Kuro's head hurts. Like, really hurts.

He wasn’t fully awake, hell, he was barely awake, and that was the first thing he noticed.

“What the hell… “ muttered Kuro. He tried opening his eyes but quickly gave up on it when his head started throbbing even worse than before.

The pain was waking Kuro up much quicker than a cup of coffee ever did, and soon he tried again, more carefully this time.

He winced at the neon sign hanging just above him. His eyes adapted slowly – god damnit his head hurts! – and he noticed a few other things.

First, he wasn’t in his bed. Given the neon sign above his head, he wasn’t in his room or even inside a building. He was apparently lying down somewhere outside.

Second, he wasn’t alone.

If his throat worked properly, and if he didn’t feel like dying, Kuro would have screamed his lungs out at the scally, disgusting tail that was resting across his face. He’d just realize the weight and warmth he felt on his chest did not come a blanket but from a rat.

A fucking rat was on his chest. A rat. Was walking on him.

Okay, now Kuro was wide awake.

The shot of pure adrenaline from the realization allowed Kuro to ignore the pain and to sit up on an elbow. His sudden movement dislodged the rat on his chest, as well as its two friends further below.

“WhAt, thiS is, just, what? What the…”

Kuro’s throat was painfully dry, and he quite couldn’t control his voice. He wasn’t the type to panic easily, but he could tell it was coming. The pain from his head was so intense it was starting to give him nausea. Oh. And his head was bleeding. Nice. Cool. Cool cool cool.

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then another. He then looked around him, wincing a bit. He breathed deeply for a minute or so, assessing the situation.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Kuro was lying on the ground of a dark backstreet, amidst garbage and detritus. His nose was coming back online, and it stunk. It was daytime, but Kuro couldn’t tell if it was morning of afternoon. There were a dozen electrical adds and signs hanging above doors along the narrow alley, providing a bit of light.

Looking a bit further away, Kuro discovered he had even more company than he initially thought. Apart from the rats – there were so many rats – he could see four men sitting on crates and stuff in a circle, fifteen meters away from him. They looked like hoboes, were laughing loudly, and were visibly armed.

Alright. What. The fuck. Is happening.

Kuro was half hidden behind garbage and the four men hadn’t realized he had woken up. That, or they didn’t give a shit.

Kuro didn’t have time to worry about them when a new wave of pain submerged him. This time, along with the pain came… memories?

He was walking across a city that he didn’t recognize, despite it kind of ringing a bell. Except, he moved like he perfectly knew where he was going. He even waved at somebody. What ?

He was eating with a girl. An older girl? But he was twenty-four, and she looked nineteen or twenty, she wasn’t older at all. Yet, she was…? He was familiar with her, despite never having seen her. He was joking with her. They were… siblings? How, I don’t have any siblings!

The pain from his head intensified. Now, he remembered running. He’d fucked up. He'd known there was a risk of being attacked by scavs around here, but generally the local gangs kept these parts safe, relatively speaking. How do I know that…? But today, he caught their eyes, and they were after him.

He was running. Just a bit more and he would get to the bigger streets, where the risk of stumbling upon gangers would make the scavs drop the pursuit. Just a little more.

He remembered sudden pain in his head and falling to the ground. Then, nothing.

Kuro stayed still. He was breathing slowly. He tried to keep calm, but tears were coming up. He didn’t understand. He understood nothing. His head was hurting so bad, he couldn’t think straight.

Right, his head! That was it. It was injured, and that explained everything.

Suddenly it all made sense. Well, more sense. He had a trauma, and that’s where the weird memories came from. Perhaps he wasn’t even lying down in an alley. Perhaps he was in a hospital bed and dreaming all this shit up!

Yes. That was it. It was a bit weird to be this happy at the idea of a head trauma, but that was the only explanation that made sense. Everything was alright. Well, everything was going to be alright. He was in a hospital, being taken care of. Tucked in a nice bed. A sexy nurse was just around the corner. He was going to wake up, and there would be no more rats.

Kuro’s heartrate was starting to calm down. It was the weirdest thing to ever happen to him, hands down, but in the end, it was just a dream. Calm down, man. Think about the nurse.

+10 Endurance XP

…

What.