Stupor

 He crawled back up into his meat, struggling unwillingly out of the abyss of his drunken stupor. He wasn't even sure of being awake, but, without opening his eyes, the daylight coming into the room was already giving him a headache. He laid motionless on the couch as his consciousness eased into the steady ache of his body. After what seemed like hours, he opened his eyes and stared at the lazily-spinning ceiling fan.

Thought came sluggishly, coaxed and lured half-dead out of the same depths he'd just left. Screaming as loud as he could without opening his mouth, changing his breathing, making a sound or making any other outward effort, he turned his head toward the window. The sunlight burned, stabbing straight to the center of his head. Afternoon.

Memory crept sullenly out of the shrinking void, making it way through the lancing pain, the booze haze, the desperate disinterest. The room started to clarify into it's two-dimensional state. He raised his right arm, stared at the bright, skeletal metal lattice extending from his elbow, the wires and tubes and plastic and rubber. As with every other day, the same pieces fell into the same places as if in slow motion. He reached up with his left hand, tapped his right eye.

New agony sliced into his head as his artificial eye reconnected. He went blind in his good eye as the fake orb delivered white, undifferentiated visual data. He laid there, suffering again as the implant's firmware resolved its input. White pain resolved in a series of gradients into a recognizable rendering of his living room. The pain faded from it's pinpoint in his head back into his body in general, focusing vaguely in his eye socket and his right arm. He opened his left eye again and let it absorb his surroundings and readjust.

“You know, Odin, one of these days you're going to wake up dead.”
He struggled onto his side, his entire body objecting to the pain of movement, and focused on his visitor. The occupant of his recliner appeared human, but his body registered a much lower body temperature. Machine operation.

“So... what does the Company want from me today?”

His new friend frowned. “Interesting. You don't even ask who I am. Is this procedure all that common?”

“Well...” He sat up slowly, swiveling upright on the loveseat. “... After a couple of years of 'procedure,' the process begins to take shape. For instance, as often as they are destroyed, the Company sees fit to send the same model of android to assignments.”

Leandro stared at him for a moment, then stood up with inhuman grace. “Well, be that as it may, I am here, and I know you. We have work to do.”

Shadows to Life

A sudden groan from above them was the only warning Helix needed; he launched himself sideways into the wizard as a segment of the balcony above crashed down. The witchlight bounced off to the side and flickered as they both lost concentration, and for a moment, the remaining light grew hazy and unfocused. The chattering of the Hobyahs suddenly exploded into screaming chaos, like a storm wind, and Helix screamed as shadows drifted across his outflung arm. He lunged back in time to recover a stump; his arm just below the shoulder was gone.

“Hooooh... hoh... hoh... hoh...”

The sound boomed throughout the theater, deep and gravelly. I was almost below Helix's hearing as it rolled around the expanse of the room, but the Hobyahs became silent. He struggled up to his knees, trying to stop the blood pouring from his shoulder with his remaining hand. 

“Hoooh hoh hoh hoh hoh hooohhhh...”

It reverberated in Helix's skull, chattering his teeth, as he started to lose consciousness. Above him, he saw the Unbeliever, witchlight in hand, swing his arm around the room. Searching. The fae light faded with Helix's awareness.

“Hoh hoh hoh hoh hooooohhh...”