The Pale Prince

Awakening

The morning sun glared through the window, shining bright upon the furniture that lay around and glancing through a bottle of half-full whiskey, its contents drained away. With a groan and a kick to his covers, David lifted his blanket up and over his head, groaning at the sun-fuelled awakening that the morning had given to him. The sound of military vehicles and the stomping of Privates doing drills once more clattered against the street outside. Lifting himself up from bed and running his hand across his face, David reached out and drunkenly grabbed onto the long and thing end of the whiskey bottle, lifting its glass mass off of the table-top and bringing it to his mouth, spluttering slightly as a bit ran down his throat without him expecting it. Groaning once more as he rose up from his bed, blanket wrapped around his half-naked self, the man walked over to his curtains and pulled them shut, sighing with content as he closed the windows afterwards, shutting out the abrasive noises of Fort Nobunaga in the morning.

Taking another slow sip from the large Whiskey bottle, David turned around and retraced his steps back to his bed before walking outside of his door and into the upstairs hallway that lay outside of his bedroom. Taking a few deliberate and slow steps across the hall and opening the door that lay ahead of him with a tentativeness that he hadn't afforded the kitchen door, David peered around the corner and swore to himself, looking at the bare bed and the mess of coat-hangers that lay strewn across the floor in the mess of plastic and wood. Running his hand through his hair and cursing under his breath once more, the man stepped backwards and pulled the door shut, shaking his hand and placing both of his hands upon his face as he squatted down, cursing repeatedly at his stupidity as he recalled the argument. By this point David had already sobered up, his resistance to disease and other deadly ailments - such as bullet-wounds - stretching into a resistance to alcohol and other poisons.

Lifting himself up from his crouched position upon the floor, the now-sober man stretched out his arms and stretched out before reaching over and cracking his knuckles. Holding his hand over his face as he yawned, David took a few slow steps down the stairs, groaning to himself as he leaned down and picked up the cap to the Whiskey bottle, having left it behind as he had walked drunkenly up the steps. Muttering as he screwed the bottle-cap on, Dave turned the corner upon the landing and walked down the remainder of the steps into the hallway, listening out as a phone rang. Rolling his eyes before marching into the kitchen, David planted the bottle upon the counter-top and looked inside the fridge. Not much was missing - a pack of cookies; a doughnut; a few bottles of water and a tin of beans -, nothing that couldn't be easily and cheaply replaced - not that the tentative economics of the world around him bothered David.

Stretching out his shoulders and walking out of the room, David turned down towards the end of the hallway and then took a right into the living room, where three more bottles of Whiskey lay upon the floor - empty, lids crushed into shapes as thin as a cent and tossed across the room, embedding themselves harshly into the bricks of the wall. Laying his head softly within his calloused palm once more, the man leaned down and picked up the phone, which lay upon the ground dejectedly, producing a frustrating 8-bit ringtone that David had programmed into it, the man worrying that he'd lose it if he didn't regularly get annoyed at it droll tones.

Looking over the device, the man lifted his thumb and pressed it lightly against a button on the left of the keypad, a green phone symbol adorning its rubber structure. Lifting the phone and placing it against his ear, David spoke - his eyes narrowed and filled with curiosity, yet a sense of knowing. "Hello?"

"Hello Agent Fortress." A voice on the other end of the receiver spoke, the voice clear, knowing and incredibly clear. "You're being called in, again."

"Again?" David scratched the back of his head, his short cropped hair running through his fingers. The man straightened up, resting a muscular arm against the side of his wall before coughing quickly, clearing his throat. "What's happened? Did Meltdown get out-"