I tried to open my eyes. Bright lights assaulted me.

Too much.

A voice whispered from somewhere close by.

“…rising steadily…he is…”

I prised open one eyelid, trying to raise my hands to my face but struggling to do so.

Not so bright. That’s better.

The sun-in-a-bottle that had dazzled me before was dimmer now. I reflexively blinked a few times, and I couldn’t keep my eye open for long, but it was progress.

I lay still for a few minutes, acclimatising to the noises around me. There was traffic nearby. The bass frequencies of passing trucks rumbled into the room, accented by a constant hum of the usual traffic. A bird made a noise somewhere between a twitter and a screech.

Open up, bud. Let it rip. Let’s go.

My left eye was willing to play ball, but my right was like a stubborn child refusing to get out of bed and go to school. It felt like my eyelid was folded in on itself, but a cautionary touch revealed nothing wrong with it.

It was good to have use of my arms again.

With my good eye, I took a proper look around the room. The wall to my left was nearly entirely glass, except for a foot or so of white plaster at the bottom. Machines and desks and a frightening number of metal objects lined the rear wall, though none of them were turned on, or appeared to be in recent use.

I was in a crisp white hospital bed. A manky blue blanket lay at my feet, crumpled.

“Hello?” I croaked. My throat was drier than an alcoholic on a Saturday morning. A whole section of my throat was sore and ragged.

No one was around, so I lay back down. I kept my left eye open and resumed work on getting the right to do the same. If any nurse or doctor felt like checking on me, I wanted them to see that I was alive and kicking.

What the hell happened?

I remembered fighting the smoke monsters with the nonsensical names. I remembered the giant black orb turning red, and the crushing sensation through my head as it pulsated.

Claire came back for me. And Penelope. I didn’t remember what they said.

How can I tell Claire that I’m fine? And how is she going to look after Penny?

Without moving, I scanned the room for a clock or something that might have the date on it. Even if I’d been out for just one night, Claire would’ve had to find somewhere for Penny. Or she would’ve slept in-game and endured whatever effects that might have on her real body.

Whose inventory was the tarp in? And Penny’s blanket?

I didn’t think Claire would’ve entrusted me with those things. That was good.

The sliding door to my room opened with a hiss as it floated along the track. A face poked in, taking a quick look at me.

Mom.

“Ollie!”

She rushed over, hugging me and the mattress. Pain shot through my right eye, and I groaned.

“Oh! Sorry! Sorry! I’ll sit.”

I put my pointer finger to my mouth in a ‘shush’. The humble beginnings of a headache were gnawing at the back of my skull.

“Hey,” I managed. “What happened?”

“Lots. You had a seizure. Not a bad one, but the doctors were worried about some potential damage to your right eye, so they kept you here and sedated you. They wanted to give your body time to rest. You’ll be fine, by the way. You probably can’t open your right eye because they administered a muscle relaxant there. Don’t ask me why.”

I tried to touch the eyelid again. This time, I managed to slide it up and see the room with both eyes. There was no feeling of having my eye open, though.

“Weird. What day is it?”

“Tuesday. Dale went into the forest to hang out with Esko since you wouldn’t be making it to your lesson.”

I sighed and thumped my head back onto my pillow, ignoring a feeling like a hot needle in my brain.

“Damn. Damn. Have you heard anything from a girl named Claire? Has she called?”

“I know who Claire is, dummy. She was in the newspaper after you two did that dungeon. And no, did you want your Yurt?”

She fumbled around in her purse and produced the device for me. I waved her away.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“No, all good. She doesn’t have a Yurt. I think I can only contact her in B&B. How about the gang? Did they drop by and laugh at how pitiful I am?”

A smile crept onto her face. “Joey made fun of you, yes. But Annette and Duri were quite shocked, I think. They didn’t say much.”

“Dang. Well now I feel bad. And less cool.”

Two nurses came in. One of them swapped out a bag of clear liquid that was going into my arm through a tube. The other wrote something on a chart, then stared at me like he was peering into my soul.

“…Hi,” I said.

“Hello.”

He scrawled something extra on the chart. I assumed it was ‘responsive and talking’, but the way he scribbled gave it more ‘annoying and unfortunately alive’ vibes.

Probably just enduring an absurdly long shift.

The healthcare industry was one of the few that still primarily used humans instead of robots. Humans did everything from treatment, to monitoring, to surgeries. More complex procedures were almost always assisted by some kind of advanced technology, but there was still a doctor who actually made the cuts and controlled the movements of the machines in more delicate surgeries.

Humanity was comfortable with robots doing basically everything except digging around under their skin and driving their cars.

Although, even self-driving cars were becoming more popular. Someone had the bright idea that the driver’s seat could be turned into a Pod, and all of a sudden, lots of pro players wanted to be able to grind out some additional EXP while they travelled to guild meetings or in-person events.

Once the nurses left, I talked to Mom for a while longer. Even a short chat was tiring me out, which was apparently due to the cocktail of medication they’d put me on.

“Do they know what caused the seizure?” I asked.

“Not precisely, but they have a few suspicions. I told them you’d been skipping meals, barely sleeping, spending crazy hours in the Pod. And when they worked out that you were ‘Oliver Matanor, The Kid from The News!’ they were pretty quick to add severe external stress onto your list of symptoms.”

“It’s not that bad,” I argued. “If anything, I should be less stressed than most graduates — we’re not even two months in and I’ve got a ton of guild offers.”

An uneasy look came across Mom’s face. She shuffled in her chair and drummed her fingers on the steel frame of my bed. If she showed one more sign of nervousness, she might’ve just jittered herself across the room and out the door.

“About that. It’s quite lucky that you’ve got those offers already. The doctors say you should avoid long sessions in the Pod for at least the next three months. I know it’s a lot, but—”

“What counts as a ‘long session’?”

She paused. “More than an hour.”

“Shit.”

I pulled the scratchy sheets up to my chin, then reconsidered and sat up to grab the even more abrasive blanket from the end of the bed.

“Shit.”

One hour was barely enough to cross Piliton’s front yard. I’d struggle to get anything meaningful done, especially if I tried to do it with other people. Claire wouldn’t want to adhere to my new schedule, and even if she did, I wouldn’t let her take the fall for me.

My solo era was beginning anew.

The muscle relaxant wore off about an hour later, slowly giving me back control of my usual bodily functions. I was extremely lethargic, but the doctors were happy for me to walk around once they were absolutely sure that any traces of the muscle relaxant had left my system.

I felt like I was getting a snapshot of myself in sixty years’ time. I hobbled over to the door, which required a gargantuan effort to open. When I wandered out into the corridors — with a nurse watching me closely, and Mom right next to me — I could feel every muscle in my body slowly remembering its purpose.

Two days of nothingness had done a number on my motor functions.

Multiple nurses and one new doctor looked at my right eye. They all assured me it was fine, and the redness was just a burst vessel.

When I finally found a mirror, I learnt that ‘redness’ was a severe understatement. Where I used to have white, there was now a dark, blood-red expanse. My green iris stood bright against the backdrop. Mom commented that I was a little early in the year for Christmas colours.

“Ha.”

Towards the end of the day, when the windows in my room were starting to fog up from the cold, a nurse came in.

“I’m going to close these blinds,” she said, “but you should be healthy enough to go back home if you’d like. We’re happy to have you stay in case you’d feel more comfortable with that, but trust me, those blankets don’t get any softer after you lay in them all night.”

I grinned and looked at Mom. “It’s definitely home time. I got some quests to do.”

Both Mom and the nurse gave me severe looks. I quickly told them it was a joke.

I thought it was funny. They did not.

On the car ride home, I scrolled through my Yurt. Annette and Duri had sent me messages advising me to get well soon and respond when I was ready for human interaction and visitors. Joey sent me a bunch of emojis with X’s over their eyes, then a message simply saying:

[You^^^]

It was a strange coping mechanism. I sent him a quick voice message telling him I was dead, and he was entitled to my Pod and all my belongings.

Once we were home safe, Mom gave me the rundown on the meds I was supposed to take over the next two weeks. They sat on my bedside table in a box. It was neatly divided into fourteen sections — one for each day.

I sat still for about three seconds. I had to work out how to get myself into the Pod so that I could tell Claire I was still alive. Getting past Mom was going to be the most difficult part — she was sitting out in the loungeroom watching TV, ‘just in case you need me’.

I knew a ruse when I saw one. She was playing nurse.

“Heyo!” I poked my head out and hoped I looked more chipper than I felt. “I was only half-joking about that questing thing. I need to get on and—”

“Nope!”

“No, seriously, it’ll be thirty seconds, just enough to send a message to Cla—”

“Nope!”

I let out an exaggerated sigh, and sat on the couch.

“Mom, hear me out. Just for one sec. I have no way of contacting Claire, and the last time she saw me, I was convulsing and dying out in a field. I couldn’t talk to her, I couldn’t respond to anything, I couldn’t even see her. From her point of view, she just watched her friend die. And I don’t mean the B&B version of the word.”

“See if Annette will send her a message.”

I grumbled. Mothers could be the worst, especially when they cared about your health and general happiness. Ergh.

“It’s late. Annette, Duri and Joey will have logged off for the day, and I don’t want them to have to get back on. Claire’s time zone is a few hours behind, so she’ll almost be off for the night. Please.”

For a moment, I expected another long, drawn out ‘nope’. I was getting ready to argue that I wouldn’t be able to sleep unless I let Claire know I was alive and therefore hopping in the Pod would actually help me get better.

“Fine. I’m putting a ten-minute timer on, and if you’re not down here by the time it goes off, I will come up there and rip you out myself. If you seize again, I’ll shove you in the boot and drive back to the hospital.”

I laughed and jumped up, trying not to sway from the rush of blood to my throbbing head.

“Epic. Love you. Can’t wait to say hi to those nurses again.”

I rushed upstairs as fast as my frail body would carry me.

--Immersing, please don’t disconnect--