3/15/54

ALEXANDER GALDUR

Red engulfed my vision as the blood in my eyelids was illuminated by the bright lights. My eyes flickered open to a radiant white. 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 the bright medical light shining upon me. The second was the white tile roof ceiling above. It was a grid of white panels, the kind you could see in schools, hospitals, and offices. Third was the white curtains surrounding me, obscuring the rest of the world from my sight. Finally, I noticed the medical equipment around. Different cables connected to and from complicated devices, snaking every which way.

Different monitors all had different screens identifying different information. It was then that I noticed all the tubes going in and out of me. I tried to move away in fear, but an intense pain washed over me. My nerves were all screaming at me to hold still, to not incur further injury. The pain rushed through me from my right arm and leg, bloodied bandages wrapping around them tightly. A slight twitch of my muscles was all it took for a yelp to squeak out of me.

My mind started blurring over because of the pain and confusion overwhelming me. Where am I? What happened? Who were the figures behind the curtains!? As a headache that sprouted from excessive worrying, my concentration barely held on to process one of my questions. Figures behind the curtains?

Taking a closer look, it was now clear that the silhouettes of two people were behind the curtains. One was shorter and the other was much taller. They quietly discussed things amongst themselves, until they noticed my suddenly halted form staring at them. One of the figures approached the curtains, the shorter one, and slowly pulled them back. It revealed the identity of the two figures: one was a girl around my height with red hair, who was lightly tanned, had healthy skin, a decent figure, and beautiful, green eyes while the other was a tall, skinny man, with sunken black eyes, dark blue hair, a roughly-shaven beard, and a look of disinterest.

Both of them were wearing lab coats, although the man’s was stained while the girl’s looked brand new. They had light blue surgical masks and light blue, plastic gloves. The girl had black jeans, simple and stylish while the man had gray, stained sweatpants.

They both had a gold emblem on their chest with the words “Chief Medical Advisor” for the man and “Resident” for the girl. I remember that while I was still in the orphanage, I heard that a doctor in-training was called a resident. This always confused me, but that confusion was outpowered as the gold emblems that were once again reigniting my worries. Why were two medical staff of the DME taking care of my wounds!? What was happening!?

A feeling of hopelessness swallowed me, my hands started shaking intensely, my breathing became harder, slowly evolving into hyperventilating. The world around me began to swim as I became dizzy and disoriented, and I could hear my heart beating irregularly in my head. Was I having a heart attack? Was there pain in my left arm? What do I do!? A bead of sweat rolled into my eye, and my chest heaved up and down. The girl started panicking, but the man calmly demanded, “Calm down, this just looks like a panic attack. It isn’t harmful, but it will be alarming. Just give the kid some space; he’ll be fine.”

The man took a swig from the coffee cup he held in his right hand. Why was he just calmly drinking his coffee when I was having a panic attack!? The girl was still visibly shaken by my symptoms, seemingly unable to not worry. She calmly closed her eyes and reached out her hands; it was then that a small fire appeared in them. The flame had a silly face, and just looking at it seemed to calm me down. My breathing began to settle, my hands stopped shaking as violently, and my heavy heart beat stopped pounding into my temple as the warm light of the fire washed over me.

I felt… calm, peaceful, and at home. The small flame illuminated the room, the cold, unfeeling light of the medical devices drowned out in the warm, loving embrace of the fire. With one final, long exhale, my panic attack came to an end as I was enraptured by the fire. It slowly sizzled out, and the girl took a look up, sweating from the exertion. A warm smile, like that of her magic, glowed on her face, but came to an end when her assumed mentor gave a heavy-handed chop to the back of her head.

Her face hit near my leg as she let out a small cry of pain. The man glowered at her, “The hell did I just tell you? First off, no unauthorized magic near patients, and second, didn’t I say to leave him alone?”

“B-But, he looked like he needed help.” She whimpered out, unable to raise her head being the man’s hand was still over it.

The man clicked his tongue, “That’s no excuse. He would’ve been fine: it was just a panic attack. Hell, who knows how he would’ve reacted to your sudden use of fire magic.”

“S-sorry.” She whimpered out, defeated.

“Damn amateurs,” The man mumbled as he retracted his hand, “Anyway, you there.”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Silence filled the room until I figured out who he was talking to, “Oh, m-me?”

“Yes you,” The man grumbled, “What’s your name?”

Almost instinctively I answered, “Lucas Greymore, sir.” Through my years of living on the streets alone, I learned it was best to lie and hide my identity. The DME kept on tracking me, so I had to keep up false appearances. Knowing this, I took up the name of Lucas Greymore, a polite orphan just trying to survive. Turns out, saying sir or ma’am can really help you out.

“Alright Lucas,” The man greeted, “This is one of the Department of Magical Enforcement’s medical bays. You were brought in by a rank twenty, illusion magician, scout named Deimos Dust. He brought you in, and you were pretty heavily wounded. Told us you helped him take down a member of the Arcana Right’s Organization, yeah? One Elizabeth Becker, a metal magician. Anyway, we patched you up, but you’re gonna need to stay here for a while longer.”

“I-I see.” I said, shocked. The only thought that could surface to the forefront of my mind was why? Why would a ranker of the DME help a dark magician?

“Oh yeah, you also owe us $10,500,450 in medical fees.” The man noted with an evil grin.

Now, there were two questions in my mind: why would a ranker of the DME help a dark magician, and how in the hell am I gonna climb out from crippling debt?

DEIMOS DUST

Why? why did I help him!? He’s a dark magician, the enemy, and I helped him! Sure he helped me, but he’s a dark magician, he could’ve just been looking for a fight! Of course, he did help with restraining the woman, but at that point, she was already the common enemy. Hell, I didn’t even report that he was a dark magician, I only informed others that he was a light magician.

I. Am. An. Idiot.

I should go back now and tell at least the people at the medical bay of his threat. I hurried back to the medical bay, passing other members of the DME as I went. Before I could get there however, my annoying coworker just had to interject.

“Deimos, there you are!”

I turned my head to see an extremely muscular man lumber up to me. I was tall, quite tall, at 6’3”, but my coworker, Frederick Goldman, stood at an idiotic 7’1”. He towered over me, his white suit barely restraining the incredible amount of muscle underneath. It stretched and strained with his every move, threatening to burst at any moment. His well-tanned body matched his brown hair that gathered to a single point forwards and up. He smiled, mostly white teeth with the barest hint of yellow showing his poor genetics.

He looked down at me, brown, spiteful eyes disguised as the friendliest out there. Frederick, or Fred, was a pretty average guy coming from a broken family. His mother and father were angry and abusive drunks, often taking their anger out on him and his siblings. They berated him with insults, but he kept up with it, trying to prove himself to them. He strived for perfection, he strived to be the best in any field he wanted. Despite what should’ve been a normal life for him, he became the top of his class in grades and athletics, but he still wanted more.

He awakened his magic, physical enhancement magic, a completely normal magic with nothing too special about it. In the end though, Fred didn’t care, and he continued doing whatever it took to become the best. He joined the DME at the age of seventeen, and the next year he became a ranker. At that point, he was the youngest person to ever become a ranker in the DME, and he was proud of it. At least, until I joined the fray. I joined the DME at fourteen and have recently become a ranker at fifteen, and Fred was not pleased.

While he called it light teasing and getting to know me, it was clearly hazing; I knew it, he knew it, our coworkers knew it, the boss’s dog knew it. As he was putting up the friendly guy farce, I could tell he was just waiting for a moment for me to mess up. He wanted to ruin my chances at further success, maybe even trying to get me demoted because I was something preventing others from seeing him as perfection.

“I heard you brought in a member of the ARO, yeah?” Fred asked with a spiteful tone in his voice.

I answered, with my own anger slipping by, “Yeah, I did.”

“Didn’t you get some help from that civilian,” Fred glared, “Guess you’re still a newbie; don’t worry, it wasn’t that bad.”

As the anger built up, my eyes narrowed onto him. With a heavy exhale, I turned and started walking away, leaving a simple phrase to have the final word, “In the end, it worked out, and don’t forget the guy who helped me was a civilian: I handled most of it.”

Fred’s eyes widened in surprise, but narrowed down like my own. I however, couldn’t care less, I had places I needed to be.

Each step I took planted heavily into the ground, my anger releasing slowly with each step. By the time I made it to the medical bay, I had mostly calmed back down. I opened the door and looked around, searching for the boy from the fight. My eyes finally found and settled down on him. He was in the company of the two medical staff and was paler than when I first met him. A look of horror, death, but somehow peace was plastered on his face, the life drained from him. It looked like he had come to terms with his fate as a small tear joined the cold sweat emerging from his skin.

What the hell had happened to him while I was away!?