Hurt and Heal (Arknights)

Chapter 1 : Wake up

A/N: New readers be advised. I write long chapters.

Some people would say that one of the most beautiful things about human beings is their capacity for resilience.

Persevering through the ages, sometimes falling, but always getting back up again.

Every day, human beings scrape a living from an ungrateful earth, in a cold, unforgiving universe. Misfortune after misfortune.

Human beings aren't perfect, that's for sure. But no matter what they do wrong. No matter what they go through. There will always be some who will rise again. With a smile on their face, ready to fight again.

And Terra was no stranger to this.

It must have been a day of misery, like all the others on Terra. A city was in flames, and men were tearing each other apart.

But here, in the midst of the fire and mire, a small change was afoot that would have monumental consequences.

----

The pain...

Pain was the only thing he felt, in the midst of all this darkness.

He felt as if he were sinking into the depths of the abyss, no sensation, no thought just terrible pain.

His mind was a broken machine, unable to function.

Hold on...

The darkness lulled him, inviting him to join her.

Please hold on, my champion...

?????: Heart... Loss... Step back!

A shock went through him, a pain comparable to that of being struck by lightning. He slowly felt himself being pulled out of the abyss, while the pain was more intense than ever.

His mind began to reassemble itself. He knew who he was. But what was happening to him? How had he gotten there? Where had he been?

Lord this pain...

Despite the pain, he persisted, trying to regain control of every sense in his body. His mind totally separated from the rest of his body.

?????: It's okay... Circulation has resumed, vital signs are stable... Injection of post cardioplegia solution...

Hearing was the first thing that came back to him. He could hear a young woman's voice and recognize the medical vocabulary coming from her mouth. Was he the one being operated on?

If he was in the middle of an operation maybe that explained all the pain, and the fact that he felt like he was being thrown into darkness. He thought he was about to be swallowed up. His body was at its weakest... So weak that he couldn't even take control of it.

?????: Doktah... Please hold on...

That voice...

Through all the abysses, through all the darkness, he thought he perceived a feigned light.

This voice and this light warmed his body and revived his spirit, like a gentle ray of sunshine at the end of winter from which plants broke out of the snow, this very familiar voice pulling him out of the abyss into which he was plunged.

Soon his consciousness returned to his body. It passed through his brain and soon he could feel everything else in his body, down to every cell. He ran a quick diagnostic and oh, he wasn't disappointed.

His body was in shreds, so to speak: head trauma, cardiac arrest, hypothermia... And to make matters worse, he was under anesthetic. What an idiot had taken this decision... half asleep he couldn't begin his regeneration...