Nico's eyes fluttered open, and the world blazes in pain long before shape, light, or sound settle in his mind.
His skull feels like it's cracking inside, as if someone struck him with a hammer.
For a moment, there's only darkness and the roaring headache, and a sickening lurch of vertigo that pitches him sideways.
"Urg...!" He groans in pain, trying to orient himself.
His sense of direction is messed up, up feels like down, left like right, and it feels like he's falling down.
He tastes rust and something cold in his mouth, or maybe it's the air. The air is dry, stale, and hollow.
His lungs inflate slowly, taking a sharp intake of breath, but each breath rasped past his cracked lips.
Then, with agonizing delay, motion returns.
He draws his hand toward his face. His fingers were trembling. He blinks, but when his eyelids part, light shreds through blackness in shards.
Pale, dull, flickering.
At first, he sees nothing.
A pinpoint of faint dark grey, then the rough texture of stone beneath him.
Cold and damp. He flops onto his back, his muscles numb, and his head pounding like a drum in a cavern.
Vertigo shrieks; the floor tilts. He clamps his eyes shut again, and when he opens them, he is looking up at iron bars.
Bars. Not a window but a single grated aperture high above him. Beyond it, darkness. The walls closed around him like sharpened teeth.
He shivers; cold isn't a surprise. The nakedness he felt afterwards is. The cold air bit at his skin, and the fact that he was lying on the stone floor did not make it any better.
Chilling shame and panic twist through his spine. He crawls to his hands, his chest heaving. The breath whimpers out slowly, shallow.
He was naked, hungry, and exposed. Not the best way to wake up.
He flexes his hands. They looked foreign: The fingers were too long, the wrists too thin. His skin was whiter than he remembered.
The bones beneath protrude just under the surface.
He presses his palm against the stone floor, noticing, his arms are bone and muscle fade. Too skinny.
A memory flashed in his mind.
Bang!
The moment he was shot, straight in the head.
He flinches, his body trembling from the memory. The moment was deeply ingrained in his mind with terrifying clarity.
I'm not dead?
He reached for his head, but the rattle of chains caught his attention. One on each wrist, metallic links weighted with years, maybe.
He lifts further, and cold confidence turns to rattling panic. He's chained to something: the chains dangle, anchored to something he can't see. Surely he can't be free to move far.
He puts a hand to his temple, his fingers feeling the spot where the bullet had landed. No sign of a mark.
Not like he was expecting any.
'Was it all a dream then? But then, where am I?'
The thought struck him like an answer he did not want. Something told him he had definitely died there.
'But then, what happened afterwards?'
He sits up, groggy, knees buckling beneath exposed ribs. He shivers, and then he becomes aware of his hair, long, thick, black.
It trails across the cold floor behind him. He pulls a strand before his face. It curves downward in a heavy wave.
He jerks back; that shouldn't be. 'My hair… it was always short.'
He wraps his hand through the length and pulls at it, the shock of missing memories jolting through his brain:
He wanted short hair last time he looked in a mirror. Now the length tangles coldly against the stone. He curls it around his fingers like a tether to something lost.
The dim enclosure is silent except for the hiss of his breath. He strains to remember—street corner, blood, an alley—faces. But there's only darkness, then repetition.
He rises, pulling at the chains. The weight jangles in resonance with ragged heartbeat. The metal is old.
He inches along the uncaring surface. The chains dig cold at his skin as friction hisses between link and link.
He moves inch by excruciating inch until he brushes the wall. A breath of dust rises. He presses a palm against it, mold, cold moisture, limestone cracks.
He wants to scream, but the sound might echo to someone outside. He holds.
The vertigo eases a little; focus sharpens. His vision darkens but then readjusts. He looks down at his body.
Sunken chest.
Grooves carved into ribs. No scars, no tattoos. No fiber of clothing. He remembers fabric. He was clothed. But where?
He rubs his cheek. His skin, thin, tight. He feels the bones of his face more than the flesh. He touches his jawline; his cheekbones seem exaggerated now.
He climbs awkwardly, pulling himself upright via the chains. He stands so slowly that sweat pours onto the cold stone before he disables a faint tremor.
He locates the edge of the cage: bars thick as thighs, set in a circle so tight he can just turn slowly inside.
He takes a cautious step and shifts. The chains allow just a few feet of motion.
He moves toward one narrow gap, just enough for fingertips to touch something beyond the bars.
He slides his fingers forward. The metal rings clink and rattle, echoing into the gloom.
His fingertip brushes the rim of a metal basin outside the cage. He drags it closer, dragging along the tethering chain.
It hits his fingertips.
Cold. Damp. He leans into it.
The basin shakes slightly. Whatever sound it makes is swallowed by distance. He lifts it. The steel scrapes the stone like a second heartbeat in the dark.
He lets it fall back. Every clang of metal makes him wince, pain and shame twist in his gut.
Why is he here? He tries to piece together fragments: A mission? A fight? A prisoner exchange? But his memory is a blank screen.
Later, or maybe sooner, he becomes aware of a shape shifting through the gray gloom: a figure in the corridor just beyond one set of bars.
He hears footsteps, soft, deliberate. Something drips from overhead grids, clattering far away. He freezes. His heart hammers in his rib cage.
Oslo. He stares at the corridor and fights to steady himself. He holds his breath further. The corridor empties but for shadows, but a voice echoes.
Nico's head snaps toward the sound. He struggles to push himself forward.
The chain yanks taut as he lurches; he falls backward onto his knees. His palms strike hard against the stone. The impact radiates up his arms.
Silence.