"And you want two gallons of that?"

"Yeah, if you have it"

"Aaaand.. you want a single hospital bed? Adjustable?"

"Yes. You have all of that in the warehouse right?"

The medical supplier who worked the warehouse mostly got call-ins from hospitals for wholesale orders. They really didn't get a lot of walk in customers. Let alone ones trying to, by all appearances, set up an at-home ICU overnight. Still it took all kinds. He shrugged, if the guy had the cash, he was welcome to the supplies.

"I mean yeah, but we can't get that out to you till this weekend"

"Nah, I'll take it with me if you can help load me up"

Sabar felt like shit.

He tried to keep his voice steady but it sounded shaky and out-of-breath even to his ears. He could feel a dozen red-bull energy drinks wearing ahole in his stomach lining and coursing through his blood like radioactive cola. His couldn't feel the tips of his finders any more. It felt like pins were dancing all over his skin. The lack of sleep was starting to make him seriously loopy.

But right now, he didn't care. He still had work to do.

For the first time in two days of knowing he was a walking dead man, Sabar had hope.

Sabar didn't know what he expected, when he'd agreed to talk to the taciturn golden man.

What did he expect from coffee with Gibraltar the Golden Man, the night he knew he was going to die?

Not this. He hadn't expected this.

"Here you go, man"

Sabar felt his hands shake as he pulled cash out his wallet. He'd hit four ATMs to draw most of his life savings in cash in the last hour. He gestured to the amused warehouse workers that were watching him curiously, asking for some help. Two of them walked over slowly to help him get the goods into his rental truck.

He knew looked like he was crazy, or an idiot. Wearing his office suit, lugging a hospital bed into the truck bed. He didn't care. He had two other suppliers visit.

He'd realized something in the last few hours.

He wanted to live.

...

[4 hours ago]

"You look like shit"

"Thanks. I haven't slept in thirty hours"

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

Sabar stared across the cozy cafe booth at the man sitting across from him. In the dim light of the cafe, and without his trademark gleam, Gibraltar the Golden Man looked very different. Disturbingly commonplace. Just a stocky, fit middle-aged man. Sabar could've passed him on the street or in the train without a second look. Perhaps a little more well-built than you'd expect for his apparent age. But.. remarkably unremarkable. He doubted he could convince anyone here Gibraltar was sitting with him if he tried.

"So you have the sickness"

"Ye- Yeah"

Sabar didn't know what this was. Why had he been brought here? What was this? Given how loopy he was starting to feel he wondered if this conversation was even really happening.

"What is this? This isn't some kind of make-a-wish thing is it? Meeting you wasn't my dying wish" That came out more harsher than he'd intended. But the golden hero just ignored the question.

"Who knows? Who knows that you're sick?"

Sabar shook his head, "Nobody. I mean, I knew I was sick when I had the dream. I knew. And there's not test or treatment or anything, so what'd be the point of asking a doctor"

"You didn't tell anyone else? Friend? Anyone?"

Sabar looked away, this felt strange to say but, "What'd be the point? I didn't want to spend my last day having that conversation. And.. honestly I don't have a someone I could tell if I wanted to"

"Wife? Girlfriend? Boyfriend? No one who'd miss you?" Gibraltar raised a brow. There was curiosity, but no pity in his face.

Sabar's mouth quirked, "Never got around to it. Just lucky I guess"

"But you didn't answer my question. What is this? Why are we talking right now?"

Gibraltar seemed to stare at his coffee for a long minute. Brown and gold swirled in the mug, catching the amber of the cafe light.

"Are you a good person?"

Sabar stared blankly back at the hero "Umm.. I guess? Not really? I don't know. I've never gone too far out of my way to hurt anyone"

Gibraltar gave a wry smile at that, "That was a stupid question. I'm sorry. I guess you don't really ever know"

He stared out the cafe window for a beat. Sabar couldn't tell what the man was mulling over. Gibraltar turned back to match his eyes, finally, and Sabar could tell he'd made a decision.

"Ah.. Screw it. Tell Tyche"

"Uh.. What?

Gibraltar leaned forward, his eyes intense, almost angry

"Rule one: you don't ask questions. There's no time for answers. If you do what I tell you to do - exactly - exactly what I tell you to do... then maybe, maybe - you have a shot. A fair shot - at a rat's chance in hell. Anything else and you'll be dead in the next eight hours. Do you understand?

...

Sabar finished setting up the hospital bed in the quiet of the off-site storage unit that he'd paid for with cash. His landlord had his email - about a six month sabbatical he'd be on - breaking his lease. He'd quit his job over the phone claiming a mental health issue. He'd sent letters to friends.

As far the world knew, Sabar was just taking a break from life for while.

He'd snuck in after renting the storage unit, so that the attendant had locked him in without even knowing he was there. Literally no one one on the planet knew he was lying in a makeshift keep-alive ICU unit in a storage locker. No one would know to look for him. If he died here, they wouldn't find him for months. Maybe years.

A CO2 scrubber ran in the background and an O2 trickler silently dripped oxygen from a corner. Gallons of saline and glucose were daisy chained into a drip that fed into his arm.

Sabar wasn't a doctor, but even he could tell this was just not enough to keep a human alive for weeks... but Gibraltar told him the dosage would keep his body suspended for months in the strange not-sleep coma of the sleeping sickness.

He'd done everything Gibraltar's in arcane but terse instructions.

Still wired up with caffeine and stimulants - his brain boiled with questions. How was the sickness suddenly survivable? When the whole world had known for years that it was a death sentence? How did the golden hero know so much about the sleeping sickness? Why him? Why did Gibraltar tell him, of all people?

But somehow, despite all the questions he didn't have the time to ask, Sabar trusted the strange god. He could tell - there was so much more Gibraltar was not telling him - and strangely this made him trust the old man more.

Maybe it's because he wanted to live. He didn't really have a choice, not really. It was either trust the cryptic instructions of a mysterious golden man.. or just lie down and die. He didn't want to die.

Sabar lay there, on the bed, checking over the various machines for a minute, each one beeping in place, and the drip that fed into his arm. He'd done what he could.

He took a deep shaking breath and closed his eyes for just a mi-

...