That night, I had to answer hundreds of disconnected questions at the dinner table. I was able to answer their questions with deflections and half-truths. I was soon able to make an excuse to retire to my room for the night but not before I promised to show off my healing magic the next day.
Before I left, I was informed that Tabitha would present my second gift the next day. It was apparently “unlucky” to present both gifts on the same day. Everything other than me, even Miriam, hinted with little subtlety that the gift would be good.
All of the excitement and socialization of the day weighed heavily upon me, and I collapsed onto my bed without changing into my pajamas. I had only been face down upon my small bed for a few moments before my consciousness began to fade. As my vision darkened and my thoughts started to deaden, my mind strangely started to turn toward my old life.
Something about the day’s events made me think about the man I had used to be. In that old life, I was always lauded for my intellectual achievements. There was a joke among my family that I was a brain surgeon. While I had performed brain surgery twice, it was only because the patients would have died before an “actual” brain surgeon could show up. One of them even survived the surgery.
Everyone always acted like I was some kind of demi-god. They all treated me like I couldn’t possibly have any problems of my own. How could a trauma surgeon be unhappy with his life?
I was well into my thirties when I realized that I was completely alone. I had always been an extreme introvert and would openly state my desire to be left alone. By the time I was thirty-five, all my old friends had taken the hint and gave me what I wanted. Both of my parents were dead before I was forty, and my siblings had all moved far away. There were a few short-term girlfriends, but they soon saw the disdain I held for most living things.
No matter how hard I tried, my old self could always bleed through into my actions. The prideful, self-centered person I used to be could stick his head out. No, I could not allow the old me to take control. The people here legitimately loved me, and I would not let anything get in the way of that.
I promised myself that, when I awoke, I would give my family the attention they deserved. I was going to stop this world from killing Armond and Tabitha. I was going to keep my family together… as soon as I woke up.
The light disappeared from my vision completely, and I fell asleep.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
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Las Vegas, Ten Years Before
When my vision refocused, my body was covered in powdered dust and cracked concrete. With my mind still rattled by the room’s collapse, I blurrily took stock of what had just happened. There had been some kind of earthquake, and part of the ceiling collapsed.
Where was I? It took me a moment to remember. I was in a casino in Las Vegas called the Cagliostro. I had decided to take my first vacation in more than a decade. Clearly, that was a mistake.
Physically, a great weight was pushing down on my back, and I felt a strong piercing pain in my lower-right abdomen. Blood was trickling down my face. I must have hit my head. My glasses were knocked off in the collapse. Looking around briefly, I noticed that the shattered concrete that had fallen upon me was adorned with twisted rebar. I had most likely been pierced by one of these pieces of iron rebar.
I tried to shift my shoulders to remove some of the weight from my lungs, and I found that I could move with little difficulty. Whatever stone had landed on my head was light enough for me to move. For a moment, I considered trying to free myself, but the pain in my side made me think otherwise. It would be a bad idea to move it without seeing it first.
“Hey!” I shouted loud enough for everyone on the casino floor to hear. “I’m trapped under some rubble! Help!”
A woman with a slight limp approached me. She wore the clothes of an office worker, though they were covered in a thick layer of dust that made her look like she had been at ground zero of a major volcanic eruption.
“Are you okay?” the woman asked once she saw me trapped under the rubble.
“Yeah,” I said, unaware whether that was a lie or not. “I could remove the rubble myself, but I think a piece of shrapnel has pierced me in the area around my right kidney. Could you remove some of the rubble so that I could feel around the area?”
The woman frowned, fear evident in her eyes. “Are you sure you should move if you’ve been stabbed?”
“I’m a doctor,” I said. “It’s important that I get on my feet as soon as possible. Once I’m up, I’ll be able to start treating anyone else that’s wounded.”
“Okay, if you’re sure,” the woman said with a distinct lack of certainty in her voice.
Piece by piece, the woman removed the chunks of concrete that laid atop my back. At one point, she reached for the chunk that I believed was the source of the terrible stabbing pain, so I said, “No! Not that one.” I quickly calmed the tone of my voice. “Please remove all the pieces of rubble other than that one. That’s where I was pierced.”
“Sorry!” the woman shouted in fear, almost falling in her attempt to pull away from the chunk of concrete.
The other pieces of rubble were quickly removed, and only the one laying on top of my lower-right abdomen remained. With a surgeon’s precision borne of years of experience, I snaked my hand back to the source of the pain. After a few seconds of exploratory movement, I realized that the piece of rubble was not connected to whatever was causing the pain in my side.
I pushed the chunk of concrete off my back, and I slowly lifted myself to my feet. Looking down at my stomach and lifting my shirt, I saw something that created a pit in my stomach.
On the right side of my abdomen, just above my pelvis, a jagged piece of iron rebar jutted out, glistening with dark red blood.