Prompto was left alone, cold and unattended to, for a long while. Moments transformed into minutes which piled up into a full hour of cold isolation and uncertainty. Occasionally, there would be the groan of something inhuman echoing down a long corridor, far detached from his large, empty cell. A clatter of metal, a tempo reverberating along flooring that could be interpreted as footsteps, though there was something ungainly about the gait. But beyond strange noises, nothing and no one came to meet him a second time — one might even think he had been forgotten, if he were not so very purposefully placed in his current position.

Yet when Ardyn did show, there was nothing to prepare Prompto for it. He simply appeared, as if out of thin air, a terrible trick of his; hovering above Prompto with that sickening smile, mussed hair tugged downwards, courtesy of gravity. One hand pressed against the cool steel of the table as the ex-Chancellor leaned forward, and in his other he held a knife.

Without warning, the tip of the blade slammed against the surgical table, mere inches away from the young man’s ear. The sudden noise in the otherwise quiet atmosphere was nigh deafening, yet Ardyn was as unfazed as ever.

“Awake?”