He awoke.
The first sensation was not the soft, silken sheets of his bed, but the cold, hard tile of the floor against his cheek. He pushed himself up, a groan escaping his lips. His head was pounding, and his mind was a foggy mess of disjointed images: pancakes, a dark forest, and a phrase that echoed with a bizarre, nonsensical familiarity, welcome to the rice fields. He shook his head, trying to clear the fog. He felt... different. He felt heavy. Solid. Powerful.
He stumbled to his feet and made his way to the full-length mirror that adorned the wall of his suite. He looked at his reflection. And the world stopped.
