The first sense to return was touch. More specifically, it was feeling. Feeling every nerve ending aflame.

It was not a slow awakening, and far from a pleasant experience. He could not remember the moment he awoke, nor if he had ever truly been unconscious. He was simply aware. Aware of the searing pain that lanced through his entire body. Every nerve was on fire. His skin felt like he had been dipped in acid and left in the sun to bake. Or maybe it was the other way around.

Just as he heard his own painful groan, he instinctively knew it was a bad thing. Deep in the recesses of his mind, just out of reach, he knew why. Unfortunately, his working brain cells couldn't catch the reason and had to make due. So he struggled to breathe through the pain. He ground his teeth to silence the groans and forced his lungs to take deeper, slower breaths. What little Calm he could summon only marginally dimmed the haze around his consciousness, but emphasized each and every ounce of pain.

Vaguely, he remembered telling wounded people that pain meant they were still alive and among the living. So that was good, right? It meant he wasn't dead. Not yet anyway. Or was there actually pain in the afterlife? Did one just simply remain as one had died, to exist in pain for all eternity? That terrifying and depressing thought echoed in his mind, burning through his consciousness, and only escalated his building panic.

His breathing hitched, and he had to redouble his focus to maintain steady breathing, causing his lungs to burn for his efforts. The burning, raw sensation in his lungs and throat was familiar, however, from nearly drowning a number of years ago. Before he could fall into the memory, he forced it away. He needed to focus on his current condition and situation, not get lost in the past.

To evaluate his situation, he needed to open his eyes.

He instantly regretted the decision. A new level of pain ricocheted down his ocular nerves and bounced around his skull like a stray bullet. He tried to raise an arm to block the light, but could not. He was restrained.

Forget building panic. That pushed him over the edge; Instant panic. He did not notice his increasing heart rate, nor his lungs taking faster and shallower breaths. He did not feel the sweat erupting across his body, cascading off him in rivulets.

Despite the pain the movement caused, he raised his head. His right arm was encased by a primitive plaster cast, attached to the railing with a manacle. The left hand was encased in leather straps at the elbow and wrist holding it down to the armrest. The armrest was bent down at an odd angle. Between the angle and the straps, he couldn't see the damage clearly. A nasty, jagged, red laceration - clumsily and poorly sutured - spanned the distance between the straps, marring what little skin he could see.

An infection was all he needed to top this shit-sundae. And that cut definitely looked infected. His arms were throbbing in time to his heart beat. For that matter, his head was still pounding, growing worse with each moment. Every muscle in his body screamed at the earlier abuse, refusing to obey him. He pulled against the restraints, knowing this was not a Conclave med center.

His muscles began to convulse in painful ripples below his skin.

The pain in his head inexorably grew with each pounding of his heart. So too did the spasms. Blackness closed in as unconsciousness threatened to take him under again. He blinked his eyes as true primal panic began to set in, but only blackness greeted him.

He heard mangled and echoed voices, as if coming from underwater or through several walls, echoing perpetually through his skull. A shrill beep issued twice, followed by severe cold that raced up the inside of his right arm.

Think, Saedah. He told himself. Just as his brain started firing on all cylinders, an electronic hiss issued from behind him. The sound was that of a shuttle or ship door lock. He was in transport. How long had he been unconscious?

Two sets of footsteps and a rhythmic tapping announced his visitors.

"Ah, he's 'wake." An elderly male voice whispered with a harsh, slurred accent, coming to a halt outside Saedah's line of sight. The tapping also ceased. Perhaps. "Please inform ta lady." His thick-as-slag accent drew out the 'a' in lady and mangled everything else. The door hissed again as the second person left. No tapping. So, the person with the cane was the geezer. Saedah still could not see the male. "I see ye've been dosed. Good ta know ta mix don kill ya. We fixed most o' ta damage ta yer hand an' arms. Ta bones o' yer left were..." he scoffed instead of describing it, "An' ta right 'un needed some fixin's. Nasty trackers. " he chuckled.

The old man looked like a chunk of swiss cheese that had grown arms and legs, then plopped a mop on its head. His crooked but brilliantly white teeth were on display with… was that supposed to be a smile? It was more a display of aggression, like the mountain wolves on Oon'Aryx. The thing's nose was massive. It looked like someone had played darts with his face. Poisoned darts, if the massive swollen spots were anything to go by.

In a word, repulsive.

"Oh, an' don'tcha be expectin' ta nodes ta work, neither. thay's been..." he paused as he leaned well into Saedah's personal bubble and flicked the straps restraining his right wrist. "Disabled."

Saedah's heart dropped. The nodes connected his armor to his body; to his nerves. That was what granted him the strength, endurance, and sensitivity of his Skin. Without the Skin… And the tracker… He was royally hosed.

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The door opened again and a woman stepped around the table, silent as the vacuum of space. She was dressed in a black battle suit, hair tied back in a severe low bun, helmet under her left arm. The helmet, chest piece, and pauldrons bore the blue eagle and twin red spears of the central colony naval spec ops; two bars in silver marked her as corporal. In a smaller ornamentation, she bore the twin snakes, circled and eating the tail of the other, pierced by the central sword with two flanking arrows.

Mercenaries.

"Why, hello!" she crooned, cheerily. "How is our fomenter?" She leaned over him and met his eyes. Those cold, dead brown eyes. That single fleck of blue. He'd already met this woman.

"R'covering nice-like. All bios in good range." the monitor behind him chirped in protest of his speeding heart. "Save for that un'..." he muttered. "Want, I should sedate him?"

"No need, Mohegan." her smile turned sinister, "I need him coherent."

That's when the woman started poking and prodding his various injuries. She started with his left arm.

"I think it's time for a proper introduction. My name is Akumini. You will call me Lady or Lady Akumini."

Saedah scoffed. Like hells he would.

"It's unfortunate that you lost some digits." She righted the armrest. "Mohegan, get this fixed."

"Aye, Lady." He bowed a few too many times and the woman rolled her eyes. Nauseated at the man's groveling, Saedah refused to even think of her 'title'. Quickly, however, the two vanished from his thoughts. He stared at his mangled hand. His thumb, pointer, and middle fingers were swollen and unresponsive. His ring and pinky fingers, though? gone.

They were just... missing. Red and black stained gauze rested where his knuckles should have been.

"Yes, it's ugly, but we couldn't have you get a blood sickness," she smiled at him and squeezed his hand.

His vision went black and a different, biting, world-shattering pain raced up and down his left arm, followed by a feminine voice shouting "shock".

Strange, how through the haze, that single word broke through. With that one word came some idea of what it could mean.

Death. Shock could mean death. But judging by the cool and biting creep along his veins, someone was doping him. So, death wasn't likely.

Pity. He thought, thinking death the better option.

Wait. Why was that a pity? He should want to live, right?

Shock. He was in shock. The lady said so. Was she a medic?

Why was he in shock?

Did he wreck his bike again? He'd done that once, right?

No. That wasn't it. Memory kept just out of reach. Taunting him with little snatches.

Vorn. Requiem. Citram. Penance. Mac. Flux. The others.

Red dresses.

Red floors.

Wait. Blood. The floor wasn't red. The floor was covered in blood.

His blood?

Yes, that's it.

He hadn't wrecked his bike. He'd ridden a desk through a freaking grenade.

He blinked again, thinking it odd that he had come to lucidity so fast. But he was greeted by a faint strip of light outlining one wall of a small, white cell.

His new cage was hardly large enough for the urinal and cot, with only about two feet between the right of the cot and the wall.

The room was roughly 8 feet by 5 feet. He was 6'2". His feet were hanging off the cot and resting on the toilet seat.

Gross.

He attempted to sit up and three things became alarmingly apparent. First, the pain washed over him, churning his stomach and blurring his vision, letting him know that sudden movement was a bad idea. Second, the manacles around each wrist and ankle, all connected from below the cot, gave him very limited mobility. Third, the piss poor surgery on his left arm to repair the mangled mess, left it little better than a disfigured claw.

That arm was badly infected, with so much nerve and muscle damage that he couldn't make a fist. He was still missing two fingers, with the bonus of the newly missing tip of his thumb.

He stared in abject horror for a long while. He just stared at the hand, seeing the stitches, puss, and swelling. His flesh was a grotesque mixture of reds, blues, and greens. The worst part of it was the horrid smell.

Death might well have been the better option.

The lights along the bare wall flared. After a wave of nausea and a renewed headache, he saw where he was. The entire length of the 'wall' was actually the door. It was clear and quite obviously monitored. A circular monitoring desk sat surrounded by similar cells. The ones he could see were dark.

Guess I'll be squatting with an audience then? He thought derisively, looking at the toilet. His lips peeled from his teeth in a silent snarl.

He was still lying on the cot. The lights were growing brighter, stoking his nausea more and more until he was forced to curl on his side and heave onto the floor of his small cell.

Unfortunately, the only thing to come up was the thick, yellow, acrid bile of an empty stomach.

"Tsk, tsk. That's no way to greet us." That seven-suns blasted voice. "You've been... Resting... For quite a while now. I fear I had quite given up on you. After all, it has been... what, a month?"

his breath hitched and he fought to control his features. A month? a sparking month? Where was his cadre? Where was he that they couldn't find him?

"Oh, don't fret, my pet. I'll make life tolerable, so long as you cooperate. And if you don't? Well... Let's say that I will definitely enjoy what little playtime I can get."

The megaphone in the room clicked silent, then back on.

"Oh. Before I forget: you will spill your Intel on Conclave. That's a promise." she blew a kiss at him through the glass before reaching to turn the speaker off again.

"I don't know what you're talking about, bitch." He rasped, hardly above a whisper, in a voice that was so gravely and dry that the words were near unintelligible.

His captors had, nonetheless, gotten the gist. The megaphone began issuing a shrill, ear splitting screech as the lights went out once again. A continuous 'nails on chalkboard' kind of screech. Or a knife on porcelain. The cuffs restraining him buzzed as they were released and clattered to the floor.

He was left with nothing but to attempt to block the noise. There was no pillow or blanket, so he covered his ears with his hands.

Trying not to let his stomach start heaving again, he curled in on himself, away from the now opaque window.