Chapter Text
Beep. Beep. Beep.
What? He slowly came to, listening to the steady beeping noise. What was going on? He couldn’t remember what he’d been doing beforehand…
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The rhythmic beeping was the only thing he heard. Muffled as it was, it pierced through whatever obstructions were in its way to reach his ears. What was that sound? Why was it muffled? Where was he? A million questions ran through his mind, all at once– which was interesting, because he couldn’t remember having any thoughts before this. But that couldn’t be right.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
That beeping again. Whatever it was– a machine, he could tell, though how he knew it was a machine he couldn’t say– it didn’t see anything wrong. Lucky machine. All it had to do was beep, apparently, and it was doing that pretty well. Him, on the other hand… he couldn’t move. He couldn’t open his eyes. He knew that was strange, that it was unnatural, but for whatever reason, he couldn’t panic. He wanted to be afraid, but… he couldn’t. Something was withholding his fear from him.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Well, Mr. Machine didn’t think his immobile status was anything weird. He tried to take a breath, only to find he couldn’t do that either– and again, this should have seriously upset him, but something was… preventing him from feeling fear. Was he sedated? How did he know what sedation was? Come to think of it, how did he know what anything was? He didn’t remember learning this. In fact, everything he knew he didn’t remember learning.
Beep. Beeeeeep. Click.
Only two beeps? Okay, that was different. He’d heard nothing but beeping his whole life so far, and now that had changed. Maybe something was wrong.
Gurgle. Hiss. Creak.
Yes, something was definitely wrong, he realized, as he suddenly found himself completely ambulatory for the first time, taking a ragged gasp and snapping his eyes open as he sat up– and nearly fell forward onto his face. Where…? He looked around. He was half-standing, half-laying in a semi reclined tube of some sort, and the cover on that tube had just lifted away, leaving him exposed to the elements, and letting that panic that had been suppressed hit him full force.
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Oh good, the beeping was back. At least that was a constant again, he thought as he sat up, taking a few exploratory steps onto a cold, bare metal floor. He liked the beeping, he decided. It was comforting. Familiar. Not much was familiar to him, but the beeping was. He wanted to keep the beeping around.
“Good morning, Link.”
A voice! That was new! He looked around for the source of the voice, only to be stymied at every turn. What was in this room? He looked this way and that, searching for a clue. There was the pod he’d just climbed out of- nothing in there, he was quite sure of that- a small desk with a few lit up pieces and a glowing glass display… how he knew it was a display was a question for another time, but either way.
There was a door, but it was closed. And there was no knob, so that was gonna be a tricky thing to deal with. He’d figure that out later. There was another, smaller box with a display, reading Completed- All Green on it, and another one on the other side of the pod reading Standby- Idle.
And then there was the major thing. The second pod, sitting empty, right beside his own.
“Ah, getting your bearings?” The voice asked with a small chuckle. “Understandable. I’ll be in shortly with some clothing for you.”
Clothing? He looked down at himself and instantly yelped, realizing he did not have so much as a stitch on him. As with so much recently- and his whole life consisted of “recently”, at least to him- he had no idea as to why he felt the urge to cover himself, he only knew that he did.
This was already proving to be a very confusing day, and he had only, just that second, realized that he knew what days were. Two things were clear to him, though- he needed to find out what was going on, and he needed to find some pants.
Not necessarily in that order.