I felt… good. No, actually, better than good. It was great, I felt like a brand-new engine that had been seized up but was now purring, every piston firing in perfect, oil-smooth harmony. The aches were gone, replaced by a thrumming sense of vitality that felt embedded in my very cells, there is no dissonance of delayed motor response like before, my entire body now able to move, the way I wanted, when I wanted them to.
The door clicked open, and Dr. Meredith walked in, her tablet in hand. she was the same doctor that I remembered when I lost consciousness, I remembered her voice and visage, thanks to my now, renewed brain capacity.
"Hello, good morning, Mr. Hardcox, How are we feeling today?". she asked, her voice that same blend of professional competence and genuine care to me.
"Like a million bucks," I said, and it wasn't even a lie at all. Then, I actually got a proper look at her in the calm morning light.
And I did a mental double-take so hard I swear my soul briefly left my body.
'Meredith Grey? Doctor Meredith? Brown hair, sharp features, intelligent eyes, that no-nonsense yet compassionate vibe.'
My brain, the repository of a thousand useless pop culture facts from a dead world, screeched to a halt. 'No. Fucking. Way. It can't be.'
I kept my face a perfect, neutral mask, but internally, I was losing my damn mind. Doctor Meredith Grey. You have got to be kidding me. Is the Chief around here somewhere? Is there an McDreamy lurking in the cardiology wing? It was so absurd, so perfectly, cosmically silly, that I had to fight down a completely inappropriate laugh. Of all the isekai tropes, getting treated by a carbon copy of a TV doctor was a new one even for me. I definitely knew her, because I watched the early seasons of Grey Anatomy, back when it was fun, when it really sparks that hot moment, of their messy relationships. I am a fan of Meredith Grey, because I found her extremely hot. Sadly, as the time move on, that drama become annoying as heck to see.
She began going over my chart, explaining the diagnosis in clear terms. "—so, the combination of ceasing the suppressants and your… enthusiastic embrace of a new physical lifestyle created a perfect storm... Your endocrine system didn't just wake up; it exploded into overdrive; It's a rare but documented phenomenon... A severe hormonal rebound."
I nodded along, my expression one of serious, concerned understanding. Inside, I was cheering.
'Yes! Thank you, medical science of this bizarre world! Thank you for giving me the perfect, bulletproof cover story.'.
I didn't have to stammer my way through lame excuses about weird growth spurts or sudden genetic awakenings. The doctor had handed me a legitimate, scientific reason for my metamorphosis on a silver platter. Gosh, right now, I could have kissed her all over to thanked her for this.
"All your levels are stabilizing beautifully," Dr. Meredith said, closing the chart on her tablet with a definitive tap.
"You're free to go home... Rest today, light activity tomorrow, But I've scheduled a series of follow-up appointments for you." She fixed me with a look that was kind but left no room for argument.
"Weekly blood panels for the next month, then monthly for a quarter…. We need to ensure everything settles where it should, Given your… demographic profile, it's important we're thorough…. We cannot afford to be lacking, when it comes to a male patient like you,".
I heard the unspoken words loud and clear: 'Because you're a man, and the government has a vested interest in your continued health and viability.'
The GMRD might not be hounding me at this exact second, but its long shadow was everywhere. My body wasn't just my own; it was a matter of public record, still thank to that, I was basically taken care off, I got shields to fall on to.
"Of course, Doctor," I said, my voice the picture of compliant gratitude. "Whatever you think is best. I just want to make sure everything's… normal."
She gave me a warm smile. "I have every confidence it will be... You've got a very devoted family looking out for you, That's the best medicine there is.".
I did not disagree with that at all, the discharge process was swift. Soon, we were a caravan of relief heading back to the apartment. The mood in the car was light, filled with the easy chatter of a crisis averted. But reality, as it always does, waited patiently at home.
As we stepped inside, the clock on the wall seemed to tick louder. Cathy let out a soft gasp. "Dear me!! the time! Vera, we're late for the afternoon shift!".
"Sí, sí, I know! Emily, mija, make sure he eats something! Nadia, rest your legs!". The calm shattered into gentle chaos. Vera was already grabbing her work apron.
"Mwah! Get some, rest honey… alright,". Cathy said after kissing me and hurried off.
Vera hurried kisses on my cheek as well, with worried looks that promised a proper debrief later, and then the door closed, leaving me with Emily, Bella, and Nadia, and a suddenly very quiet apartment. The two most important women in my life had to rush off to their low-wage jobs because they'd stayed with me in the hospital.
The thought sat heavily in my gut. My $400 million felt a little less infinite in that moment. The silence was broken by Emily's stomach, which growled with impressive ferocity. She grinned, not an ounce of shame.
"Okay, hero. You're alive... I'm starving… What's the verdict? WcWonalds?".
"The… what now?". I blinked.
"WcWonalds," Bella repeated, as if it were the most normal word in the world. "You know. The clown? The golden arches? You hit your head harder than we thought?"
A slow, incredulous smile spread across my face. WcWonalds. Of course. Because McDonald's couldn't possibly exist here, this is another earth. The name to me, was so blatantly a knock-off, so perfectly ridiculous, that it looped back around to being brilliant, and made me chuckled a little bit. This world had never ceased to make me happy, with their little things.
"Right, yeah… WcWonalds to will do, I want, Triple Cheese Burger Large," I said, playing along.
Twenty minutes later, a delivery bag was on our coffee table, emitting that universally recognizable smell of grease, salt, and processed deliciousness. I unwrapped my burger. It looked exactly like a Big Mac. The fries were perfect golden shoestrings, I took a huge, hungry bite.
It was… a damn good burger. Juicy, cheesy, salty, everything a guilty pleasure should be.
"Good, right?" Emily said through a mouthful of her own food.
"Yeah, actually," I admitted. "It's perfect…."
"Of course it is," she replied, as if stating a simple fact. "It's cultured meat. They've got the flavor profile down to a science."
I froze mid-chew. Cultured meat? Like Lab-grown, Vat-made. The words from my old world flashed in my mind: 'test-tube burger, synthetic protein'. A tiny, ingrained squeamishness tried to rear its head, the cultured meat that I know was always, shitty, I know because I tried it. not because I was a vegan or anything, just because I wanted to know what it tastes like.
But the taste of my burger that I was chewing right now, was undeniable. I looked at the burger, shrugged mentally, and took another, even bigger bite. 'When in Rome,' I thought. 'Or rather, when in New San Antonio.'.
As I chewed the remarkably familiar-tasting burger, my brain, now wired with the analytical prowess of a Master Developer, couldn't help but deconstruct the concept. Cultured meat. It wasn't just a novelty or experimental, or just another attempts by the vegans to make their way of life become a mainstream thing, instead it was a necessity, for this entire world, a necessity to ensure everyone can eat and stay alive.
In my old life, "organic" was a trendy, slightly expensive option. Here, it was the stuff of luxury itself. With most of the planet's surface still dealing with the lingering after-effects of old-world stupidity—radiation, chemical contaminants, you name it—finding clean, arable land to safely farm or raising healthy livestock was a nightmare, it was very rare, the cost was astronomical, that it almost doesn't make sense. A single real apple probably cost more than Vera made in a week.
So, science did what it always does: it found a workaround, they'd perfected cellular agriculture. Grew meat in vast, sterile bio-reactors. It was cheap, sustainable, and incredibly versatile. They could culture anything—beef, chicken, fish, even stuff that never existed—and tweak the flavor, fat content, and texture to be literally perfect. That's why this WcWonalds burger was so good; it was engineered to be the Platonic ideal of a fast-food burger.
The trade-off was nutrients, The base-level cultured stuff was designed for mass consumption—it filled you up and tasted great but was light on the vitamins and minerals a body really needed. You could get "premium" cultured food, fortified with everything you needed, but it cost more. And then there was the real, actual organic food, which was less a grocery item and more a status symbol, a luxury for the ultra-rich.
It explained so much about my family's diet. The hearty but simple meals. The way a "real" steak dinner was treated like a religious experience. They were living on the culinary equivalent of a beautifully designed, incredibly tasty protein paste. The thought made me look at the burger in my hand with a new sense of respect, and a tinge of sadness, sad the world had changed to this, but also respect that they managed to perfected this technology. Besides it tasted good, and also it was perhaps considerably healthy.
The TV was on, providing a background noise to our meal. Some cable channel was broadcasting a live tournament for Soldier of Red. The production values were through the roof—flashy graphics, a hyped-up commentator screaming into his mic, a crowd of fans going wild.
But the game itself… oh, the game itself.
I watched as two teams of four avatars ran across a bland, gray-brown map. The textures were decent; I'll give them that. But the movement was clunky. The guns had no sense of weight or impact. The strategy seemed to consist of running directly at each other and seeing who could click heads faster. It was a spectacle, all right. A shiny, loud, utterly soulless spectacle.
"You still play that, Em?". I asked, nodding toward the screen.
She glanced up from her phone, a fry dangling from her mouth. "Hmm? Oh, Soldier of Red? Yeah, sometimes. It's fun."
"Fun how?". I wondered.
"I squad up with Octopussy and a couple other streamers…. We just mess around mostly, …My subscribers like it when we play that game… So, we have to put it on the schedule at least once a week, or they get antsy.". She said it like she was talking about taking out the trash. It was a chore. It's a content obligation, to appease the viewer, the game itself was just the venue; the fun came from the people she was with, not the thing they were doing.
I just nodded slowly, my eyes back on the screen. The commentator was losing his mind over a player who'd managed to get a triple kill. The play was basic; the opponents had walked right into his line of fire. It was the gaming equivalent of getting excited about a successful pass in pee-wee football.
{"What a genius plays from Raven_Claw!!! That Anti Material round was electrifying!!".}
A player on screen won the round using a cheap, overpowered ability that had absolutely zero counterplay. The crowd erupted. The commentator screamed about what a genius play it was. I couldn't help it. A sound escaped my lips. It wasn't a laugh. It wasn't a sigh. It was a quiet, dismissive,