[center][h2][color=9e0b0f][u]D[/u][/color][/h2][/center]

[color=9e0b0f][i]Come ON![/i][/color]

D's inner voice escalated in intensity; even in his thoughts, the sensation of two voices speaking was inescapable and impossible to ignore. More still, an inexplicable anger was boiling from beneath his skin. He was growing impatient in his waiting. The elevator was lumbering along down from it's prior stop several floors above. The seconds spent as this light atop the door frame dragging along in merciless agony. The irking suspicion that someone or something was intentionally slowing the lift's return to the cryochamber flooding D with a seemingly boundless frustration. The rage was blinding, tunneling his vision so that all but the still closed doors to the elevator was blurred and blotted from his vision.

Even as he tried and failed to surmount his own weight, he clenched as tight a fist as his fingers could manage. A shivering and unsteady arm wound up to punch through the door. He knew it would be the dumbest decision he'd made since removing himself from the pod. [color=9e0b0f]"OPEN UP!"[/color] 

Weak though it was, the fist struck forward in all its bare-knuckled glory. 

And yet, in this moment to his deepest relief, the punch wiffed as the elevator doors pulled open. His closed hand passed through the newly cleared space in front of him. To his shock, he had carried enough of his weight through to throw his whole self forward and into a stutter-footed drop to his knees. The pain of the cold, hard floor rushed through his knees and up his already aching back and into his neck; it was a wake up call if could ever say he had known one. His fury subsided and peeled away into a feeling of exhaustion. 

This was short lived. 

As the dim, haunting light of the elevator escaped into that of the cryochamber, a feeling of fear and pain overtook him. It called him back to his feet, uncaring to the pain and effort it took to do so. The terror exacerbated when he set eyes upon the figure huddled against the wall of the lift. Enveloped in shadow and imposing itself in contrast to the light humming overhead, the thing set D a step or two away from his destination. The words of the figure were lost amid D's mix of emotions as he locked in with its piercing gaze. Paralyzed where he stood, all he could do was accept the fate before him as the being cast its darkness upon him...

Then the darkness was gone. A fog had lifted. The memory that he could only hope was his own seared into his mind. Never again... 

[color=9e0b0f]"Never... again?"[/color] D found himself standing fully. The previously insurmountable load that was his body had lightened somehow. [i][color=9e0b0f]No.[/color][/i] it was him, not his weight. He was stronger. The tough muscles that lashed from his body tensed and relaxed as they discovered their own strength; it truly was a gift. To finally feel at home in his own form was a shred of reprieve in the midst of a daunting ordeal. 

[color=9e0b0f]"Friends?"[/color]D gawked at the figure, following it was caution as it stepped aside to offer him its place in the elevator. A low rumbling from overhead kickstarted a realization. There were others... he knew that now. He looked wearily at the shadow, and then contemplated the lift that he felt himself wait for over an unbearable span of moments. Then, he shook his head, eyeing the figure. His legs shook and then flexed. He listed towards a door to his right, the other side of which provided a clear enough view to stairwell. [color=9e0b0f]"No. I'll get there faster on my feet."[/color] 

He flung the heavy door open as though it were a curtain, and started with bounding steps in a viscious ascent of the stairs.