If Rhode’s life had been a movie, he would have woken up dramatically with a start. He would have shot up in bed, alert with a gasp.

But he didn’t. He groaned and wheezed shallowly. Bleary muck crusted his eyes, and they opened on a dimly lit glow of greens oranges and purples. A thick medicinal smell assaulted his nostrils and a heavy, soft blanket tucked him firmly into a plush bed with all the tightness of a straitjacket.

“Big guy! Hey, are you there? Hey. Oh, wow – try not to move too much. Are you awake?”

Rhode’s head rolled to the side towards the voice of a young woman. Her tone was curious, tired, excited, professional but unconfident. A warm rag wiped over his eyelids and face, and the room came into focus.

The first thing the dead man noticed – well actually, he noticed a few things. But the first thing he noticed was her. She wore a white coat: long, like a doctors’ or laboratory coat, but with a strange cut which was vaguely militaristic. Her touch was not gentle, it was learned, practiced, compassionate, but efficient.

She was his nurse, surely; but what she wasn’t was human.

The creature in front of him had plain, but symmetric features. She had eyes, but they were an unfamiliar shade of gray. She was tan, but with the slightest shade of green to make her skin a hue like olive. Both her ears tapered to gentle points at the tips, and the round of her nose showed a subtle crease. Her hair was glossy black and cut short to chin length.

Rhode groaned, coughed, and spoke. His voice was weak, and his throat was sore and swollen. “I like your costume. I think I’m hallucinating, though. Did you…” his coughing started again, but as the woman stood from her low chair, he shook his head. “Did someone change my meds?”

He was out of breath already. It wasn’t a problem with his heart, Rhode could feel the powerful thrum of it beating in his chest; louder and surer than he remembered it. His limbs felt strong, his arms and neck thicker too. He’d been so skinny before: practically skin and bones by the end… The air wasn’t a problem either. There was a freshness that filled the room, herbal and recuperating. He saw that the walls were stacked with shelves of lush, lively plants. The room’s light appeared to come from a staggered arrangement of pinky-tip sized stones which glowed softly.

It was almost like there was energy in the air, like honey, spring-water, and bracing mustard except wafting and invisible. As Rhode inhaled, his body was eager to drink it up, but his lungs could only sip the ambient restoratives shallowly. The woman leaned closer, her eyes widening with delight as he spoke.

“Oh. The pneumectomy. I – I thought my insurance wasn’t approved?” Rhode murmured.

“Well, haven’t I been swindled a cow for a cabbage,” the woman exclaimed bizarrely. “You really made it!” She leapt up and spun towards the far wall, where she found the handle of an ornately carved wooden door. Sticking her head outside into a candle-lit hallway, she called out loudly. “Hey! HEY! The big guy’s awake! Soul-bind is working and everything! Who’s on shift?”

Rhode tried to lift himself onto his elbows, but changed his mind once the pain in his chest grew. He fell back on his pillow and listened as an echoing voice answered from the hall.

“That’s amazing news!”

The man who practically dashed into the room sprouted a frazzled head of graying hair. He had weathered features, and vivid gold colored eyes. He was actually a touch shorter than the young woman, though he wore a similar coat with a small brass lapel to indicate some kind of rank. Yet, Rhode couldn’t help but focus on the man’s pointed ears, and his pale, tallow, alien skin.

“Well look at you! We thought you were dead for sure,” the man beamed, and then clapped his younger peer on the shoulder. “Does he understand us?”

“Are you my new doctor? Doctor Howard –”

Instead of answering Rhode, the senior… person plucked a square clipboard from the far corner of the bed and ran his finger down the parchment. “His accent isn’t even that bad. What a terrifying method, I almost hate that it works so well.” Then his eyes flicked back to the bed-stricken former human. “Breathing’s still bad,” he growled.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

The nurse nodded with an expression of discomfort. “I know. He’s going to level so fast, won’t he heal though?”

The doctor sighed and rubbed a finger over his eyebrow. “It’s bad enough that he’s likely picked up a level or two off of the elixir we gave him. You haven’t had the chance to treat an underten – those early levels are too risky.”

Rhode shifted in bed, frowning as he was ignored. The doctor pinched his arm, and then pressed two fingers against his wrist.

“I don’t understand, Journeyman,” the nurse squatted suddenly and slid a small box from under the bed. She held a small porcelain vial in one hand and a silver needle in the other when she stood back up.

Rhode jerked his hand away from the woman as she reached towards him, and the bed jumped slightly with the force of his movement. A heartbeat of silence passed.

She was afraid of him.

“Sorry,” Rhode whispered. He reluctantly held his arm back out for her. He saw an unfamiliar, densely muscled limb responding instead of his own freckled bony one.

“Oh. It’s okay, do you remember me? I was there when you, uh – woke up?”

Now that Rhode was beginning to regain a sense of his own body, he was struck by how small and fragile these two strangers looked by comparison. He began to doubt if he could even stand to his full height under the ceiling. The needle flashed, moving faster than he could track with his eyes. Her technique was so precise that he hadn’t even felt the puncture. Dark, purplish fluid bled thickly out of him, and she collected it into her vial. Rhode wasn’t sure about her question, but he still nodded.

“I am Junior Scholar Rikva, and this is Journeyman Scholar Yagget,” the young woman tucked her needle expertly between two knuckles (point out) and pressed her palm safely over her heart. With her other hand, she set the vial atop her chair and pressed a small bleached cloth to stopper Rhode’s bleeding.

“My name is Rhode,” the thing in the bed croaked.

The not-doctor hesitated to interject, reluctant to address him. “Er, it is a pleasure to meet you, Goodman Rhode. Allow me to be the first to welcome you to our world.”

The Journeyman performed a strange, shaking motion with the flat of his hand, which must have been a signal to the other. Rhode made a choking noise as Scholar Rikva followed Scholar Yagget away. The two stepped into the corner.

“Returning to the issue of my concern, there’s no guarantee that these first few levels are all going to be positive. Early levels are chaotic, uncontrolled. And yes, that can mean potential. But right now, he’s also at higher risk than ever to earn a malady level. And if he had to build everything else off of a red? A [weak-muscle] or a [tremor]? Gods forbid, a [parasitic-twin: liver-teeth]? That would be it: he’d be ruined.”

Feeling lightheaded, Rhode raised himself to a seated position with great effort. His bulky frame lifted easily under his strength, but his consciousness threatened to fail him with every exertion. He did not hear the junior scholar’s reply.

“What does the blood say?” Yagget asked Rikva. He barely bothered to lower his voice.

Junior scholar Rikva’s back was turned. Her dark hair shook. Then Rhode experienced an abrupt, naked paranoia; raw and vulnerable with a brief, violating impression of surveillance. It passed just as quickly.

When Rikva turned slightly, the vial cupped in her hand was faintly glowing. Her brow was pinched in effort. “There’s a mutation, for sure,” she announced. “Maybe two. It feels significant, anyway. I will have to go to the sample archive to cross reference them, though.”

“If you’re going,” the older man spat in his hand and slicked back his hair. “Try to stall the customer. After everything that’s gone wrong, they’ll want to examine him; I’ll need time to prepare him so he doesn’t embarrass us.”

For Rhode, too much was happening, and too much of that was unfamiliar. Like a dreamer who had accepted the mad rules of his slumbering mind, he thought of his incubation jar, and the voice which spoke to him while sleeping, and spoke as if it was real.

“[Hibernate] and [Vigorous Something].” His mouth was dry and his tongue was thick. The green-skins both turned to stare at Rhodes. Rikva’s mouth parted open, and her teeth were sharp; more like an animal than a person. He continued anyway. “[Vigorous Ichor]. The computer said I had those two mutations. Can I ask, though – what’s a goblin? Is that what y’all two are?”