- Blood's Awakening

At this point, the sun was beginning to set, a little early, but not suspiciously so, on the obsidian-painted tower near the center of the city, known to most as the Naturheim headquarters. Though a few people were beginning to leave, having already completed their work for the day, a few decided to put in some overtime, though many of those had that decision made for them, by someone, or something, outside of their control. One of those busy bees was Princy, sitting in her office, adjacent to the large room Mr. Sundial had on the side of the floor, hers a lot smaller and less fancy. Percy didn't mind the overtime too much, being a very dedicated woman to her position, minor as it may have been at the current time, combined with her dropping the papers that Sundial needed just earlier today, and with such poor timing, too, meant that she had something to make up for. At least, that's how her and her boss saw it. 

The woman had her left hand on her work laptop, her eyes staring into the bright, white screen in front of her, glancing over the text actually on the screen a lot more than she was actually reading it. Her right elbow was positioned on top of her desk, the top of her hand supporting her chin, and the side of her face, as she was thinking, rolling her merigold orange pencil in between her thumb, index and middle fingers. Her mind, though a little guilty from straying from her work, was stuck thinking on the meeting she had been to earlier today, on her own CEO's strange, and even somewhat mysterious state, and the arguably stranger inclusion of Conrad, a man who, despite being fairly important, Percy didn't recall hearing a word from after his conflict with Sundial. The last and weirdest inclusion, though, most innocent, Percy guessed, was the girl that was there already when Percy herself and Sundial entered. 

It was to Percy's surprise, then, that when she looked to her left in response to hearing a knocking on the wall of her office, she came face to face with that exact girl she was thinking of just a moment before, leaning around the open doorway, a friendly smile on her face. "Oh. Uh, hello." The girl's smile widened as she answered, "hi there." She raised a finger, then pointed it at Percy as she guessed her name, "...Percy, right? You were at the meeting on the 49th, no?" Percy found it a little odd that despite the girl's young appearance, her voice was strangely mature, though of course with longer lived races, Percy figured you never really knew someone's age, it still felt strangely off-putting to her, nevertheless, she answered the girl with a small nod as she spoke, "yeah, I was, I uh, I saw you there, right? Sorry, I didn't quite catch your name?" "It's Thea." The girl said warmly, tilting her head a little further. "Would you like to go out sometime?"

"...what?" Percy's cheeks began to flush just a slight shade of red, caught a bit off guard by Thea's sudden question, and definitely by the way she phrased it. Noticing Percy's fluster, the girl explained, "oh, just to get to know you a little, of course! Sundial mentioned he saw a lot of potential in you and I'd like to see for myself, you know?" Thea, reading the room, now approached a little bit, leaning against the doorway instead of against it from the other side. "If you have an important future in the company, I feel like I'd best get to know you, Percy." The girl still had that same orange-red sweater on that she had in the meeting, and her smile was wide, her yellow-ish eyes making Percy feel like she was being pierced, but, in a strangely warm manner. Percy nodded once more "Yeah, sure, uhm, how about this Thursday? 10 in the morning?" "Sounds perfect." The girl said, bouncing herself off of the doorway, "I'll just text you the details, then." Thea then turns around, and begins slowly stepping forward, making fairly small, yet gracious steps.

"Uhm wait-" Percy calls out, her hand instinctively reaching out towards Thea, who was from the beginning too far for Percy to reach anyway. Yet, the girl sticks her head back around the corner of the doorway, now looking far more curious than anything else. "Hm? What's up?" Percy shook her head very subtly, almost like a twitch. "Y-you don't have my number." To this, Thea's face once more returns to her welcoming smile, and says "Oh don't worry about that, I have your details." And with no second of pause, the girl begins to walk away again, the steps of her shoes, probably sneakers of some kind, Percy guessed from their sound, only audible due to the quietness of the now mostly abandoned floor. Percy leaned back in her chair, realising that if she wasn't already completely distracted from her work before, that she definitely was now, the girl's appearance really only answering one question while bringing up many, many more. Mostly, Percy wondered why the girl had her contact information, or, more accurately, she wondered why Thea was on the 49th at all, given the meeting room is very strict on who's actually allowed in, company secrets and all.

"Secrets are never a good thing." David said, looking out the now opened window on the 49th, as large as one of the meeting room's own walls, the city and its many buildings, most below him, and the evening sun, almost dead ahead in its setting. "But, they can be necessary, I suppose." The old man sighed, then leaned back in his chair. The only ones with him in the room now were Gabriel, and his assistant, both standing on the man's left, and a little bit behind him, both solemnly looking out the same window. "Every moment that we do not have the… subject, secured, is one more moment that they could be facing anything out there. For all we know, he's in the hands of some… gang, or terrorists, or who knows what else." The CEO spoke, one arm raised from its armrest, gesturing along with his words. The man then turned to his side, not looking at the duo, but clearly addressing them, "Gabriel, I understand you want to give your contact proper time, and I do agree it is a lead worth letting him pursue, but, I must insist that as he does so, you go through every channel you can, regardless of legality and get the thing back." His voice rose as he finished his sentence, each word coming right from his lungs, from his heart. Gabriel and Nimue nodded curtly, then turned before walking out of the room, the door slowly closing after them before falling close with a soft, cushioned thud. Vassilios took a deep breath, turning his head back to look ahead of him, but his eyes were closed soundly. "God. I shudder to think what could be happening to the company's pride and joy this very second…"

"It's… soft and… warm." The boy thought, his lips trembling subconsciously, his eyes slowly fluttering open, seeing the strange, white room he found himself in. The boy felt he was laying down, but free, not held down or bound by anything, the only pressure on him the weight of the multi-coloured patchy blanket he was laying beneath. The boy's eyes were still mostly closed, squinted at best, and it made everything hard to see. He could tell he was on some sort of wooden, or at least brown bed, from the end of it, which rose up a little into his field of view. There were two pieces of furniture on the left side of the room that the boy could see, against the wall, one of which was probably a closet, and on the right, far corner of the room, seemingly the wooden door, also brown. More to the boy's right was a strange looking, brown and grey object, no, upon further examination it was a chair, with a strange brown and grey object sitting atop of it. "What..?" The boy still thought, too weak to vocalise, but just barely strong enough to make a sound, which immediately prompted the strange 'object' to stand up, placing the book it was reading on the chair it was just sitting on, and the 'object' began to speak, though the boy only barely comprehended the words at all, his mind still hazy. "Oh, hello there." The 'object's voice was deep, but warm, and friendly, and it leaned down with a smile on its weird, rocky face. "You've been out for a while, huh? Would you like a sandwich?"

The boy looked the strange humanoid thing up and down, having trouble understanding exactly who, or rather what, was standing in front of him, his eyes just scanned the thing over and over, trying to see if with more open eyes it would help him understand, but no matter how much he managed to get his eyelids opened, he just couldn't get his mind to see, to understand. The object, still leaning down, having been awaiting an answer this whole time, then continued to speak, "hmm, well uh, how about uhm, this?" Carefully, the humanoid object grabbed a glass of water from what was probably a nightstand to the boy 's right, out of his field of view, and gently raised it to the boy's mouth, very carefully making sure the boy could drink from it if he wanted. "Doctor said you'd probably be thirsty after all this time despite not really being unhydrated." The boy looked at the glass, then back at the object, who nodded with a patient smile, "do you not, want it..?" The boy, then, slowly leaned his head ever so slightly forward, allowing him to get a few sips of the water before leaning back, prompting the object to smile proudly. "There… must be nice to finally have a drink after all this time. Though I guess you didn't really notice all the time, huh? Ah, right, guess I should introduce myself, I'm Callum." Callum set the glass back down on the nightstand then stood back up straight. "You don't need to say anything yet, I get it. Uhm, well, I'd ask you to stay here but I think you're a bit weak for that, eh?" The object chuckled awkwardly as the boy stared at him, curiously, but in an almost emotionless manner. "Guess you can't laugh yet…" The man let out a deep breath. "Well anyway, I'm gonna grab someone, just-just to check in on you, don't worry. Not planning to overwhelm you, here." Callum gently put his large, stone hand on the boy's shoulder, so gently the boy barely felt it at all. "Don't you worry, son, you're safe here. Be right back." 

And so, the boy was left to himself in the room, now finally gathering the strength to move just a little, he inched his neck, looking to his right to see the nightstand, glass of water still atop, along with a stack of a few different books, each book having a bookmark in between its pages, at different points. He noticed there were three books. The one on top of the stack had its bookmark about a third of the way in, the one in the middle was nearly at the end of the book, and the one on the bottom was about half way through. The boy, mostly curious at that point, then looked at the book on the chair, its bookmark a little harder to see, but about 3/4ths of the way through. Aside from the books, the boy noticed a few details about the room, for one, it seemed to be fully inside, or at least, it didn't have any windows, the only light originating from the cozy lamp hanging from the ceiling, illuminating the room pretty effectively for it being just one, yellow, light. 

It didn't take very long, a minute at most, for the stone being to return to the room, slowly creaking the door back open, accompanied by a tall, dark skinned woman in a thin, pale yellow dress that stretched to her ankles, sandals beneath. "There he is! Don't mind taking your time with things, do you?" The woman chuckled, a warm smile on her face as she approached the boy in the bed, leaning in close to him, a small flashlight in her hand which she shone observantly at the boy's eyes, using her other hand to stretch them open and fiddle with the boy's face in other ways he wasn't exactly sure how to describe. "Well, I think you're all good, honey." She stood back up straight, turning the small light in her hand off. "T'was probably just some side-effect of… whatever those corporate weirdos did to you." The woman extended her hand towards the boy, and waited… before moving that same hand down to the boy's, clasping the two together on her own. "I'm Dr. Kanguade, but you can call me Ayani, or Aya, or Doctor, whatever you prefer. After all, I'll be checking up on you quite often, I wager." The doctor spoke with a smile, "people don't often go into a coma-like state for three days, so I need to make sure that what they did to you doesn't harm you further." 

The doctor then pulled her hand back, gently placing the boy's own back on the bed. "So, I noticed you're able to move your neck now. Are you able to speak, too?" The boy looked at her, then focused on the wall in front of him, mustering all the breath he could, but still able only to vocalise a groan, barely more audible than a whisper. A look of pity flashed onto Ayani's face as she noticed the boy's struggle, before she put on a smile, a bit less warm than the last. "Well, don't you worry about it, alright? We'll get you all patched up sooner rather than later." She took a deep breath, then sat down near the lower edge of the bed, continuing. "For now, are you able to just use your head to answer? Nodding for yes, and shaking your head for no?" The boy nodded. "Alright! Do you mind if I ask you a few questions, then?"