After the rat died I broke it down with my aether loops and spun a copy of the template into my core. I got the demon rat version and not the standard which was probably hax, but I didn’t care. After that I puttered around a bit repairing the damaged wall, summoning more beetles and a pair of my own rats before drifting off to sleep.

  Falling asleep in a dream is weird.

  I woke up staring at an unfamiliar ceiling. White tiles of a drop-down ceiling. One of them a slightly brighter white than the others. There were a pair of florescent lights set in their own recessed tiles.

  The sound of ticking drew my eyes to a clock sitting high on a pale blue wall. It was a minimalist design, brass numbers on a lightly polished wooden plank. It was a quarter after 5, I had no idea if that was morning or evening. A few feet from the clock was a curtain on a track separating the area I was in from the rest of the room. To my other side was some softly beeping equipment with wires coming out of it and snaking under my blanket.

  There was a button on the rail of the bed near my hand. I immediately pressed it.

  A short older man in dark blue scrubs and an ID lanyard poked his head around the curtain.

  “Mr. Aaron? I see that you’re awake. I’m Nurse Bob Hendricks. Let me take some vitals and then I’ll get Dr. Kurtis.”

  The nurse started checking the machines as I stared in confusion.

  “What... ?” was all I could get out before the nurse interrupted me.

  “Mr. Aaron, can you tell me your full legal name?” He asked.

  “Um yeah, Mark Jacob Aaron. What happened?”

  “You’re at University Medical. You collapsed while at work, Dr. Kurtis will be here in a moment to talk about it”.

  The nurse finished writing on his clipboard and then left without another word.

  I sat in silence pondering. This last dream was so real that it actually scared me. I had felt a vague pain when the rat ate that monster core and started draining my aether. Hell I could almost see faint aether loops circulating around me as I was laying there. They seemed to originate in my chest and extend out just a couple feet...

  I was just starting to imagine the aether moving when the curtain was pulled back and a woman in her late 20s come in. She was wearing the classic white coat with a stethoscope over a white button down shirt and slacks.

  “Hello Mr. Aaron, how are you feeling? Any light-headedness? Aches? Pains? Difficulty breathing?”

  “I’m okay, I think... well, obviously not if I’m waking up in a hospital. But yeah, I feel alright.”

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  “Well Mr. Aaron, that’s the thing. We’re having problems coming to a diagnosis. Your symptoms match a few different conditions but so far all tests have come up negative.” She said.

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “Every test we’ve run so far has indicated that you are a perfectly healthy 28 year old male. There’s nothing that explains why you were comatose for roughly 32 hours”.

  “Wait, 32 hours?” I looked at the clock again and did some quick mental math. “This is Thursday evening?”

  “Friday actually” she answered.

  “So what now?”

  “I’d like to keep you here for the weekend for observation. There are a few more tests that we can run to see if we can’t figure things out here”

  “Okay... Is my cell phone around here somewhere? I should call Tim... I think I was in his office when I blacked out.”

  “I’ll have Nurse Hendricks bring you your belongings. He’ll help you with the restroom and take you to the cafeteria to eat. After that I’d like you to stay in bed here so that we can monitor your vitals for a while longer. Tomorrow we’ll get you into the MRI”

  “Yeah a restroom would be nice...”

  With that said the doctor left and moments later the older nurse stepped in.

  “Let me get you disconnected here then we’ll hit the restroom” He started pulling wires off of the machines next to me and connecting them to a small pack with a strap. “This is a nice little unit, a battery powered vitals monitor.”

  As the nurse was rearranging wires his hand passed through one of the odd ghost like aether loops. “Agh, got a bit of a shock there”

  I didn’t respond because the aether loops were now a bit easier to see and one of them was bringing me a load of mana. I made an effort to pull them in closer and they actually responded.

  I still wasn’t sure if the aether loops were real or not, and for some reason I didn’t really want to talk about them or my ongoing game/dreams. I was beginning to suspect that I should, but found the words never quite left my mouth.

  The hospital food wasn’t all that bad, at least not the stuff served in the cafeteria. After eating, I stepped outside to call Tim. The conversation was pretty short. Tim told me that my dad was flying in and should be in town Sunday morning. Other than that it was mostly just him telling me that he had been in touch with his family and most of mine and that he and my sister were going to visit tomorrow. I gave him the customary shit about his best friends sister, he responded with the customary jab about my brief hook up with his cousin, and we said goodbye. I was looking forward to their visit. It had been a week or two since I had hung out with Kasey.

  With that done I checked my email and then saw an odd notification at the top of the screen. As soon as I tapped it I found myself falling over while the world went dark.

  Everything was just as I’d left it. There were no new invaders, but there was a slight buzzing at the back of my mind. When I followed the sensation I noticed a line of aether stretching off into the distance and ending just in front of one of my exterior walls.

  This time I remembered the hospital and that I was standing outside with a bunch of uncomfortable monitors strapped to me. Maybe this time they’d catch something. It still didn’t seem that important, which alone gave me a sort of muted worry all on its own.

  I was hesitant to do anything with the strange aether tendril. Still, it was the only thing that was interesting or different, so eventually I extended a loop of aether to touch it.

When the two strands of aether touched it was like a packed stadium was suddenly in my head. There were thousands of chattering voices, all speaking in a language or languages that I couldn’t understand. I tried to pull back from the noise but found that the aether loop, now a single strand, wouldn’t disconnect.

  There was a loud roar that I thought would split my skull. Thankfully the noise level dropped to a muted whisper afterward.

  A single voice began speaking. I assume it was speech. I still had no clue what it was saying. It was rather soothing to listen to. Soothing enough to let me fall asleep again.