Chapter 2

Feducia POV

The sound of water twinkling against the shore drew me in. It was like a symphony to my ears; I believed that I had found salvation amidst the dull grey steel buildings and the equally lethargic inhabitants. As their offsprings, aptly named cars, rushed past me, nearly hitting me, honking in glee, I closed my eyes. YES, it was time to leave. My salvation must be near.

I stumbled forward off of the sticky contraption named roads, only to find a fence barricading my way to the water. How dare it stop my pilgrimage! Enraged, I start to climb. At the top, I swing my legs over, ripping the tattered rags that can barely be called pants. With difficulty, I sit on the fence, its spikes jutting into my legs. A refreshing winter breeze washes over me, I pause, pondering my life, then I look down, I can see my salvation! It’s right underneath.

Then I jump.

The frigid water felt like an array of stinging needles that slowly sank into my skin, twisting and twirling. Starting from the feet, the pain slowly climbs to my head, devouring everything in between. Soon, the pain begins to climax; the pain takes control of my brain, contorting my body to spasms. Then after the pain is finally finished with me, feeling starts to abandon me as well. My fingers go rigid. My arms have stopped flailing. My legs are leaden, completely numb. I slowly sank. Slowly, it became hard to breathe; the cold has penetrated to my lungs. Then my mind breaks, slowly. I can no longer think, all I see is a white light, a blinding white light. Oh holy light, come baptize me! Suddenly, a black void opens up before me and expands before swallowing me.

I’d like to go on and tell you how death felt but I only got to blacking out in the ice water before I was saved. Well, I probably wouldn’t be able to tell you how I felt if I had really died. But it would have solved the problem of getting food for tomorrow. But I had passed out, so while food was still an issue, it wasn’t impressed in my mind; instead I dreamt about swimming in the ocean, conquering depths that had never seen the sunlight.

When I woke up, I was in a hospital. How did I know that? I don’t know, maybe it was the white, stainless sheets that covered me, or the white walls that blended with the sheets or the equally white nurse that came in to give me breakfast. Breakfast? BREAKFAST! Maybe attempting suicide was the best thing that I ever did.

The breakfast, eggs, ham and cheese, was a blessing from heaven. After all, I have not had a bite since yesterday and starvation was a foe that would only grow stronger.

But perhaps I should start from the beginning. My name is Feducia, male, 20 years old. I was born into a middle class family. One that knew the value of money and more importantly the importance of education. Unfortunately, what they didn’t know was that their son, yours truly, was hopeless. They poured tens of thousands of dollars into the abyss of hope known as education. But in the end, I failed at everything they hoped I would excel at.

I was weak, weaker than your average person who would at least be able to lift a rice sack. For me, just budging the rice sack took all of my energy. With that sports were out of the picture.

When my parents realized that they could not count on my sports prospects, they switched to academics. I was forced to do hundreds of problems a day, in front of tutors that were being paid somewhere in the range of $100 per hour. The result? E in math, E in science…

After that, they lost hope in me. They seemed sapped whenever they saw me as if they were looking at a failed work. And so, they started to work overtime in their company, gradually rising in the ranks. Although this was good for me, I get more time and more money to spend, it really took a toll on their health.

But that wasn’t all of it. Because of their rise in rank, they attracted the jealousy of others, some very nasty people.

One day, while I was happily imagining freely floating in space, the doorbell rang. My parents, who were afraid of my safety, had told me to never open the door, so I just ignored it. But the doorbell kept ringing. It seemed like someone in trouble! I could be a superhero! This might be my chance to save a maiden in distress. I jumped up vigilant, rushing to open the door.

That was the fateful day, I was told that my parents had died mysteriously, of poison, abandoning me in search of nirvana. I was 7 at the time.

Since that day, I was never able to enjoy the comforts of a soft bed or the relaxation of warm chatter. After my parent’s death, I was put under the care of an uncle who was among the envious that despised my parents for their success. As a result, all that pent up frustration was released onto me. He taunted me, reminding me of my uselessness, beat me, laughing at my pain. While I knew that I was less than talented at math or science, I realized that Language was my strong point. Indeed, the only hope in that hell hole that was my uncle’s home was the fact that I could laugh at the confusion when my uncle couldn’t follow my flowery speech. Of course, the other result of making my uncle confused was a beating. But after the first 100 or so beatings, my body stopped experiencing pain.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

After enduring my uncle’s abuse for years. I escaped from his house, it was my 15th birthday.

Over the next 5 years, I lived on the generosity of pedestrians and the homeless shelter. But yesterday, even the charities that I could more or less count on refused me. As a result, I was starved and hallucinating, which partially explains why I jumped into that freezing river. The other part was that I simply wanted relief from this horrible life.

Now, back to the present. After breakfast, I was introduced to my “savior”. Although the nurses gave him the credit of saving my life, I could tell that the person who saved me was anyone but him. First of all, he stunk of money and evidently lived an easy life. But, his name-brand clothing could barely conceal his bulging muscles beneath. In addition, he was handsome and tall, he was the ideal type, the one that would steal hearts. Secondly, I could see that he was shrewd. I could see his cold eyes appraising me the moment we met. This was not a person to rashly jump in to freezing water to save a person’s life.

“Nice to meet you, my name is Shurki. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Hmm, confident but not arrogant. Perhaps I had misjudged him. Although I was still wary of him, my defenses were lowered after his polite greeting.

“Feducia.

I was surprised that my voice even worked after almost drowning. However, my voice sounded like a crow croaking.

“Hello, Feducia. As you probably can tell, I am not the one who saved you, despite what everyone says. I am not so conceited as to take the credit of someone who risked his life to save you. However, I am glad to be able to provide you a bed and food for the time being. But make NO mistake, this is not an act of charity, instead, I expect you to pay me back. In fact, I will require you to work 14 hours a day to pay me back and in exchange I will provide lodging and food. Now, don’t get depressed, the work that I’ve mentioned is actually you playing a game, Legendary Age, the new VRMMORPG. I will require your services until I feel that you have paid your debts or I no longer have any need for you.”

I’m probably in heaven. What kind of person gives you shelter and food so that you can play a game? Yeah, it smelled like a scam. But what was there for them to take from me? I had nothing to my name and no fear of death.

“My apologies, I rushed a little too much. I will come back when you have recovered.”

With that, Shurki left my ward. Before he left, he left a hefty stack of papers on my bed; on the top page, in bold letters, were the words, LEGENDARY AGE. I instinctively knew that Shurki was telling the truth and that I was in for a surprise.

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Unbeknownst to Shurki, on the same day that he visited Feducia’s ward, his dad was rushed into the same hospital. The cause? Heart failure. Unfortunately, by the time Shurki had received the news and on his rush to the hospital, his father had died.

*Warning Graphic-ish - For those that don't want to read, Dunbar tried to say something in his last moments but was stopped by a mysterious programmer*

Although the doctors attending Alan Dunbar’s last moments were all trained veterans that had witnessed countless deaths, they were all shocked by Dunbar’s death. In his last moments, Alan Dunbar clawed at his throat trying to speak, but it was in vain, he could not speak a word. When he accepted the fact that he could no longer speak, he began to make wild hand gestures. He furiously motioned for paper, as if he wanted to impart a will, but the thick man (he proclaimed himself to be a programmer at Dunbar’s company) that brought Mr. Dunbar told the doctors to not give Dunbar anything to write, citing “He needs to rest, not work his brain overtime”. When Dunbar heard the words of the man, he violently struggled to get up but the “aid” of the surrounding doctors forced him back into the bed. After crashing back into his bed, Dunbar let out a blood-curling scream. The scream was the last sound he would ever make.