3/22/54

ELIZABETH GRANT

When I started training here, I was ready to be the best. I would show I was the best of the family. I am the best, and nothing can change my opinion of that. I started at a young age, training up my ability to fight along with my ability to use my magic. Other children my age would never understand me; I was simply beyond them.

It was at fifteen I began my training to become a ranker, one of the youngest—if not the youngest—to ever begin their training to become a ranker. It was supposed to be a life of glory, and all those around me would bow in my presence.

Then he came.

He was like the rest, just another face in the crowd, he stook out a little, but all of them are too similar for me to spend the time remembering what they look like. Yet now I can tell who he is from a glance. All because of his constant ways of finding ways to chip away at my patience. He blinded me, almost attacked me, did attack me, blinded me again, blinded me AGAIN, continues to fight back like he’s something more, and dared to rebel against my greatness without prostrating himself.

Now, he decided to resist more.

He. Will. Pay.

ALEXANDER GALDUR

The last thing I remembered doing was losing myself in a desperate attack against the blonde-haired girl. I slowly came to and just felt myself lapsing in and out of pained awareness and blissful nothing for a moment, feeling the vibrations of falling feet around me. A blurry figure blocked the light from my vision, and I could tell they were worried about me.

As I watched them, my mind slipped even more, and I finally fell from wakefulness into a damage-induced sleep.

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Red engulfed my vision as the blood in my eyelids was illuminated by the bright lights. My eyes flickered open to a radiant, white light. My eyelids flickered, trying to protect the sensitive organs beneath them from damage. Eventually, my pupils adjusted, and I was able to look around.

The first thing I noticed was a sense of familiarity, like I’d been in this exact same situation before. Then, I realized, I had, multiple times. Fluorescent lights, light blue curtains, and the smell of cleanliness, chemicals, and disinfectant along with the unique bed I was lying on. Yep, back in the hospital.

Looking around, I noticed that Deimos was sitting in a chair next to me, scanning through his phone. Jokingly, I reached out to him, “Aw, you do care about me.”

Looking up, startled, he had a moment of shock quickly replaced by a grimace and a sigh, “You’re a moron, you know that, right?”

“I am acutely aware.” I dead-panned.

Just staring at me and shaking his head, he got up, pulled back the curtains for his head to pop out. “He’s up.” Deimos announced, followed by him going back to his chair and sitting down. Footsteps came from the knocking of hard shows against a harder floor as they got closer and closer to where I lay. The curtains were pulled back to reveal a complete stranger. Not Dr. Whitaker, not Anna, just some random woman.

I was both relieved and disappointed: relieved because it wasn’t Dr. Whitaker but disappointed because it wasn’t Anna. All this new doctor did—instead of being kind or sadistic, was completely neutral—was walking me through everything that happened, the costs added to my debt, the damage that I sustained, how that damage came by, and how I was patched up and should be good to go.

While I lost myself, the blonde-haired girl used her magic to launch those chunks of metal at me. The metal flew with such force that it gave me a concussion as well as fracturing my skull. Hearing that, I had to do a double take, completely blown away by the damage.

My skull… Was fucking broken? Holy shit. That’s… Terrifying. It’s kind of my fault for losing myself and deciding to get all hyper-focused on just getting the blonde-haired girl back, but still, she actually fractured my skull. The thought of it was disturbing to say the least. I guess it might have been her wanting to defend herself, but still, she sent high-velocity chunks of metal hurdling into my head.

As we walked through the halls, Deimos and I just continued in silence. Glancing at his face, I could tell he was deep in thought, face contorted in an internal debate. He was probably thinking about both how I lost myself in my attack and how the blonde-haired girl smashed my head open with some metal.

Once we exited the DMe’s main building, he finally spoke to me, “Are you okay?”

Wow, how anti-climatic. As well as being a little late as we were already outside, quite the distance away from the medical bay. Responding, I answered, “Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

He nodded and continued the conversation, “You’re getting better.”

“At what?” I asked.

“At sparring and fighting. You’re getting better. Or, at least, you actually tried to succeed.” He clarified.

Letting out a short, dry, humorless laugh, I could only think about how futile it had been, “Yeah, and look at how far that got me. A cracked open head and debt. Good going me.”

“Admittedly, you could have done better. There are plenty of ways you could have improved.” He pointed out.

“Wow, thanks. Way to make me feel better.”

Ignoring my sarcasm, he continued on, “And you did do something pretty stupid when you attacked her.”

“Aren’t you just the best for a guy’s ego?” I grumbled, getting annoyed with the criticism that I was already aware of.

“But, your martial arts lessons showed themselves with your punches. Plus, your magic made a pretty good opening. The best part of your performance, however, was that you actually tried. You even managed to do okay.”

“I couldn’t even get a single guy out!” I yelled, letting my pent up frustrations just release, “I wasn’t able to do a single damn thing but throw a few punches, force someone to use their magic, get shot, get the shit beaten out of me, and receive brain damage. I tried and I failed and this is why I don’t try! It only ends up hurting me.”

Silence stretched out between us as I mumbled too softly for him to hear, “I don’t want to hurt anymore.”

At this point, we were heading for the dorms, but Deimos just stopped. Instead, he started heading in the opposite direction to the parking lot. Looking up and wiping the blurriness from my wetting eyes, I asked, “Where are you going?”

Without turning around, he replied, “My car. Come on, we’re heading into the city.”

“Wait, what?”

I tried to question him about it as well as attempting to convince him that I was fine and just wanted to get back to the dorm, but before I knew it, I was already sitting in the passenger seat of the car. We drove to the city and found a nearby parking garage. “Do you have a plan, or are we just going to figure it out as we go?” I asked.

“We’ll figure it out as we go. Though, how do you feel about bowling?”

I both asked and answered, “Good?”

“Good.” He said, dropping the conversation and dragging me away.

We wound up in front of a huge building that towered far above the nearby commercial buildings as well as being significantly wider than everything around. It stood at a staggering eleven stories tall, and based off of the outside alone, it was all for entertainment purposes. Screens and ads all around promoted the building’s movie theater, arcade, bowling alley, sporting centers, and a variety of other family-friendly places for people to have fun. In big, bold, flashing letters, it said “Omnicade.”

“Why are we here?” I questioned, staring at the side of his head as he stared at the large building with a bitter-sweet smile.

The expression was there for only a moment before switching a few times and landing on just a normal, happy grin, “Simple. You need a pick-me-up, and I was feeling nostalgic.”

I wanted to ask about his previous expression along with why this place was nostalgic, but I already knew that was a bad idea. For now, I will keep to myself. If we ever grew close enough for us to share our pasts, then I would listen, but currently, it was too nosy.

Just as we were about to enter the building, however, a familiar voice called out to us, “Lucas? Deimos? Is that you?”

Turning around, it wound up being Max, standing there with a cup of steaming coffee that was strong enough I could smell it from here. I was about to speak up, but Deimos hit me to the punch, “Max? Hey, what are you doing here?”

“Well, I was on my way to pick up some sketch books.” He explained while pointing towards a shop across the street, “Um, why are you two here? Didn’t you two share a dorm?”

“Yeah, we were just—wait. How do you know about that?” I asked, tensing up at the realization he, for some reason, knew where we lived.

He awkwardly chuckled before defending himself, “Sorry! Sorry, it’s just I, well, heard you two talking about it. We were training our magic, and I was right behind you when you two had a passing conversation, and, well, I guess, sorry for eavesdropping. I know I shouldn’t have, but I just heard it—”

At some point while he was nervously ranting, slowing down into an embarrassed mutter, Deimos and I shared a look and just waited until he ran out of steam; eventually, we had to interrupt him after we realized he was only getting more and more talkative and nervous, “Calm down, chill. It isn’t a problem; we were just curious. Either way, would you like to join us? I was just about to take Lucas here bowling.”

At that, both Max and I turned to him. I wasn’t opposed to him joining in or anything, just surprised. Max, however, had only gotten more flustered,”What, I—um, I would hate to intrude. You two seemed like you were about to have a nice day and I’d hate to intrude, ah geez, I already said that. Well, what I’m trying to say is I’d hate to be a nuisance.”

“Don’t worry about it.” I said, trying to defuse this ticking time bomb of emotions and social awkwardness, “Look, it was just an offer. We’d be happy to have you with us, and if you don’t want to, then that’s fine too.”

He froze, had a moment of internal processing visibly show on his face, and finally answered, “Okay, yeah, I’ll join up with you two. Thank you for inviting me.”

We all ended up heading into the building. We got three tickets and went up to the second floor. The place was huge and numerous bowling alleys that ranged from very easy to nightmare in difficulty. We all grabbed a pair of bowling shoes, got a normal difficulty spot, and ordered some buffalo wild wings, ranch, blue cheese, celery, and two Coke Zeroes along with one Sprite. While waiting for the food, we started up our friendly game.

Deimos grabbed a ball and approached the lane with semi-professional airs about him. Preparing to release the weighted globe, he let go of the ball sending it rolling down the lane. It quickly reached the pins and knocked out most of them, leaving only a small clump of them left.

Getting another ball, he let it loose, taking out the last of them. Doing a little spin, he backed away, faced us, and announced with all the arrogance of a noble in some fantasy novel, “That’s what we call a spare.”

I slowly applauded him and rolled my eyes while Max whistled in appreciation. Deimos sat down, and Max replaced him. He then proceeded to knock out all the pins in one go. He turned around and let out a fake, innocent smile, “Isn’t that called a strike?”

Deimos was left dumbstruck with his mouth hanging open while I laughed like a hyena at the comeback. Max was not the best in social interactions, but he just pulled off some masterful, friendly fuckery. This bowling champion sat down, and I went to replace him. I let out a breath as I prepared the ball. Letting it release, I hoped for the best, only to be met with a gutter ball.

…

Fuck.