> Try moving everything to get a feel for our condition.
>Your neck's stiff. Mouth and facial muscles seem to be okay.
>Shoulders are similarly stiff, which is understandable. All your joints feel like they've been rusted over, or like after a long spiel of heavy armor wearing.
>Waist turns decently, your spine is rather rigid. Your knees bend well enough.
>You gently pull the blanket off you and turn, placing both feet on the floor.
>Cold. White tile in a rectangular pattern. No pressure plates or trip wires, no obvious threats.
>You apply a little pressure, put a little weight down while remaining on the bed. No complaints so far. A little more weight...seems fine.
>So you try standing.
>It hurts a little, it's hard to step, but you can move. Stand, at least.
>The weight of your entire body on your legs is a little staggering. You've never felt this encumbered before, even when you experimented at a time with heavier armors than the light ones you favored.
>This body is...weak. At least in comparison.
>Slow. Step by step. Don't over exert what little stability's left.
>Closer. Nearer. Your left hand reaches out, the joints almost audibly creaking like old hinges.
>Finger tips reach cloth. Your arm moves. The curtain is drawn aside.
>Sun light. Warmth. Comforting rays peeking over the buildings and trees around the hospital, covering you in a loving embrace.
>This world...it isn't dark. Not like Lordran. It isn't cold.
>You smile. It's warm. It's bright. Perhaps a little too bright for you, now jaded and warped by thousands of deaths, but you have fallen in love with it in a way the former you never could have all the same.
>A door opens behind you, and you look ever your shoulder to find two increasingly familiar faces there.
>"A-Alex?" the woman there breathes out, hands white-knuckled and knees shaking. She clings on to the man next to her for support, who's similarly brought to tears. He simply smiles after choking back a sob.
>"W-welcome back son," he says finally.
>Warmth stains your cheeks. You worry that its blood, but surprise yourself when you find tears being shed, just like your mother and father.
>"I...I guess I'm back?" you breathe out, almost not believing the words yourself.
>The tears don't step, even when they both take you up into a truly staggering embrace.
>...
>Weeks pass. Rehab and what not, trying to bring your physical body back up to shape. You push even further still though, mind used to the pain; even if its not possible without the threat of death itself, you want to be as strong as before.
>No bonfires to attune magic with, even if your abilities are compatible. But your soul-boosted intelligence proves immensely useful for catching up the year of curriculum you missed; it's cheating, in a way.
>The fact you still have some of your abilities and the potential for the rest concerns you. Did something bring you back here, whisk you away from your fate as the kindling for the First Flame, for some purpose? Was it the force that sent you to Lordran in the first place? Too many questions.
>You return home after a day at the hospital to find your mother examining a large, wrapped box rather closely.
>"What's that?" you ask, coming up behind her in the living room.
>"A package for you," she starts, running a hand over it. It's large, and somewhat oddly familiar. "But there's no sender."
>Strange...