Warren woke to his arms thrashing uncontrollably. He smacked himself in the chest, the face, knocked the bedside table flying and tore all the tubes out of his right arm. If the alarms blaring through the room hadn’t summoned the staff at a dead run, his roars of pain would have.

Worst of all was the fire in his back. It felt as though a god had popped the top off his spine and poured lava down it like a straw. The most vicious agony was at the top where his implant sat, fading to mere flaying and salting at the tailbone.

Then it stopped, like switch being flipped.

Too much like a switch. Warren tried to turn his head, and found he could. He wanted to revel in clawing this tiny fraction of control of his body back but the memory of the pain was overwhelming. Instead, he inched his face to the left to see a disappointed but unapologetic Dr Duntsch standing at the controls of the room’s medical equipment. To Warren’s unending ire, the bastard had the gall to smile when he saw that Warren had looked at him. Once the flood of medical personnel had ceased flowing in through the door, he slipped out behind them, apparently unnoticed and unconcerned.

Nurses and orderlies helped him settle back into his bed and put the room back in order. They untangled the sheets that his thrashing had tangled around his body and in the process Warren found that he had some sensation in his arms. He could feel their hands on his skin, feel the coarse hospital grade linen under his back. There was still a numbness in his hands, but tingling in his fingertips promised further progress to come. “Doesn’t make what he did right, though,” Warren mumbled through chewed up lips.

“What was that?” a nurse asked as she unwound the sheet from his legs.

Warren realised that he still had no sensation below his hips at all. “Can I get some ice chips, please?” he requested dejectedly. “My mouth hurts.”

As the room was mostly fixed by now, the nurse agreed and left to fetch him some while her coworkers completed the job. Warren heard whispers as they passed each other, “what was he doing?” was the most common, but “not worth my job” and “poor boy” also rated highly. Whatever Dr Duntsch had done to him was not authorised by the hospital, but Warren would bet his last copper piece that his father had been behind it.

The nurse returned with the cup of ice chips and bent down to offer him one. She gasped in surprise when he reached out to take the cup between his wrists. “That’s incredible! Doctor! You, fetch the attending!” The last was to an orderly who was just leaving the room.

A completely different doctor arrived a few minutes later. Warren knew his face but couldn’t remember his name and couldn’t make out the tag pinned to his white coat. “Morning champ! Did you have a bit of a whoopsie?” The doctor’s voice had that sing-song quality of forced joviality. “You’re looking a bit worse for wear there.”

Not knowing how to respond to that, and not just because he’d bitten it, Warren held his tongue. He bit through the ice chip in his mouth pointedly however.

“Yeah, let’s just have a look at the system shall we?” The doctor swiped at the controls and started reading. He pinched and poked at the controls, scrolling left, right, up and down. Every now and again he’d look up at Warren, think for a moment then return to the display. When the silence turned awkward he wiped the edge of his palm across the screen and stepped around the console. “Well young man. It appears you’ve been in the wars. What was the last thing you remember before the event?”

“Before my crash?” Warren slurred out, the ice numbing his mouth left his speech sounding drunken.

“Ah, no. I mean today,” the doctor corrected, leaning over Warren to get a better look at his injuries. Warren saw his tag just read “Todd”.

“Nothing, I was asleep,” Warren lied. There was no way he was admitting to playing The Age of Steam and Sorcery to some random guy named Todd. Even if he was a doctor.

Doctor Todd briefly shone a torch in Warren’s eyes, checking for pupillary response. “Hmm,” he responded noncommittally. “Your brain was unusually active for a sleep cycle, and then your entire nervous system went wild. Must have been one hell of a dream! Maybe some girl you know?” He clapped Warren on the shoulder, then looked guilty when Warren winced. “Sorry. Anyway, I can’t see any reason for the spasms. Are you feeling any better?”

“Mumphsh,” Warren slurred. He regretted eating so many ice chips now, his mouth was completely numb. “Ig ash Ogor Mumphsh.”

“Ooohhh, how about we don’t try to talk for a bit?” Todd’s tone turned from jovial to condescending. “In fact, I’m giving you something to help you sleep a bit deeper. Can’t have you thrashing about again.” Ignoring Warren’s protestations, the doctor flipped a control and the Warren’s lights went out both figuratively and literally.

Consciousness returned in a significantly more gentle manner the next time Warren woke. He felt warm and cosy. His muscles had that ache of fading DOMS as though he’d done a hard workout three days ago. His arms and back shivered uncontrollably for a moment causing pain to shoot through the effected areas before settling. There was movement on the far side of his closed eyelids but he really didn’t want to open them to find out. Not yet, anyway.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Something about him must have changed, because Warren heard his mother say “He’s waking up.” He felt her pull the sheets up around his neck the way she had when he was a little child and instinctively tried to tug them into a more comfortable position. “Oh,” she exclaimed softly, sitting back down with a thump.

The cat out of the bag, Warren sat up and looked around blearily. There was no Todd this time, but both his parents were in the room and he could see his sister’s shoulder peeking past the door jamb as she leaned against the wall outside in the hallway. There were some flashing icons in the corner of his vision, but they were summarily ignored. Ready or not, Warren knew he was about to receive wisdom from his father. The elder MacGregor looked entirely too happy for this to be a normal visit.

“I see you’ve taken the lessons to heart!” He began, puffing out his chest and tucking his thumbs behind his suspenders.

Oh no! The suspenders! Warren lamented inwardly. He’s definitely going to rant for at least an hour.

Indeed, the man was dressed in his Sunday best. He was only a bowtie short of wedding formal. “I told you all you had to do was smarten up and start thinking like a real man and you’ll start getting better. Look at that,” he gestured to Warren’s arms, “you’re getting better already, thanks to me.”

A small cough entered the room, followed by Dr Duntsch. “Sorry, continue Mr MacGregor.”

“As I was saying,” MacGregor continued, slightly nonplussed, “if you keep applying yourself as I told you to, if everyone does as I say, then we will all see a very successful outcome.”

Warren zoned out a bit as his father continued to rant about how the world would all be rainbows and unicorn farts as long as everybody thought like him, acted like him and most importantly did exactly as he wanted at all times. He tried to claw back the cozy feeling he’d had upon waking but the ache in his muscles was slowly building. The shivers that shook his newly reawakened muscles were becoming more frequent. The room seemed to be getting brighter and his father’s voice getting louder. He wanted nothing more than to dive back into the world of swords and fantasy but he couldn’t with a room full of people demanding his attention.

As the patriarch wound to a smu3e5Ag, self-satisifed conclusion, Warren realised that everyone was waiting for some sort of response from him. “Thank you father, for this opportunity to learn,” he began, hoping that this was another of the carbon copy rants that his father always gave. “I promise to take your advice to heart. While I may be bed bound at the moment I assure you I will hit the ground running at the first opportunity.”

Confusion on two of the faces and a darkening of the third told him that he’d guessed wrong. “I said, what would you like to say to the doctor who has done so much to help you recover. Were you even listening, boy?”

The word “boy” triggered something deep in Warren. Out here in the bright and loud confinement, more trapped than when he was stuck under a mountain with an acidic jelly monster trying to eat his face, he had zero control over his fate. At least in there he could fight. Wait a minute, he thought to himself. Not every fight means a face full of head.

For so long, Warren had weileded a katana. The single edged blade had cut through numberless enemies, but had also brought with it a certain mode of thought. Every plan of attack had just been, step one: attack. There had been no step two. Looking around the room, Warren was struck by an epiphany, that when the only tool you had was a sword, every problem starts to look like a target. Stripped of the weapon that had been his constant companion for so long he was forced to reconsider his approach. I wonder if this is how Pham feels every day?

While Warren experienced the sort of introspection and self-reflection that most teenage boys needed shrooms to go through, his face contorted through a series of expressions that gave his father a rare pause. “Doctor, is he… Did the procedure go… Did you…?” he tried and restarted several times as his natural confidence in every action met reality. Normally, with enough power, money or influence reality could be convinced to conform to how Mr MacGregor believed it should be but there were the odd occasions when the universe was less accommodating. It was not an experience he enjoyed overmuch.

Dr Duntch rushed to reassure his client. “I assure you, this is all within parameters. While I was forced to modify the schedule slightly and alter some records last night,” the doctor hesitated before continuing, “my authority allowed me to do so and nobody in this hospital will ask inconvenient questions. Besides, the results speak for themselves!”

“The patient can speak for himself too!” Warren snapped. “And I’m certain what you did crossed an ethical line. I thought I was going to die. Do you know what it feels like to die? I do.”

“How-?” Warren’s mother started but was hushed by his father. She sat back in the chair but had that look like it was a conversation that would be continued at length once they were alone.

“Boy, you need to watch your tone,” Mr MacGregor warned. “I have paid the good doctor a lot of money to ensure you can run again. To play sports again. He’s doing exactly as instructed, as you should be.”

“I am doing what you told me, I’m thinking for myself. Maybe for the first time in my life, I am actually considering what I do next.” Warren crossed his arms, slowly and deliberately. The pressure helped alleviate the ache in his arms and conceal the twitching. “So hear me when I say this. I do not want any more help. I do not need to run. I do not need to walk. I am learning how to be a better person. I am learning how to lead. I am learning that things given to you are not valued the way things you earn are.”

Warren’s father’s face was turning a shade usually associated with beetroot. “You ungrateful child. I have made sure you have everything. Every advantage. Anything money can buy. And this is how you repay me. Fine. No more help. Faith, we’re leaving. I’m sorry for my son, doctor. I’ll make sure you get your money.” He stormed out the door, nearly knocking his daughter to the ground as he passed. Warren’s mother spared Warren a compassionate glance, but wouldn’t gainsay her husband in public. She followed him out the door, pausing only to check on Ellie and confirm she was fine.

Dr Duntsch grumbled under his breath about lost research opportunities, but left as well without even looking back at Warren once.

Ellie watched their parents leave and ducked into the room. “Finally learning,” she whispered, giving him a quick hug. “Gotta run.”