Hawk came around slowly--it wasn't as though he was waking up, more that he started to realize that he was staring at a drop ceiling and fluorescent lights. As the ceiling came into focus, he realized that a voice nearby was chattering on about magical systems and vehicles and an auto body shop.

The room was suffused in a pink cast even with the fluorescents overhead; it looked as though the sun was either rising or setting outside, over a purple urban landscape. The voice, it turned out, was coming from a small television mounted on the wall.

Hawk became aware quite suddenly that he was lying propped up in a bed. He stirred, disoriented--it was a hospital bed. His wings were sort of hanging over the sides, the blanket over him not quite large enough to cover them. There was an IV in one of his arms--arms that were no longer scaly and taloned, though they were raw in places. He touched his face, and found that the mask that had been forming there was gone. He ran his fingers over the gauze pad taped to one cheek, the raw skin at his temple, the spot above his right ear where his hair had been shaved down to the much darker roots.

And then, quite suddenly, he noticed the whiteboard mounted opposite him, below the television. In neat handwritten red marker were directions to ring a bell for help, and drawings of a bell and a cross beneath that. The rest read:

Today is: 02/10/2006
You are at: Hope & Hearth Hospital
2027 N Hollyhock Rd
Enodia, Blackthorn Isle
Symphony Archipelago
Ardh