Adrenaline

Keith's Awakening

Keith was in a forest. It was so beautiful and peaceful. The trees were tall and had different hues of brown and green and the sun was shining through the light green leaves. The wind blew his hair from side to side and he looked around and saw his friends standing in a circle with him but they were all children. Keith looked down at himself and saw he was one too judging from his shorter and plumber limbs.

"It's going to happen soon," Coran told all of them with a high pitched but still recognizable voice and Keith found it weird that he didn't find the mustache on Coran's young face strange in any way.

"What's going to happen?" Keith asked. He felt stupid for asking because everyone else was nodding knowingly to Coran.

"Are you sure?" Hunk asked and to Keith's relief didn't look as calm and collected as the rest of his friends. Hunk was wearing his usual clothes shrunk down to fit his new, younger body just like the rest of them were but Hunk's headband was the same size as when he was an adult and it look enormous on him. Keith put almost all his weight on one leg to see behind Hunk and see if the headband reached the dirt and saw that it didn't just reach the ground, it stretched impossibly long behind Hunk and had somehow wrapped the ends around a tree each and brought a different slash of color among all the earthy colors.

"Yes, Keith will wake up in just a few ticks," Coran informed everyone in the circle and made Keith turn his bemused eyes on him.

Wake up? But Keith was awake right now, wasn't he? Logically Keith knew that they could very well have meant someone else but something in him knew it was about himself.

Keith woke up standing. He didn't know how or why but he woke to the sight of glass moving. An invisible push forced him forwards and he fell as soon as he was out of the pod.

Luckily for Keith, Hunk caught him before he hit his head. That would have been bad.

Keith looked bleary–eyed around the room. Hunk was there, obviously, but Pidge and Lance was there too. Allura was standing far away in the door opening and Coran was a step or two in front of her. Keith didn't even get to wonder why Coran and Allura was so far away when he realized Shiro wasn't there. Keith was an adult, he didn't need Shiro to be there and hold his hand as he exited the cryo pod but he still felt a weight fall from his chest and get caught in his stomach when he realized Shiro wasn't just out of his field of vision. He thought they were friends. Keith felt like they were friends or at least close acquaintances, but apparently not.

Hunk gently rightened Keith with a sympathetic smile. "Not so fast. You've been in there for a while."

Keith looked at him for a moment too long before the words made any sense. Huh, he must really have been in there for a while because he was really out of it. He didn't think he had felt like that before, but he couldn't remember if it had been himself or someone else in the pod the last time. He was almost sure it had been him but it could have been Lance or Hunk. Maybe it had even been Coran. Keith wanted to shake all his doubts out of his head but everything was muddled so he didn't know where to start.

Hunk let go of him and he started swaying. It felt like he had two weights on each side that simultaneously tried to bring him off balance but they somehow didn't sync up and left him awkwardly trying to not fall in either direction.

He tried to ask where Shiro was but his tongue felt heavy in his mouth and he didn't think the others understood him when he said, "Wer Shi'o?"

Was this a normal side effect from being in a cryo pod? He didn't think the others had trouble talking besides maybe being a bit slow because of the fatigue they had suffered after being released from their cryo pods. On the other hand, Hunk had said Keith had been in the pod 'for a while', so maybe that was far longer than the others had been in one.