, being barely audible.
A short time later a different man comes back, it is challenging but I recognize him. I see now that his beard does indeed end, its still hard to make out his exact features but this is indeed the same man that spoke at me before I lost consciousness. He speaks to me again but this time his voice isn't so terrible, however something is missing from it.
"Good afternoon, Hero.", the almost sing song of his voice sending shivers up my spine.
"We hope you are here to help."