It was like a clarity had come to Lucca. A dull one blending with a sting of pain all originating from his stomach. It was nothing like the clarity he felt upon his second death in that arena nor was it any pain like Loreia tipping boiled water down his throat and plucking his nails one by one from his fingers and toes until they were left as bloody lumps. It was something much simpler, the feeling of being awake after a long sleep with a body filled with life and energy.

But alongside it all, he felt stiff, like he’d been unmoving for a hundred years stuck eternally in the same position. Creakily, he lifted himself to an upright position, the thick, warm blanket dyed a nice wine red slid down his body to bunch up at his waist.

Turning his head about, he found a sight he’d long since relegated to the far reaches of his mind. His room.

Posters hung on the walls of anime-esque characters he faintly recalled getting from one of those comic cons he’d attended long ago. Pushed against his wall was a decently sized desk, a simple one but high enough that a gaming chair could easily be rolled under it. Though the expensive-looking dual monitor setup was far from what his reserves recalled of his dainty solo screen. Just below it a gaming rig more intricate and RGB than his reserves hummed like the muffled roar of an engine heard from miles away.

His was no such beast, though it had deemed to refute such notions as he recalled naming it turbo after it started sounding like a jet engine taking off. Even with all that noise of fans running, the machine could barely scratch thirty frames on modern games. It was his main reason for being drawn to the more indie side where graphics were optional and actually fun gameplay was a maybe.

There were also wardrobes off to the side, settled close by the desk but as he heard it, a soft, electric whine from his left, he turned to face it. A tall machine, a screen, on it numbers and lines that bounced and dashed like a seismograph.

“Heart rate monitor?…” he mumbled with a cold frown and a squint as if scouring what he could to remember the right word for the machine. Glancing down he saw past his shirt and met the various wires and pads connected all across his body, sensing every low pound of his life muscle.

“I’m… home?” pondering, he lifted a hand, pushed off the blanket but found a small tube hanging over his limb. Following it down to one end he found a latch that kept the hollow and clear plastic tube sealed. When he gave it a light tug he hissed, feeling his stomach lurch like the thing was trying to rip his guts out and released it, not tempted to feel such a thing again.

Trailing down with his other hand, he found the tube went beneath his shirt—a loose, easy to pull on type—and lifted it to continue tracking the tube onto his side where it pierced through his belly and burrowed into his stomach.

“Is this… a feeding tube? Have I been in a coma?” he muttered beneath his own voice.

A frown stole his expression and turned his eyes to half-moons. “This is my real body. When Loki took me he gave me a false body and used my soul to power it… and now I have returned.” Clamping his hands into fists before himself, Lucca paused on the visage that was the back of his hand and brought the other to stroke over the impeccably smooth and lightly hued skin, no scars in sight.

It was miraculous, he even had five fingers, on both hands at that. And the finger that was there still had all their segments and could clamp and release like a normal person.

But it was then that Lucca realized something was off, and he was quick to see what as when he lifted his hands once more, he could see only the whole of his right and only part of his left in his peripheral.

“I see,” letting his right fall, his left rose to his left eye but couldn’t witness even a speck of light, even as he pressed a digit into the orb, felt the squishy and wet sphere he couldn’t even see a stranded worm of opalescence in his darkened view. “Either the loss of my eye in the other world transferred over… or I somehow lost it in the crash… ah… the crash…”

He had no reason to care for it, but now that he’d learned he was alive and that his original body had simply been in a coma, did that mean the others were as well? Was Katelyn comatose?

He wanted to find out.

Before he could even consider putting the thought into motion, his door clicked and slowly opened with a loud, prolonged creak as an unfamiliar woman meandered inside. She was quite mature easily well past her forties judging by the slight rising dimples on her cheeks and the few strands of greys he could see in her unnaturally bright red hair that hung loosely to her shoulders, framing her face of soft, nigh motherly features.

Dressed wisely she wore a peachy cardigan top and light blue jeans and nothing more than some differently coloured socks on her feet. In her hands though, he could see she was carrying with her a large, thick spouted syringe filled with a sick looking paste of light green nearing brown slush inside it. His ‘meal’ he correctly presumed it to be. If something spouted directly into the stomach could be called as such.

Lucca tilted his head with an impassive, neutral degree to his expression as he tried to figure out who the woman was. His nurse? Was his family able to afford a live-in nurse? It would certainly explain why he was here and not in a hospital where actual nurses nursed and also why she was dressed so casually.

As the woman turned her gaze over the room, she soon fell onto him and paused. Her tired green eyes flared open, and they scanned the other. Her expression morphed through numerous phases, the first he could tell was confusion, then shifted to disbelief before finally ending on an excited and beaming smile. Making quick strides, she crossed the room in moments and was soon by his side.

“You’re awake, you should lie down.” Whispering, she set the syringe off to the side so she could guide him onto his back, “give me a sec and I’ll get the bed sorted out for you.” Taking a small, dangling remote she pressed some button or another and soon the back half was rising to meet him halfway, allowing Lucca to rest comfortably in its surprisingly delicate cushioning.

“I’m sorry, but who are you?” he questioned, only now noticing how normal his voice sounded.

The woman nodded and smiled with plump lips, for now. I’m your nurse. We can get into the minutia later when your father gets home from work. Until then I need to give you some breakfast before anything else.” She had already been fiddling with his feeding tube and chuckled lightly as she reached for the syringe of gunk.

“Can’t I eat normally?” he was hopeful.

“No, not for a while. Your digestive tract is likely atrophied at this point. So immediately getting you onto solids would not be very good for you.” He eyed her with one brow raised, this was far from the normal post coma awakening conversation he was anticipating. It seemed awfully lackadaisical and oddly genial.

“We’ll start with some liquids and gradually build up to actual food. Soups and all that, actually… I should prepare some for dinner then. Something smooth…” she muttered to herself. “Anyways, once everything’s going well, I’m sure Henry will be more than happy to get you a nice and large steak.”

‘Henry? That’s awfully personal.' Lucca’s eyes narrowed thinking through the possibilities before immediately coming to one, “you’re dating my father, aren’t you?”

The woman stopped, halting as she pressed the syringe into the tube and opened the lever. A chuckling noise escaped her as she hadn’t been expecting such a strange and astute question. She lifted a hand up, her left, and waggled her finger where a luxurious metal ring wrapped right around her ring finger. “I’d say I’m a little more than dating your father. But as I said, we’ll get into the minutia later. I’ll call him once I’ve gotten you fed, and Catia as well. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to hear you’re not a rotting corpse anymore”

Her own words froze her from plunging down the plunger as she glanced analytically over Lucca’s body. She hadn’t noticed it at first due to him having just awoken, but he wasn’t skeletal anymore. He had meat to his bones and what appeared to be actual working muscles in his arms alongside a few more minute differences like his new scraggly raven hair, a grey orbed eye and another the other that was a shade of white. The only definition in it the slight discolouration where his iris and pupil were, and even then, they were hazed with a milkiness. ‘Wait, white eye?’ her stomach lurched, and she peered deeper into the white orb.

Lucca latched to the name, Catia, it brought a smile to his face, the first in a very long time. She was his littlest of sisters, in that she was his only sister and that she was a dozen years younger than him.

The girl herself was a cutesy one but that was mostly due to her young age, though now Lucca was guessing she’d aged a bit. It didn’t change the hope of him wanting to see the little cinnamon haired brat prancing about, hugging his leg not wanting to let go until he played with her.

“Um, Lucca, if you don’t mind me asking,” the woman seemed to be dancing around something, “can you see this?” he could see her shoulder move and in doing so, shifted her cardigan but he couldn’t see what she was doing with her hand off to the left.

Tilting his eye first to follow down the limb and to her hand, she quickly said, “please keep your head straight. Can you see how many fingers I’m holding up?” concern pulsated through her voice. Strange, especially considering ‘concern’ had been a lacking subject in his life.

“No. I can’t. I’m blind on my left. It’s just dark, without a speck of light.” It made him happy, made him comfortable.

Her expression fell to sadness and she sighed, “I see. That’s… haa… can you give me a moment. I… I need to make a few calls alright?”

He nodded, “go ahead. It’s not like I can stop you either way.” There wasn’t even any point in stopping her.

Giving him a weak, parting smile and made quick work of his room, exiting into the hall with hastened footsteps, shutting it was a slow a squeak as she could. Though faint, he could hear her talking, almost like whispers in his ear, he knew he shouldn’t have, but he could.

“Come on Henry…” she whispered, once his father picked up she perked. “Henry! Listen, he’s awake… Lucca’s awake.” Lucca stared at the door, frowning at the muffled noises of garbled static, “I know, I know, I’m struggling to believe it myself. I mean, it’s been so long… what? Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m going to call Catia now and tell her the news, she’ll probably get here before you do then I’m going to call the hospital…” she paused letting his father speak.

“…I think so hun, I didn’t really give him a proper check-up but all of the atrophy’s gone and he looks as healthy as anything. I think he could be a spark… Yeah, I know. I was hoping so as well. There’s nothing we can do. Just get back here and we’ll delay calling the association for a while and just let him settle in and get used to modern life before letting those hounds near him…”

‘I’m a spark?’ Lucca questioned himself. It was an unfamiliar term, at least, in the way she was using it. The same to be said for Association. The connotations were simple enough, a group of people joined together under one roof. Though what exactly this association was an association of, it eluded him.

“Listen Henry. We can talk more when you get back. Just… no, never mind. I’ll tell you when you get here… Love you too, drive safe.” When the call ended she let out a harsh breath and quickly tapped in another number, Lucca just able to hear the faint and familiar electronic ringing noise of the machine calling.

“Hey. Catia…” she let Catia bare her greetings, “listen to this and try not to blow out my eardrum, but… Lucca’s awake.” In precisely a single second Lucca could imagine the woman lurching as the sound of a gibbon on autotune wailed from her hand before it was quickly cut away as the line went dead.

“Oww…” whining, she held her ear and re-entered the room to find Lucca staring curiously at her.

“I’m sure you have a lot of questions about what’s going on and all that, so why don’t I help you answer a few of those while we wait for Henry and your sister to get here?” She rolled up his gaming seat a seated herself gently within it.

He nodded, he had plenty of questions. More than he or anyone could answer. Most though, he knew could never be touched on by a regular human untouched by darkness.

“So, you’re my stepmother then?"