Unfamiliar Ceiling

A glint of dark light. A pitch-black night sky, if you will, crisscrossed by dark galaxies, stars, constellations, darker even than black...

Nick awakens with a full-body shudder, and the monitor starts beeping furiously. A moment later, the pain hits him, and he passes out again.

His skin is, essentially, one massive pressure bruise from head to toe. His ears are bleeding, and one eardrum has burst - he'll be half-deaf the rest of his life. Similarly, his eyes aren't in the best shape, although they'd still work. They're swollen massively, and he can't close them at the moment.

His hand is heavily damaged, shriveled up and knocked around. He'll never have the full use of it again.

Two months later, straining under the weight of massive medical bills but healed, he exits the hospital. He walks down the street outside-

"Hey!"

-walks to the bus stop-

"I need to talk to you!"

-and gets on a bus.

Behind him, a woman in a hazmat suit runs behind the bus, vanishes for a moment, and reappears in the back.