Prelude

A distant beeping sound echoed through Shiro's head, was someone crying somewhere?
Eyes fluttered open and there next to Shiro was someone on a hospital bed hooked up to monitors with their mother sobbing in the seat next to the bed.

"I wonder who they are," Shiro thinks absently "How did I come to be spacing out next to this person's bed?"

The beeping monitor slows and stops, and as the world falls away Shiro sees the woman sitting next to the bed scream for help, the purple crystal on her necklace almost glowing in the flourescent light.

 As blackness falls the woman looks familiar.

Bright light stabbed into Shiro's eyes like knives energy surges around and resolves into what Shiro's mind takes for florescent lights in the floor as the shadows resolve into the shapes of men in highly ornate robes, some sagging in exhaustion others jumping in celebration.

"Welcome Sir hero!" A man with an air of authority says stepping forward to help Shiro to stand. "I am King Trumdon of the Holy Kingdom and you have come at no small expense to save us all."

Shiro looks down at his unclothed body, something was wrong with it but he could not figure out what. The king gestured and a a robe was place upon Shiro.

Just as the fabric settled a large door at the end of the room, invisible till now, burst open with a girl darting through the opening. Cries of outrage mingled with the frantic noises of a new comer.

Each word pierced Shiro's head like a lance, all pain and no meaning. As he lost consciousness again a wry thought followed him:

"It is going to be really annoying if I keep falling asleep and waking up in new places."