Takeover || (Completed)

The Beginning of the End

Luke stayed in the hospital for another week after he woke up. For once, people were crowding outside his hospital room, trying to either get an interview for the newspapers or something else that was media-related. Luke refused to let anyone but members of Team 0 - which he thought, ever since hearing it, was a stupid name - see him. Suddenly, because he had been malnourished and tired, everyone who talked to him talked to him slowly, like he was a child. They took at least four seconds to get each word out like they had peanut butter in their mouth.

Luke was, fortunately, able to get out of the hell which was called a hospital and went back to the palace while accompanied by his chauffeur. He was still light-headed and wobbly while walking to the car from the hospital and thought he was going to throw up many times while in the car. When they reached the gravel driveway in front of the palace, Luke ran to a random hedge and threw up. Little did he know that there were sick bags in the glove compartment of the car. After he had finished being sick, he wiped his face with a tissue that was kindly provided by his chauffeur and slowly walked into the palace. He could see from the car that all the lights were off which was strange, as it was eleven pm at night. After a bit of trouble, Luke was able to haul himself to the front door and knocked heavily, his arm feeling like spaghetti. The door slowly creaked open, to reveal a shadowed face, hidden by darkness.

"Could you move forward," croaked Luke as he felt himself beginning to slip. He quickly grabbed on to the door frame to keep himself steady, "it's kinda hard to see your face."

"Why don't you come in?" came the reply. It sounded like whoever had just said that put the words into a text to speech converter.

Luke decided to oblige - he didn't have the energy to argue - and slowly walked into the palace. As soon as he crossed the threshold, all the lights turned on, effectively stabbing his eyes. People were everywhere, their collective efforts resulting in what seemed to be a 'Welcome Home' party. Luke was grateful and annoyed at the same time as soon as he saw it. On the one hand, they had cared enough to throw a welcome home party for him and that meant something. However, Luke wasn't in the mood to celebrate and he just wanted to sleep.

When Luke woke up, it was past noon. He still had a splitting headache that made even the slightest movements painful. He slowly pulled himself up so that his upper body was resting on his elbows and looked around. His room was a complete mess - there were clothes everywhere, covering every square inch of the carpeted floor, he had forgotten to turn off the tap when he had a warm bath the previous night which meant that all of his clothes within a four-metre radius of the bathroom were wet and some idiot had left the window open which meant Luke had to deal with five-degree warm air while he got ready to go down to the conference hall. He dressed in a baggy pair of jeans that were ripped at the knees and a football jersey that was three sizes too big for him. He didn't understand why he was wearing the jersey as he didn't even like football. He liked soccer. He slipped on his Nike trainers and walked down to the conference room, his head still aching. Everyone had, presumably, gone to eat lunch as all the desks were empty, not a single soul in sight. Luke went back up to his room, took off his clothes and leapt onto his bed, ready to sleep another twelve hours. He had never appreciated silk more.

It was one am when Luke woke up again. He no longer had a headache and was wide awake, so it made sense that he just didn't go back to sleep. He walked to the mini-fridge that had been installed while he had been in the hospital and pulled out a Sprite. He walked back to his bed, laid down and began to drink it while turning on Netflix to watch something. He decided, eventually, to watch one of the countless sitcoms.

Luke had fallen asleep while watching Friends at one am in the morning and ended up waking up again at eight am. He got changed into casual clothing and walked down to the conference room, where people were working at, the sound of fingers tapping keys filling the room. Everyone was so caught up in their work that they didn't notice Luke's presence for a few minutes after he had entered the room. Eventually, however, they did and still didn't pay any attention. Fair enough, thought Luke, at least it means they're actually working.