The only way I knew about how long it had been was through my sobbing mother's words.
"It's been 3 years... Please... wake up..."
It was the same scene every day. She would walk into the hospital room with a cheery face, trying to put up a front with a smile and a basket full of fruit. She would then sit beside my bed and start telling me stories of the outside world. The gossip, the politics, the major situations. All the while, I lay there unresponsive and hooked to a multitude of machines.
But I heard everything.
I felt everything. I heard my mom slicing the apples in her hands as she reminded me how Honeycrisps were my favorite. I took in the words explaining that my younger sister had now started middle school, unable to ask about her well-being. I wanted to know if she was being bullied or not.
God knows what I went through in middle school. Yet I couldn't be there to protect my sister from the horrors. I could decipher the moments my mom was smiling when telling the stories… to when she would start to waver, her voice quivering… to when she would completely break down over my body.
'Mom…'
I wanted to cry as well. I wanted to reach out and comfort my mother. Nobody ever wanted anything more. But the reality was that I couldn't. For three years, I had been bedridden after an asshole drunk driver smashed into my motorcycle; he was going 56 in a 20-mile-per-hour school street, and I paid the price for that. Not just bedridden, but seemingly unconscious to the outside world. Of course, I was still awake inside.
I was still alive.
If you wanted a silver lining, that was it. I listened to the countless conversations the doctors, nurses, and my parents had over my body, detailing how it was all useless. My chance of waking was slim to none, and if I did, I would never be the same.
Many times, I almost let it go. I almost lost my mind, letting the firm grip I had on my sanity slip, only to reach out for it again and desperately hang on. For a miracle? For God? I didn't know anymore. All I knew was that as long as my heart beat, I would keep pushing forward, for that meant a chance at life once again.
After some minutes, I felt my mother get off my chest and get up from her seat next to me.
'Wait, don't go!' I pleaded with her in my mind. 'Please… stay. The hospital nights are cold, and I'm lonely. Mom…'
It was useless. My mother wiped the tears from her eyes and put the plate of sliced apples on the counter next to my bed. The smell filled my nostrils. Then I felt her warm hand caress my hair and kiss my forehead.
"I will be back tomorrow, my dear."
And that was it. She left the room with the click of the metal hospital door.
I sighed.
'Another day of reminiscing, it seems. At least I have those memories available to me…'
I once again tried to open my eyes. Tried to regain control of my body and muscles, but the result was the same as the last thousand times I tried.
'God damn it. At this point, even if I were given the ability to talk for five seconds, I would be a happy man. I could finally tell those damn doctors to stop turning off my heater,' I joked to myself to lighten the mood.
That's not what I would actually do… but it was a pressing matter. There was no hiding that the doctors and hospital staff hated me. They thought I was a waste of energy, money, and time. If my parents weren't funneling all their money into me, a nurse would've definitely pulled the plug a long time ago.
'Now what… I have to keep going somehow…'
""Anarch is in quite a desperate situation. Is he willing to go through hell at a chance for life?""
'Hell?' I scoffed. 'How different would that be from what I'm already going through?'
""Does the boy, ANARCH LOVE, wish to initiate his last option?""
'Of course I do! At this point, whatever gets me back to my normal life, I will do it…' I answered the question honestly.
There were always moments like this in my head. A voice unlike my own would infiltrate my mind, probing me for information. I was never the religious type, but my mother was quite spiritual, so I was inclined to believe this might have been the devil… or maybe just an unconscious section of my mind.
'Yeah, as if. The devil doesn't exist just as much as God.'
Either way, I was desperate for any solution to my current predicament.
Suddenly, I felt heavily drowsy, and this time, the voice in my head had a melodic, divine presence to it that put the mind at ease.
'Is this it? Has divine intervention really been sent to my poor soul?'
""Anarch's post-mortem data was passed through to the Engine. Although he was quite a stubborn boy, he has enough drive to restart his impulse.""
""ENGINE PROTOCOL ASSIGNED.""
.
.
.
""Let the Inciting Incident Begin""
.
.
.
*BOOM!*
For a moment, the world vanished before coming back to me all at once, attacking my senses like an explosion. I sucked in air that tasted of iron and smoke and screamed as my body finally responded to me.
My eyes snapped open to a sky choked black with ash. Faint hints of dark purple shone through the black clouds of fire.
~RING: 12 (Area: Midevil Mania)
~GOAL: Siege of TimeStone Castle
Writing in the sky.
""30 New Participants""
A narrative voice rang out through the entire landscape.
Arrows shrieked overhead, and steel rang against steel so loudly it made my teeth vibrate. Somewhere close by, a man was screaming in a way that sounded like he wouldn't stop anytime soon.
I rolled onto my side and gagged.
Mud. Blood. The copper stench of opened bodies soaked into the earth beneath my cheek. My hands clawed at the ground on instinct, fingers sinking into trampled grass and something soft that definitely wasn't grass.
I scrambled backward and hit a corpse.
"What the FUC—"
The corpse stared back with glassy eyes, helmet split open like a cracked melon.
I bolted upright and panickedly looked everywhere. All around me, people were charging toward something.
A battlefield stretched as far as I could see. Hundreds, maybe thousands of figures rushing forward in broken formations toward a towering stone castle ahead. Siege ladders slammed into the walls. Ballista bolts thudded into packed ranks. Fire bloomed along the battlements as defenders hurled oil and alchemical flame downward.
This wasn't a dream.
Dreams didn't smell like burned hair.
Dreams didn't hurt like this.
I looked down at myself.
I wasn't wearing a hospital gown.
Rough linen clung to my body, already soaked dark at the knees. No armor. No weapon. I was only given the basics before being dropped into this hellhole. My hands were bare, shaking, scraped raw as if I'd clawed my way out of the earth. As if I had come back from the dead.
My heart slammed so hard I thought it might rip out of my chest.
'I can move.'
The thought hit me harder than the noise. My legs worked. My lungs burned. My body was obeying me.
Joy lasted exactly half a second. The next, someone next to me took an arrow through the throat and collapsed in a fountain of blood.
"Nope," I whispered.
This wasn't a second chance. This was a meat grinder.
I turned and ran with my hands over my head, ducking down low. Not toward the castle. Not toward glory or banners or screaming commanders. I ran away.
'I need to get as far away from this place as possible! I don't know shit about what's happening!'
More than anything else, what scared me the most was my lack of comprehension. Whenever I entered a situation in which I didn't have all the preparation and information available, it spiraled me into a dark place. I hated being unprepared more than anything.
I shoved through panicked bodies, ducking swinging blades, slipping in gore as men cursed at me for breaking formation. Someone tried to grab me, and I twisted free, terror lending me strength I didn't know I had.
I didn't care where I went as long as it wasn't here.
I broke into a sprint down a shallow ravine choked with bodies and discarded shields, lungs screaming as I fled the sound of war behind me.
Then a hand clamped down on my shoulder like a vice.
"Where?" The voice boomed at me, low and masculine.
I yelped and spun, swinging wildly.
The man who caught me didn't even flinch.
He was huge, wrapped head to toe in a dark iron plate etched with sigils that crawled faintly with dull red light. His helm was open-faced, revealing scar-latticed skin and eyes like cold embers.
The soldier looked me up and down, then frowned.
"…Newspawn."
The word made my stomach drop.
"I—I don't know what you're talking about," I stammered. "Please, I just—"
*SMACK!*
Stars exploded across my vision as I hit the ground hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs.
"Quiet," the man said flatly. He reached down, hauling me up by the collar like a sack of grain. "You'll speak when the Commander asks."
The man raised his other arm, two fingers out, and two mud soldiers rose from the ground. They looked like armored figures emerging from the smoke, their attention snapping to me instantly.
The man grabbed the cloak from his back and wrapped me in it. Tight, secured, and unable to escape.
'What is this material made of!?' I struggled futilely before I was handed off like a sack of potatoes to the mud men.
Panic surged inside me. "Listen—please—I don't belong here—I was in a hospital—I—"
The big man had long disappeared, and the mud soldiers didn't react. One of them bound my neck with a strip of faintly glowing metal that burned cold against my skin. The moment it snapped shut, something inside me recoiled, as if my thoughts had been forced into a smaller box.
I gasped and soon entered a drunken state of consciousness.
They dragged me toward the castle. Along a narrow path shielded by towering stone and bodies piled high like barricades. Arrows bounced harmlessly off the soldiers' armor as they moved with brutal efficiency.
They entered a side tower, its interior dim and humming with a low, unnatural resonance. The sounds of battle dulled as heavy doors slammed shut behind them. They climbed spiral stairs. Blood smeared into the grooves of stone steps worn smooth by centuries of boots. At the top, massive iron doors stood ajar.
Inside, a man leaned against a table carved from black stone. He didn't wear armor. There was an air about him that said 'I don't need to'.
Dark robes hung from his broad frame, stitched with symbols that made my eyes ache if I stared too long. His hair was silver despite a face that looked no older than forty, and his gaze, when it lifted, cut straight through me like a scalpel.
The soldiers shoved me forward and forced me to my knees before disappearing slowly into the ground.
The man regarded me silently, looking at the cloak I was tightly imprisoned in.
Then he smiled.
"Oh," he said softly. "Another one who chose hell."
I swallowed, heart pounding.
"I didn't choose this," I whispered.
The Commander walked away from his table and toward me before crouching until we were eye to eye.
"You all say that," he replied calmly. "And yet… here you are."
Something unseen pressed against my mind.
A familiar presence.
""Inciting Incident acknowledged.""
My breath hitched as a cold understanding crept up my spine. Whatever had answered me back in the hospital was no god or spirit. I could almost laugh at the irony.
'The devil exists after all.'