My mind was blurred by pain and confusion.
I was trapped in a tornado of pain—batted around, twisted and spinning. I didn’t know where I was, but I knew I was underwater. The maniac roar of a rushing current filled my ears as I was thrust along in its wake. I couldn’t breathe. As I was flipped upside down, I felt liquid pour into my upturned nostrils and the hot sting of water forced into my nasal passages. My sinuses burned and I felt the water hit my lungs, forcing me to cough and shooting another mouthful in to choke me. I saw a thin aqua line in my vision, staying centered ahead of me. I couldn’t focus on it as I rammed into something hard.
FUCK!
The rest of the air I’d been holding on to shot out of me as my back collided with what felt like a huge boulder. I saw flashes of color in my vision. My body rebelled against the feeling, and the pain echoed through my whole body.
My lungs strained air, but I was still trapped in the undertow. It didn’t seem like I’d be able to break free. I tried to bring my arms up to cover my head from more assaults, but it wasn’t enough. I hit another rock and my elbow cracked soundly against it and pushed my arm away. My face struck the same obstacle, and I felt a searing heat explode under the skin of my brow and nose. I was instantly nauseous.
This is how I die.
I closed my eyes because of the sting of the torrent of water pummeling me and felt myself spinning again. Silently, I prepared for my life to end.
Whoever had said drowning was peaceful was a goddamn liar. This was the single worst pain I’d ever felt. I couldn’t imagine it getting worse. Then I hit my head against another rock, proving myself wrong. The pain was so intense that the light left me. I felt myself slipping into a bleak, black vacuum.
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I could hear the water rushing around me, but I realized I could breathe—though through a painful, ragged throat. I sucked in the sweet, delicious, life-giving air and held it in my lungs, then released it when I couldn’t hold it anymore, drawing another breath. I did this a few times, closing my eyes as I tried to focus on my body. I needed to do a physical inventory of how it felt before I would be brave enough to survey the damage. I could feel a mild discomfort everywhere and pain in other parts. My left arm was numb and throbbing.
Wonderful!
I opened my eyes—well, eye—to look around. It seemed my left was swollen shut, so I used my good one to peer into my predicament.
The first thing I noticed was the river. Wide and powerful, it was driving from my right to my left. Almost two hundred feet away was the far bank, a scraggly grey shore dotted with fallen trees, plants, and stones. Back beyond it was a lush, green forest filled with healthy conifers. Behind the trees was a large cliff face climbing up into the horizon, protecting the river and its denizens. Birds chirped in the morning light.
How in the hell did I get here?
I looked down.
I was laying in water up to my waist. My bare feet were floating, fighting the river’s current, my legs covered with the tattered remains of my jeans. My chest was as bare as my feet, with tatters of it still clutching to my arms and back. Dangling from a strip of thin leather from my neck was the ring from my pocket.
How had that happened?
With a start, I realized all my skin had an unhealthy green bruising. That was a new one. But, it had to be bruising, right? Unless it was…gangrene?! Shit…is that why they called it that? It wasn’t just one spot though. In fact, there wasn’t an inch of flesh that hadn’t been completely enveloped in a seafoam pigment.
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Gross.
I looked over to my left arm and found it wedged underneath a broken log. It was bent at an unnatural angle and had a vaguely purple hue to it even with the sickly green bruising. It hurt…but, not like…super hurt, almost like the pain was muted. Still…seeing it like that turned my stomach to knots. I tried to keep myself calm, but was failing miserably.
Great! That’s just fucking great! It may have saved my life, but now my arm is functionally useless.
I wanted to cry, but I knew that wouldn’t help me in my current endeavor no matter how badly I wanted to. Also, what if Lina saw me crying? I’d be so embarrassed.
Lina.
The awful creature, the attack, Lina being forcibly taken into the weird rift, Anubis leaping in behind her all flashed violently from my memory. My heart dropped into my stomach and I felt adrenaline flood my blood. I was hot. My body trembled with rage. Etched into my mind’s eye was Lina’s terrified expression as she passed into that swirling vortex, her eyes locked on mine, her arms stretched out to me. I was going to kill that creature, whatever the hell it was! I was going to drag it across a mile of broken glass and rip its head off with my bare hands—eye sockets first!
My chest heaved, and I made myself sit up a bit more. My body felt broken as the agony washed over me like a tidal wave. The swelling ebbed a bit in my left eye, and I strained to open it. My eyelid yielded, but only barely. There was a pulsing red flash in my vision as I angrily pulled on my arm to wrest it from beneath the snare. My wrist was pressed tightly between the rocks of the shore and the grimy, wet bark of the log.
As I pulled, my arm shifted and I felt a pop and watched as my arm slid back into place with a loud crack. I’d realigned the bones by accident and relocated them. But I only had a moment to register the pain because a small message box appeared abruptly in front of me.
New Skill Learned: Medicine [ Level 1 ]!
This skill allows you to diagnose wounds, utilize healing items and even stabilize fading comrades.
“Uh...what?” I asked aloud, looking around for some kind of clarity. My mind seemed to click into place as if something I’d long forgotten had been returned to me. An aura washed over me the moment the message appeared. It felt euphoric, as though I was now more knowledgeable.
The message stayed in my vision for a moment before fading. The rage and pain I felt before left and I lay there in stunned silence, the irritating and throbbing red flash still in the vision of my left eye. But then I realized that there was no pulsing vein.
I saw numbers. The flashing red was an indicator. A short, squat bar floated there radiating red.
Low Health! 5/50 HP remaining!
A health bar? Oh, I get it. Like from a video game.
That settled it. I had smacked myself into simplicity. My brain must have taken too many strikes in the river, and now I was witnessing my first full-blown dive into a broken mind. Soon I’d be stumbling around, sputtering incoherent phrases and begging strangers to change my diaper.
“Screw this,” I said as I wiggled my newly-repaired elbow. I attempted to dig my wrist into the rocks to slip my hand out from beneath the log. I wasn’t going to die out here, defeated by a plant!
I could still see the flashing health bar above me, pestering me with some strange concern. I closed my eyes and dug the back of my hand into the sand and rock and shloop, my wrist was suddenly free!
“Ha!” I exclaimed, and kissed my hand—a weird thing to do, even in celebration, I realized almost immediately after I did it. Ignoring that weird faux pas, I slid to my hands and knees to get upright.
New Skill Learned: Nimble Gesture - [ Level 1 ]
This skill allows you the ability to attempt to misdirect, escape from manacles or even pickpocket others! Be careful, however—if you steal from other players, they might notice and become angry!
Other...players?
This was just great. My obsession with fantasy had finally done exactly what my overprotective parents had always warned about: become full-blown psychosis. I was unable to see the distinction between reality and my imagination. I was probably seeing all of this because of my damaged gray matter, and I was actually just wandering around the streets of my neighborhood right now bumping into parked cars.
But I couldn’t deny that I again felt as though some hot bit of learning had wormed its way into my mind. I genuinely knew I was more deft and capable than I had been a moment ago.
That couldn’t be real though, could it? It definitely felt real. The creature. The river. The pain. I had definitely felt trapped under that log. Was I some sort of hostage, placed in VR?
Tentatively, I reached up to my face. All I felt was the stabbing pain of my crushing contact with the rocks. I looked at my green-tinted digits and saw a dab of blood smeared into my fingerprints.
“Oh boy, Vale. What have you gotten yourself into?” I figured I may as well talk out loud since I was one hundred percent losing my marbles at this point. I sighed and leaned forward, cupping my hands and dipping them into the cold rushing water. I noticed a pool of still water around the base of the log where it met the river.
May as well survey the damage.
I climbed over to face my reflection. My eyes found themselves in the mirror staring back. They adjusted, and I froze.
I was a monster.