Black Goat's Nest [DRAFT]

Re:Awakening

I'm not sure how easy it is to follow this chapter so if you notice bits that seem wonky please let me know

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As Kaneki started to wake up the first thing he noticed was how warm and comfortable he felt, it was a far cry from the coldness of abandoned building he'd grown so used to. As his eyes flickered open he realized that the room he was in was white, too white to have been one of Tsukiyama's properties. Then it hit him, the smell of antiseptic, and everything just clicked.

He was in a hospital. But why?

He tried to remember but immediately regretted it, not because he couldn't remember it but because it all came back far too quickly.

The raid, the fight with Amon, and- Oh god no!- Hide!

For a moment he tried to deny it, tried to convince himself it wasn't real, it almost worked, at least until it didn't.

With sickening clarity, he remembered the distinct sweetness of Hide's flesh, and then he realized that the flavor was still in his mouth.

Pain and sorrow pooled in his chest. Despite how hard he fought to keep his walls up he couldn't stop the agonizing sobs that escaped his lips.

He'd done wrong not only by Hide but by Anteiku, by his family! He'd fucked up and chosen to run away to try and protect them but underestimated how persistently they would look for him. He'd run, and because of that, he'd lost everything. He'd eaten his sun, his better half, his tie to humanity and now he was alone.

God it's dark, too dark, I'm drowning in it he realized as he clutched his face in his hands. Then the fight with Arima came back.

Was he dead? Was this his personal hell (because he'd fallen from heaven's favor the moment he'd first tasted flesh)? It would make sense, Kaneki had developed an aversion to hospitals after Kanou.

Kaneki let out a bitter laugh, funny that the place he'd woken up when he was dead was the same place he'd woken up after his "rebirth" so to speak. It was almost poetic, a sign that that day at the hospital had been the beginning of the end. He laughed again but this time it was a bit more genuine. You could take him away from literature but you couldn't take literature away from him. He still thought about life like he was analyzing a book.

It was a bit strange though, why wasn't he in the original hospital room where it all happened if this was meant to torture him? Was he still alive? No, In that case, he'd probably be with the CCG and this was far too cushy to be part of the CCG (or at least any part of the CCG a ghoul was allowed in). Besides, why would they treat him? They'd probably just shove some meat in his mouth and leave him in a cell somewhere, not bandage him up and leave him somewhere so unrestrained.

Despite not recognizing the room it felt familiar. It felt like somewhere he'd been before; somewhere warm, familiar, and safe.

Was it an underground ghoul hospital? No, once again, far too nice for that. Did Tsukiyama have an infirmary in one of his estates? He couldn't remember.

Infirmary seemed like the best way to describe it. It wasn't fancy enough to be a hospital and with the way the beds were sectioned off with cloth curtains it really did feel like something from a school, or at least it would've if the architecture didn't seem so medieval and European.

The more he looked around the stranger things seemed to get. Off to his left, there was a shelf full of potion bottles. It was odd how much they tried to push the fantasy aesthetic. It almost felt like a movie set with how magical everything loo- oh. It looked magical because it was magical! He was in Hogwarts! But why? Hogwarts had always been his second home, it rivaled even Anteiku in the sheer amount of good memories he had there! If magic was involved then could he still be alive? Could he have apparated here with accidental magic? He couldn't be sure.