07-07-2017, 11:34 PM
You need to wake up.
Goku pulled the covers about himself and turned, groaning, in the warmth of the bed. Had he been having a bad dream? It felt as though he had been trapped in one for a very long time. Horrible things kept happening.
You’re in danger!
Where was that voice coming from, and why did it sound so familiar?
YOU NEED TO GET UP, NOW!
Suddenly sitting bolt upright, his own voice echoing in his ears, Goku’s eyes widened as he sucked in a deep breath. The world was spinning around him, and it was only after he’d pulled himself up that he realised he had torn away leather straps intended to bind him to the bed.
Did he… die?
There was a part of Goku that wished it was the first time he could have asked that question. He didn’t think he’d died, though. What did he remember?
He’d gotten the star piece – that had been really important at the time! Gabriel had made that very clear. He’d gotten them home, though the journey back hadn’t been easy, and he’d decided to try and find the next people that needed him. It made sense to start back in the Pale Moors. That place was crazy! He’d never seen so many people in need of a helping hand. Just a few weeks in there, and he’d seen more hopelessness and desperation than he had in his entire life up until that point.
So he’d come back, thinking maybe he’d work on making Darkshire less of a horrible place, beat up some monsters. He’d started scouting the region, and then he’d flown into a fog…
… what happened after that?
Why was he bound to a bed?
The room he was in was like a hospital, but not one that he had seen before. Even though he’d hated that hospital, it had looked clean and safe. This room was… dirty, the walls covered with miscellaneous stains he didn’t want to think too hard about, and cluttered with rusted hospital equipment.
A sudden wave of nausea washed over him, and he choked, stumbling. His hand jerked out and he caught himself against the edge of the bed, trying to overcome the stabbing pain radiating from his stomach. He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, focusing his energy inwards.
The star piece!
His hand went to his side, but he already knew it was gone. The waves of radiating energy were no longer pulsing into him. The Saiyan’s legs buckled, and he slumped over the bed, struggling just to stay upright. It felt like the early days of training on King Kai’s planet; a crushing weight that drove the strength from his limbs and had him trembling. He’d failed his friends. The people he’d saved had asked only one thing of him, that he keep the star piece safe from those who would abuse it, and he’d lost it.
Worse, he couldn’t even remember how. The more he tried to think back that far, the more a stubborn block of emptiness filled his thoughts; nothing but the fog, swirling around him as far as the eye could see, blotting out every sense, even muffling him when he opened his mouth to-
‘Come on, pull it together Goku.’ He thought, ’This is a hospital. Someone here is going to know what happened to you.’
The door to the hospital corridor opened, and Goku walked into it. He wasn’t even wearing his Gi, just a plain white hospital gown which felt absolutely inadequate against the all-pervasive chill of the hospital. Weren’t these places supposed to be warm and friendly, to help people recuperate? As his bare feet slapped against grimy hospital tiles, Goku’s nose wrinkled in distaste. When he found whoever was in charge, he was going to have a serious conversation about janitors! He might not be the neatest guy around, but even he knew that this was totally wrong for a hospital!
“Hello?” He called, “Is anybody out there?”
His voice echoed back at him, and for a few moments there was only silence. Then, the handle on the next door along began to rattle. And the one next to that. And the one next to that. Soon, the whole corridor was filled with the sound of metal clattering against metal as the inhabitants of the rooms struggled to open the door.
“Geez, it wasn’t THAT hard.” Goku said, walking to the nearest one. Without a care in the world, he pulled the door open.
On the other side was a bloated corpse. Waterlogged, the unfortunate man had drowned weeks ago if the stench was any indication. His eyes had been eaten out by sea creatures, his flesh hanging limp from his bones, stomach gruesomely distended by sea water. The zombie lunged forwards, and Goku let out a yelp of surprise as its rotten teeth came in for his neck. It was all he could do to get his arm up in time, and even then, the teeth sunk deep into the corded muscle of his arm, ripping through skin in a spray of blood.
“H-HEY!” Goku shouted, and wrenched his arm back, taking the creature’s teeth with it. Adrenalin coursed through his veins, shaking off the fatigue and pain that had wracked him since his awakening in the dark and foreboding place. That same hand shot forwards again a moment later, aiming to sock the zombie clean on the jaw. Instead, the unfortunate monster’s head came clean off, gnashing even as it bounced back into the darkness, and leaving its body to tumble to the floor and leak out viscera in a dark, murky puddle.
Now he was adding to the mess.
Before he could worry about that too much, though, the other doors began to clatter open. First two or three, then six, then twelve more zombies surged out into the hallway, and whilst Goku might have been willing to take on a whole army of zombies if he were in his prime, right now, he didn’t feel up to it.
Instead, he shot a blast of bright yellow energy into the ceiling, and then leapt upwards out of the reach of the madly-grasping monsters.
It took Goku a few moments to catch his breath. Tearing off the bottom of his gown, he bandaged his arm as best he could, trusting to his Saiyan physiology to fight off any infections that might normally result from such a thing. He really hoped these weren’t the kind of zombies that made more of themselves by biting. He liked his eyes! It wouldn’t be a good look for him!
It wasn’t until he opened the door to the cramped, confined space and light flooded in that he realised he was in a storage closet. A mop and bucket, a few bottles of various cleaning agents, rags… it seemed like this place did have a janitor, even if you’d never have guessed it by the state of the floors. The next level was much the same as the previous, though this time, Goku was more careful in his exploration. He put his ear to some of the doors, and heard irregular, heavy shuffling from within, the occasional groan… whatever those monsters were, it seemed like they had pretty much free rein of the place, which meant that if he wanted to get answers, he was going to have to fight more of them before too long.
At the far end of the corridor, however, there was a window, and that gave Goku an idea.
Jimmying open the window wasn’t as easy as he would have expected. In fact, it felt like the whole building was trying to stop him from doing just that, and it took all of his strength, after he’d managed to dig his fingers in underneath the ledge, to force the window to slide upwards. Then it was an equally frustrating trial to knock out bars from the windows – who barred windows on a hospital, anyway? But at last, as the rusted metal fell away to clatter in the courtyard below, he’d made himself an exit.
He was erratic as he floated out of the window, but this gave him a good idea of the scale of the place. The building was… huge. Big enough to contain thousands of patients easily, and yet there was something off about it. Not just the fact that the building itself was no less ugly on the outside than it was on the inside. It took Goku a few moments to realise it, but it was the fact that the whole place was dark. There wasn’t a single electric light on in the whole building, just the thin, weak light that always seemed to be struggling through perpetual cloud cover in the Pale Moors.
“This place is weird.” Goku muttered to himself – and it was in that instant that his powers of flight gave out completely, and he crashed down into the earth, landing heavily on the iron bars below to break his fall.
It felt as though he had spent months in perpetual pain of one sort or another. He was no stranger to pain, but laying prone on the ground outside the hospital, Goku wished that it would leave him alone, at least for a little while. His head was spinning again, and it was difficult to concentrate on anything at all. Only the gentle patter of cold raindrops against his face kept him from losing consciousness all over again.
“Well, well, well, it looks like our patient needs more treatment.”
The voice was kindly. An older man, used to being obeyed, accustomed to his authority.
“Yes, Doctor, shall I administer the injection?”
The second voice was a woman’s, but her voice was a rasp of wet muscle against wet muscle, vocal chords sliding against one another in a symphony which reminded all that it was meat that made that noise. And if there was one word which could have stirred Goku from the ground in that instant, it was ‘injection’.
He was on his feet in a moment, crouched low, vision still blurred and swimming as he tried to take in the pair of figures in front of him. One, taller, white suit, glasses, male, Doctor. The other, what was she even wearing? It didn’t seem to do much to cover her up, but her features were a twisted mess of scars and ugly bruising, showing through from badly wrapped bandages. She didn’t just have syringes. Her hands WERE syringes.
“No, no no no.” Goku croaked, “Not needles, I hate needles…” His voice sounded weak, distant. It felt like he was hearing himself from very far away.
With a lurching sensation in his guts, he realised that it felt as though he had said this very thing a hundred times before.
“Nonsense, Mr. Goku.” The Doctor said, his voice kind. “We have to make sure you are well.”
“Yes.” The nurse cackled, “You have to take your medicine, or else how will you ever get better?”
The dawning sense of déjà vu brought on a whole new level of panic. How many times had he woken up strapped to the bed? How many times had he hauled himself through the hospital?
“Must we go through this every time?”
Fear coursed through Goku’s heart, and he felt his body respond innately. His feet steadied in the earth. His hands balled into fists. If they were going to take him back into that building, he was not going to make it easy for them!
“I’m warning you!” He shouted, trying to convince himself that he didn’t hear the edge of fear in his voice – he was not, usually, a man who experienced fear. Even when he’d stared down Freeza, the galactic tyrant himself, he hadn’t felt afraid. Fear was, new. It was a sensation he did not like.
“If you come any closer to me, I’ll ... I'll... I'll break every bone in your body!”
Goku pulled the covers about himself and turned, groaning, in the warmth of the bed. Had he been having a bad dream? It felt as though he had been trapped in one for a very long time. Horrible things kept happening.
You’re in danger!
Where was that voice coming from, and why did it sound so familiar?
YOU NEED TO GET UP, NOW!
Suddenly sitting bolt upright, his own voice echoing in his ears, Goku’s eyes widened as he sucked in a deep breath. The world was spinning around him, and it was only after he’d pulled himself up that he realised he had torn away leather straps intended to bind him to the bed.
Did he… die?
There was a part of Goku that wished it was the first time he could have asked that question. He didn’t think he’d died, though. What did he remember?
He’d gotten the star piece – that had been really important at the time! Gabriel had made that very clear. He’d gotten them home, though the journey back hadn’t been easy, and he’d decided to try and find the next people that needed him. It made sense to start back in the Pale Moors. That place was crazy! He’d never seen so many people in need of a helping hand. Just a few weeks in there, and he’d seen more hopelessness and desperation than he had in his entire life up until that point.
So he’d come back, thinking maybe he’d work on making Darkshire less of a horrible place, beat up some monsters. He’d started scouting the region, and then he’d flown into a fog…
… what happened after that?
Why was he bound to a bed?
The room he was in was like a hospital, but not one that he had seen before. Even though he’d hated that hospital, it had looked clean and safe. This room was… dirty, the walls covered with miscellaneous stains he didn’t want to think too hard about, and cluttered with rusted hospital equipment.
A sudden wave of nausea washed over him, and he choked, stumbling. His hand jerked out and he caught himself against the edge of the bed, trying to overcome the stabbing pain radiating from his stomach. He closed his eyes, and took a deep breath, focusing his energy inwards.
The star piece!
His hand went to his side, but he already knew it was gone. The waves of radiating energy were no longer pulsing into him. The Saiyan’s legs buckled, and he slumped over the bed, struggling just to stay upright. It felt like the early days of training on King Kai’s planet; a crushing weight that drove the strength from his limbs and had him trembling. He’d failed his friends. The people he’d saved had asked only one thing of him, that he keep the star piece safe from those who would abuse it, and he’d lost it.
Worse, he couldn’t even remember how. The more he tried to think back that far, the more a stubborn block of emptiness filled his thoughts; nothing but the fog, swirling around him as far as the eye could see, blotting out every sense, even muffling him when he opened his mouth to-
‘Come on, pull it together Goku.’ He thought, ’This is a hospital. Someone here is going to know what happened to you.’
The door to the hospital corridor opened, and Goku walked into it. He wasn’t even wearing his Gi, just a plain white hospital gown which felt absolutely inadequate against the all-pervasive chill of the hospital. Weren’t these places supposed to be warm and friendly, to help people recuperate? As his bare feet slapped against grimy hospital tiles, Goku’s nose wrinkled in distaste. When he found whoever was in charge, he was going to have a serious conversation about janitors! He might not be the neatest guy around, but even he knew that this was totally wrong for a hospital!
“Hello?” He called, “Is anybody out there?”
His voice echoed back at him, and for a few moments there was only silence. Then, the handle on the next door along began to rattle. And the one next to that. And the one next to that. Soon, the whole corridor was filled with the sound of metal clattering against metal as the inhabitants of the rooms struggled to open the door.
“Geez, it wasn’t THAT hard.” Goku said, walking to the nearest one. Without a care in the world, he pulled the door open.
On the other side was a bloated corpse. Waterlogged, the unfortunate man had drowned weeks ago if the stench was any indication. His eyes had been eaten out by sea creatures, his flesh hanging limp from his bones, stomach gruesomely distended by sea water. The zombie lunged forwards, and Goku let out a yelp of surprise as its rotten teeth came in for his neck. It was all he could do to get his arm up in time, and even then, the teeth sunk deep into the corded muscle of his arm, ripping through skin in a spray of blood.
“H-HEY!” Goku shouted, and wrenched his arm back, taking the creature’s teeth with it. Adrenalin coursed through his veins, shaking off the fatigue and pain that had wracked him since his awakening in the dark and foreboding place. That same hand shot forwards again a moment later, aiming to sock the zombie clean on the jaw. Instead, the unfortunate monster’s head came clean off, gnashing even as it bounced back into the darkness, and leaving its body to tumble to the floor and leak out viscera in a dark, murky puddle.
Now he was adding to the mess.
Before he could worry about that too much, though, the other doors began to clatter open. First two or three, then six, then twelve more zombies surged out into the hallway, and whilst Goku might have been willing to take on a whole army of zombies if he were in his prime, right now, he didn’t feel up to it.
Instead, he shot a blast of bright yellow energy into the ceiling, and then leapt upwards out of the reach of the madly-grasping monsters.
It took Goku a few moments to catch his breath. Tearing off the bottom of his gown, he bandaged his arm as best he could, trusting to his Saiyan physiology to fight off any infections that might normally result from such a thing. He really hoped these weren’t the kind of zombies that made more of themselves by biting. He liked his eyes! It wouldn’t be a good look for him!
It wasn’t until he opened the door to the cramped, confined space and light flooded in that he realised he was in a storage closet. A mop and bucket, a few bottles of various cleaning agents, rags… it seemed like this place did have a janitor, even if you’d never have guessed it by the state of the floors. The next level was much the same as the previous, though this time, Goku was more careful in his exploration. He put his ear to some of the doors, and heard irregular, heavy shuffling from within, the occasional groan… whatever those monsters were, it seemed like they had pretty much free rein of the place, which meant that if he wanted to get answers, he was going to have to fight more of them before too long.
At the far end of the corridor, however, there was a window, and that gave Goku an idea.
Jimmying open the window wasn’t as easy as he would have expected. In fact, it felt like the whole building was trying to stop him from doing just that, and it took all of his strength, after he’d managed to dig his fingers in underneath the ledge, to force the window to slide upwards. Then it was an equally frustrating trial to knock out bars from the windows – who barred windows on a hospital, anyway? But at last, as the rusted metal fell away to clatter in the courtyard below, he’d made himself an exit.
He was erratic as he floated out of the window, but this gave him a good idea of the scale of the place. The building was… huge. Big enough to contain thousands of patients easily, and yet there was something off about it. Not just the fact that the building itself was no less ugly on the outside than it was on the inside. It took Goku a few moments to realise it, but it was the fact that the whole place was dark. There wasn’t a single electric light on in the whole building, just the thin, weak light that always seemed to be struggling through perpetual cloud cover in the Pale Moors.
“This place is weird.” Goku muttered to himself – and it was in that instant that his powers of flight gave out completely, and he crashed down into the earth, landing heavily on the iron bars below to break his fall.
It felt as though he had spent months in perpetual pain of one sort or another. He was no stranger to pain, but laying prone on the ground outside the hospital, Goku wished that it would leave him alone, at least for a little while. His head was spinning again, and it was difficult to concentrate on anything at all. Only the gentle patter of cold raindrops against his face kept him from losing consciousness all over again.
“Well, well, well, it looks like our patient needs more treatment.”
The voice was kindly. An older man, used to being obeyed, accustomed to his authority.
“Yes, Doctor, shall I administer the injection?”
The second voice was a woman’s, but her voice was a rasp of wet muscle against wet muscle, vocal chords sliding against one another in a symphony which reminded all that it was meat that made that noise. And if there was one word which could have stirred Goku from the ground in that instant, it was ‘injection’.
He was on his feet in a moment, crouched low, vision still blurred and swimming as he tried to take in the pair of figures in front of him. One, taller, white suit, glasses, male, Doctor. The other, what was she even wearing? It didn’t seem to do much to cover her up, but her features were a twisted mess of scars and ugly bruising, showing through from badly wrapped bandages. She didn’t just have syringes. Her hands WERE syringes.
“No, no no no.” Goku croaked, “Not needles, I hate needles…” His voice sounded weak, distant. It felt like he was hearing himself from very far away.
With a lurching sensation in his guts, he realised that it felt as though he had said this very thing a hundred times before.
“Nonsense, Mr. Goku.” The Doctor said, his voice kind. “We have to make sure you are well.”
“Yes.” The nurse cackled, “You have to take your medicine, or else how will you ever get better?”
The dawning sense of déjà vu brought on a whole new level of panic. How many times had he woken up strapped to the bed? How many times had he hauled himself through the hospital?
“Must we go through this every time?”
Fear coursed through Goku’s heart, and he felt his body respond innately. His feet steadied in the earth. His hands balled into fists. If they were going to take him back into that building, he was not going to make it easy for them!
“I’m warning you!” He shouted, trying to convince himself that he didn’t hear the edge of fear in his voice – he was not, usually, a man who experienced fear. Even when he’d stared down Freeza, the galactic tyrant himself, he hadn’t felt afraid. Fear was, new. It was a sensation he did not like.
“If you come any closer to me, I’ll ... I'll... I'll break every bone in your body!”
![[Image: x1oIYhu.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/x1oIYhu.jpg)