You woke up terrified. In all honesty- you didn't know what you had expected. It wasn't like it was going to go smoothly anyways. Not when you woke up on a strange bed with white sheets that made your eyes hurt. The room around you was cold and unfamiliar, and even though it seemed to have somewhat of a homey atmosphere, it still wasn't yours.
You weren't drunk the other night. You didn't drink alcohol. In fact- you had sworn against it after you saw what it could do to affect people negatively. You weren't of age and you had someone else to take care of. Speaking of which- where was your brother?
You were here- in this strange room, scared out of your wits and without any memory of the day before, so where was your brother? Was he taken somewhere else? Were the two of you kidnapped? Nothing made sense.
You tried to focus on everything around you. It was an infirmary of sorts. One that you would normally find in a school or maybe a glorified daycare. There were two beds, with you on the one closest to the wall and a dark blue curtain separating you from the rear of the room. A large poster hung on the wall in front of you, showcasing someone who looked vaguely like blonde, buff superman.
You had no clue why someone might have given him a poorly done dye job, but you couldn't bring yourself to question it. It only took a few moments to figure out that the person on the poster wasn't superman. It was a character from an anime you could've swore you watched in your early high school years. You didn't recall his name, but you vaguely remembered that he was someone important.
Why an anime poster be hanging in a school nurses office was beyond you. Perhaps whoever was in charge was fond of the show and wanted to decorate to give the kids something to look at. Nothing seemed too far off. It was almost normal, even if it wasn't where you were supposed to be.
But that didn't make you any less scared. Regardless of the familiar poster, you were still in an unknown location. Your anxiety only grew worse when you noticed the utensils on the cart next to you. The idea of this place being a school was quickly thrown out the window at the sight of a scalpel. What kind of school required a scalpel? and a drill? Was this a hospital? Why would you be in a hospital?
If there were tools next to you, then did that mean that someone had performed surgery? You quickly raised a hand to your head, heart beating out of your chest as you felt around for bandages that (thankfully) weren't there. You let out a breath of relief, and went to undo the top of your footie pajamas when you realized that you were no longer wearing them. Instead, you were dressed in a plain white shirt and some grey sweatpants that might have once been considered soft.
You started panicking all over again. The constant switching between being anxious and somewhat calm wasn't healthy for your mental state, and you quickly felt your breath picking up as tears stung against the back of your eyes. Someone had changed your clothes for you. Someone had potentially performed surgery on you. How they had done it without leaving a wound was beyond you, but there was still the possibility and it drove you insane.
Or maybe they hadn't done anything yet, but we're planning to. Maybe that's why the tools had just been left out carelessly. It was almost like you hadn't been expected to wake up yet.
Someone's going to hurt you, a voice crooned in the back of your head. Someone's going to come through that door and hurt you. They're going to do something to you and you're never going to come back from it. They'll hurt you and then you'll die and never see your family again. You're never going to be able to go home. They're going to hurt you they're going to hurt you they're going to-
You clutched at your head. This wasn't the time for your anxiety to make you overwhelmed. You needed to get out. You clenched your teeth, standing up with trembling legs and testing your weight. You could walk fine. That was a relief. You took a teetering step forwards, clenching your fists around the bars of the cart to try and steady your shaking. You took a deep breath, closing your eyes.
You needed to keep yourself grounded. There was no other way to make sure that you could think things through rationally. You took another deep breath, trying to keep your mind from continuously reeling. First, you would get out of this place... wherever this place was. Then you would have the breakdown that you clearly deserved.
It still bothered you that you couldn't remember the day prior. You were a naive person who tended to overlook certain things and aspects of people, but that didn't dignify your sudden memory loss. You tried to backtrack, the furthest you could remember being when you fell asleep, pushing your academics to the side in favor of binge watching a new show on Netflix.
You slowly tried to go further, but it was like your brain had been fogged. You could remember bits and pieces now, but they were hard to reach- like you were grasping at straws. You furrowed your brows, frowning as you slowly pieced together what you could. You had been sick. You woke up feeling drowsy and thoroughly drained, so you listened to music while making breakfast. When you figured out that your brother was still with your parents, you were torn between being relieved and concerned. You tried to push the thought to the side, not wanting to dwell on it any further lest you begin to freak out all over again.
After that... did you sneeze? You could've swore you had done something of the sort, and that it resulted in whatever strange fever dream this was. And then you remembered gangster Mickey Mouse.
You laughed- a high pitched noise that sounded anxiety driven and crazed. Were you still seeing hallucinations? Was this a hell brought to you by your own fears and compendium of self destructive thoughts?
You didn't want to stick around to find out. You took another step forwards, inhaling deeply as you mentally prepared yourself for whatever happened next. You walked towards the door, swiping your phone off the counter that it had been left on. You didn't have it in you to question why it had been there in the first place, but came to the conclusion that someone had searched you before changing your clothes. It was a disturbing thought, and you tried not to let yourself grow nervous at the thought of accidentally running into the person who could've done it in the first place.
You opened the door before you could stop yourself, taking a step back into the hospital room when you saw the long hallway before you. If not for the bright lighting, it could've been something straight out of a cheesy 80's horror movie. While that seemed entertaining, it wasn't half as thrilling to live through it.
The doors lining either side of the hallway were huge- reaching up to the ceiling like spider's limbs. There were numbers on them as well, ranging from one to three and with various letters of the alphabet.
You cautiously walked down it, taking tentative steps as if the floor would crack and make you fall to the ground below. You squared your shoulders, a determined look masking anything else you might have felt as you stalked down the halls. For now, you would be untouchable. As far as anyone was concerned, you were meant to be here. As long as you faked confidence, no one would know.
It wasn't like it was going horribly. The halls were barren and empty, and you could imagine them being swimming with life earlier in the days. You didn't know what time it was, but whenever it was, there was no one here. Or so you thought. You were completely alone with your thoughts until someone stumbled in front of you.
That might not have been so alarming if they had come out of a classroom. Unfortunately for you, life wasn't that simple. The man before you had phased through the wall. You stumbled back, mind completely confounded at what it was trying to process. He stared at you with a grin, as if the occurrence was something normal for him, and you gaped, stumbling backwards.
"Woah! Watch yourself! You could fall," he said, holding out a hand to grab your arm when you nearly lost your balance.
You blinked, stuttering out something that sounded ineligible. You couldn't think properly. The blond boy in front of you had just walked through solid stone and didn't even flinch.
"Don't fucking touch me!" You finally spat, recoiling and trying to make yourself smaller than you actually were. You didn't know what the fuck was going on. Maybe you were right- you were still in that hallucination. You just needed to figure out how to snap out of it so you could go home and not worry about... any of this.
You weren't the type to curl into a ball and make yourself disappear when you were scared. You lashed out- trying to hurt everyone before they were able to hurt you. It was a fruitless way of trying to prove your worth in a world full of people who knew more than one way to take advantage of that. This was one of those situations. Whoever this guy was, he was good at using whatever fucked up ability he had. He had the clear advantage, and your only ace was that he had no clue who you were.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you! I know it's kinda scary when I just pop out of no where," he said with a sheepish grin, still unfazed by the fact that you were torn between socking him in the face and making a run for it.
He looked strong. There were muscles underneath his grey and green uniform, and he was taller than you. You could only hope that you were faster as you turned tail and booked it back to the nurse's office. You prided yourself in being fast for someone who didn't classify as an athlete. You were nimble and had quick reflexes, and you were smart enough to know when a situation had grown out of your control. While you weren't manipulative by any means, you did know how to turn something in your favor.
You heard footsteps behind you- the boy calling out as if he was concerned, but you ignored it, ducking back into the room you had come from and barreling back onto the bed in the furthest corner. Maybe, if you were lucky, you could trick yourself into thinking that as long as the curtain hid you from sight, he was unable to detect your presence like you did when you were younger.
Nope, you chanted in your mind as you replayed the sight of him moving through the wall. Nope nope nope nope nope nope.
This whole situation was abberant and borderline disturbing. First, you had woken up in a hospital bed, with strange tools around you and no wounds- to your knowledge. Then you'd tried to get out of here, only to run into a man who had fallen through stone. Your only memorizes leading up to this was an unknown sickness and a creature that looked like Stuart Little if he had been mauled by a tiger. If this really was a delusion, you were going to have to find a therapist for the things you were seeing.
What if you're trapped inside your own head? The voice purred again. What if you're making things up and cant escape this? What if you're going to die here and then kill your real body?
Shut up, you hissed back. The voice did in fact have a given name. She was the personification of your intrusive thoughts and the bane of your existence. Her name was Susan- and Susan was a fucking psycho. You loathed her as a child would loathe eating vegetables. You had only given her a name as a way to make sure that you could insult her after she insulted you. It was a trick given to you by one of your old therapists, who you were pretty sure had been on drugs the entire time you were seeing him. But his tricks worked, so you never reported it.
You were still cursing out Susan when the door opened again. You froze in your tracks, unable to fathom the fact that there was now another person in the room. You prayed that it wasn't the blond from before. You didn't know how you would handle seeing him again- especially after the wall bending shit he pulled. All of a sudden, the scalpel at your side seemed very useful. You slipped it into the pocket of your sweats when you were sure that whoever had entered wasn't going to check on you right away.
When the person finally pull back the curtain, you braced yourself, angling your body towards the door in case you had to get out of the situation. As far as you were concerned, this wasn't some random sci-fi movie and you weren't in an alien ship about to be probed. Thankfully, the figure who had revealed themselves wasn't the blond- nor was it the rat from before you passed out.
Instead, there was a short old lady with long grey hair secured into a bun on the top of her head by a... was that a syringe? There was a needle sticking out of her hair. And another one that she was using as a walking stick. You backed away on instinct, hand reaching for the scalpel that you had just put away.
"Ah, I see you're awake, deary. You gave Mister Togata out there quite the scare. Are you feeling alright?" she asked, waddling towards you.
Her voice was creaky, as you would've expected it to be because of her age, but the look in her eyes told you that she was far from frail. Despite her appearance, you didn't doubt that she could hold her own. And because of that, you really didn't want to take your chances, regardless of the small knife in your pocket. You doubted that it would do anything against the giant needles she was holding.
"Where am I?" You asked lowly. You were cautious- as any sane person would've been. You assumed that Mr. Togata had been the boy you had run into- or rather the boy who had run into you. You were still on edge, your stance and posture a clear giveaway that you were far from relaxed.
She looked confused for a moment, but it faded quickly as she began speaking again. "Ah, I was told that you might have some issues with your memory. Fear not, you're in good hands. We're currently in the hospital wing of UA High School, located in Japan. You gave the principal quite a scare when you appeared in his office. I assume you have a teleportation quirk of sorts?"
You were in Japan? How did you manage to get all the way over there? And you were in a high school? Had you been drugged? And what the fuck was a quirk? The word itself seemed familiar- like you'd heard it before, and you vaguely remembered feeling the same type of deja-vu when looking at the buff blond superman poster in the corner.
You froze when it finally hit you. There was a strange sense of consternation that overtook your thoughts when the weight of the situation finally settled onto your shoulders. You had managed to land yourself in an anime that you hadn't actually watched since your final years of middle school- or had it been the beginning of high school? Either way, it had been years. If you were tripping, why would your mind have brought you here? There wasn't any valid reason that you could think of. Sure, you had found an interest in the plot for a while, but it hadn't overtaken your life like other things had.
"I'm in Japan," you finally repeated, mouth having gone dry. You licked your lips, trying to keep yourself from laughing at her. "And I didn't hallucinate the guy who walked through a wall."
You ran a hand through your hair, closing your eyes with a deep inhale. You were not going to panic yet. Especially not in front of some weird old lady who thought it was trendy to carry around needles.
You were going to have a panic attack. You could already feel it start to creep up on you- everything that you had tucked into that box in the corner of your mind finally bubbling up to the surface in a flurry of frustration and despair. Your chest grew tighter, and Susan whispered more haunting things into your ear. You hugged yourself, willing the tears that had once again found themselves springing to your eyes not to fall.
The older woman took another step towards you, and you held your hands out, momentarily forgetting about the scalpel as you bared your teeth, trying to get her to back away from you. "Don't come closer. Just lea-"
Your words cut off as your voice cracked, giving into your emotions. She took another step towards you, and you scrambled backwards. She hummed with a frown, holding her hands up as if trying to sooth a rabid animal. "You look panicked, dear. I'm just trying to help."
You shook your head rapidly, tears finally falling down your face and onto your lap as you took up in deep breaths to stifle the hiccuping sobs erupting from your throat. You were stuck in a place that was now where remotely near your home, in a world that you remembered reading about years ago, with a lady carrying syringes trying to console you as if she wasn't carrying around a giant weapon.
You were in an anime. You were either in a coma- which you almost hoped was the truth- or you had managed to find yourself crossing dimensions. You were freaked out. This topped the list of stupid shit that had happened to you. It was worse than the time you and your best friend had broken into a construction zone to take pictures and has gotten caught, and it surely beat the time that said best friend stole a basketball out of a random car so you could play together.
People had superpowers here. You could easily get killed if you weren't careful. For all you knew, any of the people here were capable of harming you, even if their moral standpoint was against such a thing.
Ground yourself, you chided. This wasn't the first time you had been through a panic attack, and it certainly wasn't going to be the last.
While the lady in front of you tried to help by getting you to calm your breathing and focus on your surroundings, you took it upon yourself to do what you did best- which was look at one thing in specific and try to find the most details you could about it. You decided to focus on the stupid poster. You decided that you hated the piece of laminated plastic, so you had no problem picking it apart, turning your panic into anger driven towards the piece of paper.
The person in the poster had stupid black eyes and giant muscles that the boys at your school would've wished they could have. He had a grin plastered to his face that you had seen movie stars back home use to please the public. The words plus ultra were written in all capitals in bright red print at the bottom of the page, and he seemed to be raising a fist upwards, as if in victory of defeating a fallen villain.
Later... you can cry more later. For now, try to answer the lady's questions.
You took a shuddering breath, shoving your hands in your pockets to hide their trembling, and looked at the woman- who had been regarding you with calculative eyes. You yourself weren't fond of her either, and you bit your tongue before you could tell her as much.
"Are you feeling a bit calmer now?" she asked, holding out a glass of water for you to take. You weren't sure when she had went to go get it, since you had been busy trying to pull yourself out of your state of terror for well over five minutes. Well- it had felt like more than five minutes.
You took the water, eyeing it warily as you sipped it. It was sweeter than you had expected it to be, and you realized too late that it might have been laced with something meant to make you relax. You nodded in response to her question after you had drank the entire thing, trying not to dwell on the fact that you had probably been drugged.
"Where are you from," the woman began. "And can you tell me your name? Only if you remember, of course."
She ended with a chuckle that you assumed was meant to be humorous. You didn't return it. Instead, you wiped your eyes with one hand, making sure that any stray tears had been erased before you trusted yourself to speak. You were still anxious and on edge, but whatever had been in that drink was doing a fantastic job of forcing you to relax.
You stated your home country and name, able to keep your voice level and maintaining eye contact. No doubt, you looked like hell. You almost didn't blame her for being overly sweet with her actions and treating you like a lost child. You had been through a lot just this morning, and she recognized that.
She introduced herself, calling herself Recovery Girl. You knew it was an alias, but something told you that asking for her real name would be strange in your situation. You probably had no use in learning it, anyways. You finally looked past her, taking in the rest of the room. You hadn't looked at it with nearly as much attention to detail as you had before- as you had been preoccupied trying to get out of the building. (A plan which had gone spectacularly, if you said so yourself.)
"Do you have a quirk?" She finally asked, and you hesitated in answering.
Would it really be a good idea to say that you didn't? Of course, it would be even stupider to say that you did. But if anything went wrong- specifically in your knowledge of certain events that were to happen, you could be labeled as a liar and a criminal. You had never been more thankful for the fact that you could keep a secret, and you smoothly told her that you didn't have a quirk- nor did anyone else in your hometown.
While you didn't know much from the show, you knew a few things. You vaguely remembered a few boss fights and deaths that had happened throughout its entirety, and you were pretty sure that you had followed the manga up to some point. You didn't know much, but you knew enough that it could label you as suspicious.
It was her turn to be shocked when she found out that you didn't have a special ability of your own. She quietly excused herself, expertly covering up her surprise with a warm smile. She told you that she was going to go talk to the Principal- the strange animal who's conversation that you had shared stuck with you. You wanted to tell her that you didn't want to see the Principal, but didn't stop her as she left.
Once again left alone to your own devices, you lied back on the bed, draping an arm over your face as you tried to block everything out. Maybe, just maybe, if you pretended that nothing existed, then you would disappear.
It was silent for a while, and you had almost tricked yourself into once again believing that you were dreaming when someone shoved open the door, muttering a few non-vulgar curses as they entered the room. You looked to where the voice had come from, eyes meeting a group of three students a few years younger than you.
The one who had spoken was a boy with brilliant green hair and bright eyes. His image was only ruined by the mangled limbs that could hardly classify as arms. Your stomach twisted at the sight of the purpled flesh, and you nearly gagged when you heard blood drip onto the floor. You had seen a bone stick through his skin before you stopped looking. A bone.
You didn't know what had happened to him to put him into that condition, and you didn't want to know. Not with the image of his injured arms burned into your mind. You had never been the best at dealing with gore or the sight of freshly made injuries- especially not ones that had gotten to that point.
His friends had left by the time he spoke again, seemingly put off by the way you turned away from him. "Do you know where I can find Recovery Girl?"
His voice was high pitched, and when you looked back at his face again, it had lightened to a soft pink. He was flustered, arms draped uselessly at his sides, as if the sight of another girl had caught him off guard. You didn't know why he was so focused on you when his arms were in that state, but you were too emotionally burnt out to question his logic.
"She went to get the Principal," you replied slowly, as if tasting the words passing your lips. It felt weird- to be saying something casually to someone with injuries bad enough to land him in the emergency room for at least a month. You would've told him more, or maybe asked how he had gotten into that situation in the first place, but the woman in question waddled back into the room, two others following in tow.
The first was the mouse you had met before, and you gave a weak smile when he waved cheerily. The other was a tall man in dark clothing and bandages draped across his shoulders, a thin scar adorning his cheek and flowering dark eyes that made you wish you had just left when Togata confronted you.
"If you would follow me this way, Midoriya," Recovery Girl said to the boy, who's name you hadn't caught before. The two left the room, and you were left with the bear-like creature and the dark haired man.
"It's nice to see you awake," the tuxedo wearing creature told you, asking if he had gotten your name right. His voice was just as infuriating as it had been when you had first heard it, and you were equally as shocked at seeing him speak. You doubted you would ever get used to something like that.
"The man next to me is Shota Aizawa. He's one of the Pro Heroes working here as a teacher. We've entrusted him to listen to your... conundrum," the Principal continued, motioning for you to go out the door.
You stilled, the weight of the scalpel growing heavy in your pocket. You were going to keep it- if only to make sure that you didn't end up dead in a ditch somewhere. You got up, eyes never leaving the strange pair.
"We'll talk more in the office," Aizawa said in a monotone voice. He sounded like he was a mixture of exhausted and annoyed, and it made you feel like he already knew exactly what you were planning on doing if the situation turned sour.
And so, without anything else to stop you, you followed them out of the hospital wing, making sure you had your phone and new weapon before the door snicked shut.
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𝘍𝘶𝘤𝘬 𝘚𝘶𝘴𝘢𝘯. 𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘮𝘺 𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘚𝘶𝘴𝘢𝘯.