Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

  The clicking of machinery dispensed medicine into IVs. His nostrils stung from the smell of disinfectant; it permeated every inch of the room. The sound of a monitor rang steadily in his ear and became too prevalent to ignore. Feeling the rough and scratchy linen on his body was the final straw; enough to bring him fully into consciousness. Ayron’s eyes slowly blinked open. As they focused, he noticed the white textured ceiling above him. It matched the off-white and grey accented walls.

  ‘How many months have I been here?’ Ayron mused as he slowly regained consciousness. ‘Five? Six?! I’m rotting in this hospital.’ The young man reached for the bed panel, pushing a button to raise himself into a sitting position. The lights were still off, meaning it was too early for morning rounds. Glancing at the board on the wall, he noted yesterday’s date: Seventeenth of Caesa, Year 1137

  As if on cue, a knock was heard on the door, causing the young man to turn his head.

  “Good morning, Agent Zero,” a woman in a white labcoat smiled as she entered the room. Using a touchpad near the door, she illuminated the room enough that Ayron noticed a clipboard in her hand. The doctor began monitoring the readings on the screens. “Your blood pressure is a little low,” she muttered, making a notation in his chart. “But still within the normal range.” Ayron looked at the badge on her coat, trying to decipher which of his doctors he was speaking to.

  “How many times have I told you, just call me by my name?” the patient grunted. “Give me a pack of smokes and enough caffeine to stop a bear’s heart, Dr. Freya,” he grumbled, rubbing the sleep out of his icy blue eyes. “Does the trick every time.”

  “Once again, you know I can’t do that — the name or the cigarettes — no matter how many times you ask,” the doctor chided before clicking her tongue. The woman kept jotting notes on his chart. “In a few hours, you’ll be able to get them yourself,” she grinned while glancing at the patient. Her cheerful voice intrigued the man lying in the hospital bed. “After your last occupational therapy session, you can go home.”

  “Home?” Ayron raised a brow; the rest of his features remained neutral. Internally, the young man wondered if that place truly existed. “Today?”

  “That’s right,” seeing the look on his features caused her smile to falter. “Aren’t you excited? It’s been six months, one week, and five days since you’ve been under our care. You’ve made quite the turnaround, considering you died for twelve minutes! You’ve crossed each milestone with exemplary progress.”

  “Yeah,” The young man’s voice was quiet, hollow. He wasn’t looking at his doctor. Ayron’s mind was thousands of miles away, back with his fallen comrades in Kirkewall. “I’m one of the lucky ones, so I’ve been told.”

  “You were the only agent to make it out of the incident with your life; most would consider that divine intervention.” The doctor’s voice was sympathetic, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I do wish you wouldn’t take your occupational therapy sessions so seriously. You’re starting to scare the other attendees, even some of the doctors.”

  “I’m rotting just lying in bed all day, I need something to occupy my time. Lifting weights fills that void.”

  “Some weight is encouraged! But, not two hundred pounds,” she mentioned sternly. “Let’s unhook you, since it’s your last few hours here, and then we’ll head down to the rehabilitation center.”

  Ayron held out his arm for the doctor, watching as she pulled three needles from it, applying a small cotton ball and a piece of tape to each prick. The young man turned his arm, glancing at the handmade tattoos on his forearm. In hindsight, he realized using his gun strap as a guide for his grievance band wasn’t the best idea. The pain became too much for him to bear, since he was using handmade equipment. The piece was halfway finished and not his best work, to put it mildly.

  “Are you ready? The faster this is over, the sooner you can leave.” The doctor pushed the monitors towards the back wall, next to the bed.

  “As I’ll ever be. Let’s move.” Ayron sat up the rest of the way before tossing the scratchy blanket to the side. He turned in the bed, swinging his legs over the side. The young man’s knee was still in a brace, obscuring his view of what was underneath. The doctors here achieved what others thought impossible. If he had picked the safest option given by the other trauma specialists, he wouldn’t be looking at two legs.

  Thankfully, he decided to take a risk. At just nineteen, he couldn’t imagine his life with a prosthesis.

  Ayron stood from the bed slowly, using the rails to support his weight before grabbing the walker. He despised the damned thing, but it was ‘hospital policy’.

  “Try not to push yourself too hard today.” The doctor ordered.

  “You never let me have any fun.” Ayron gave her a half smile as he walked down the hall, carrying the walker instead of using it.

  “You’re supposed to be using that; you’re still healing,” the woman chided

  “I am using it,” the young man clarified. “It’s being used for training.”

  Back in his room after therapy, Ayron sat in the padded chair next to the bed. He set his newly-acquired cane against the wall. Although he was unsure how much he would use it, the young man was nevertheless thankful for the tool.

  Having all the casts and braces off made the young man realize how frail he looked. His once bulky body had slimmed down noticeably, his muscles compacting and toning. He lost nearly sixty pounds during his stay. Ayron turned his right leg to the side, noticing a minuscule incision on the back of his knee. It was three to four centimeters long. ‘Held together by medical-grade rubber bands, hooks, and wires. Technology in other places really is amazing,’ the young man mused. He continued to extend his knee in fascination, ignoring the knock at the door.

  A group of three, two men and one woman in black suits, entered the room. The sound of their footsteps pulled Ayron out of his thoughts. He recognized the one in the middle as Agent Clari from his employer, GoldHD.

  “Zero,” the woman greeted the patient with his agent name, rather than his birth name. “Before discharge papers from the hospital are signed, we’d like to discuss next steps.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “Medical discharge, right?” Ayron glanced at the group. “You’re kicking me out of Gold HD,” he stated with an over-the-top sigh. His tone was dripping with faux sadness.

  “I wouldn’t go that far.” The man on the right, whom he didn’t recognize, put a large briefcase on the table. It made a thud that surprised the hospitalized agent.

  The woman continued speaking while the other rummaged through a stack of papers. “This incident has enacted the ‘Pegretiere clause’ of your contract. Unfortunately, we can’t use you on the front lines; GoldHD thinks you still have a lot to give recruits. We are here to offer you an instructor position or any behind-the-scenes work you desire. With your injury, it would be a liability to have you go back into the field. If you choose to walk away, you’ll still receive compensation until the end of your life, enough to cover any expenses that come your way. Once a member of Gold, always a member.” She placed a black metal card on the rolling table. Next, a small stack of stapled papers was pulled out.

  “Here is the deed and paperwork to your new home in Kirkewall. Since you requested a transfer away from your birthplace of Haamu, this was the farthest option we could find. While GoldHD has great reach, it can’t locate you in kingdoms it doesn’t normally operate in. The nondisclosure is still in effect; Mitzei and Riche shouldn’t be able to locate you.” He finished, looking at the patient. “If and when you’re ready to return, the Piquian headquarters in Kirkewall will be happy to take you. If not, you can retire peacefully and live a happy life.”

  Ayron nodded, unsure of what a ‘happy life’ truly looked like. He noticed the man on the left fidgeting. He was anxiously looking between the man next to him and the patient. “What’s up with you? Why are you shaking?”

  “I wanted to come and give my sincerest apologies. My name is Agent Cornet. I'm the one who assigned Agent Dofi to the mission in the kingdom of Piquia.”

  Ayron sighed as images of the deceased captain hopping carelessly out of the vehicle started coming back to him. “Next time, don’t have someone fresh off the plane making tactical decisions. You can’t give me my career back, but you can make sure it doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

  “We’ll take that into consideration.” The man on the left bowed. “Agent Dofi was brought into the program with exemplary credentials. We thought we could trust him to handle the situation.”

  “You knew he’d just touched his boots in the sand; never having worked with GoldHD??” Ayron’s brow raised in suspicion. “He’d barely been in the area for two days, and you assigned him to one of our most important missions?”

  “He had exemplary credentials from the military. The uppers thought he would be an asset to the team.” Cornet countered.

  “My team,” the young man’s voice was curt, adding to the intensity in the space. “We deployed to Piquia together; we completed countless missions with only the five of us.”

  A knock on the door interrupted the tense conversation. A nurse in pink scrubs popped her head in. “I heard someone’s ready to go home! Here’s your discharge papers, sir!”

  “Hell yes.” Ayron sighed in relief.

  “We’ll get out of your hair. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to call us.” They set a business card on the table next to his black card and paperwork. The group said their goodbyes before leaving the room.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” the nurse commented. “I could’ve come back.”

  “No,” Ayron stated firmly. “I’m ready to get out of here.”

  “Alrighty,” the young woman nodded, setting the papers on the table. “When you’re finished, take them to the front desk. They’ll have a car ready for you at the entrance.”

  “Thank you,” the young man said politely. He quickly took the pen from the table, scribbling through the information as fast as he could.

  Minutes later, Ayron was packed and changed into his street clothes. Discharge papers and essentials were in a cloth backpack he slung over his shoulder. ‘Finally! I’m out of the damned gown,’ he mused. ‘I was tired of showing my ass to every Todd, Richard, and Harriet. Now, how do I get to the lift? I don’t feel like taking the stairs.’ The young man walked down several corridors in an attempt to find the nurses' station. He kept looking for signs to point him in the right direction. As he got to the end of his fifth hallway, he noticed a directory on the wall.

  ‘I’m almost there, just take a right to find the lift.’ Ayron thought to himself, turning on his heel. Without warning, a sudden urge came over the young man. He nearly stopped in the middle of the hall and crossed his legs. If he didn’t find a restroom fast, he wasn’t going to make it. The young man desperately searched the lavatory. As he looked at the signs on the wooden doors, he noticed one that resembled a restroom sign. ‘Hell yes! I can’t hold it much longer.’ All but running to the door, he opened it quickly and shuffled inside.

  The moment the door closed, Ayron realized he wasn’t in a lavatory after all. ‘Oh shit…’ the young man muttered internally.

  Ayron had seen countless things in his nineteen years of life. This was by far the strangest, as it was so out of place for where he was supposed to be. The lights were dimmed. A desk full of papers stood to the right. The left was lined with shelving. Different preserved body parts, random objects, and vials of glowing liquid adorned the wooden racks. There was a woman on an operating table, yet no monitors were in the vicinity. Ayron’s eyes became glued to the look of pure despair on the deceased woman’s features.

  Suddenly, Ayron felt a presence behind him. He turned on his left heel, seeing a man in a black robe staring at him. His eyes were drained of any spark. The man looked like a walking corpse. “Sorry, guy,” the young man put both hands up, the cane dropping to the floor with a thud. “I was just looking for the bathroom. I got turned around and accidentally came in here. I’ll just step around you and get out of your hair.”

  As he took a stride towards the door, Ayron watched as the man raised his hand and snapped his fingers. Instantly, the floor dissolved beneath him. Before the young man knew what was happening, he was falling at an alarming rate. The only thing around him was a black void, with no bottom in sight.

  ‘Well, I guess it was too good to be true. I probably should’ve died at the age of six, when my stepfather tried to kill me. This world has never wanted me. It was a privilege to be alive for this long.’ Closing his eyes, Ayron decides to leave his fate in the hands of the universe.

  After several moments, Ayron hit the earth with a thud. His eyes opened to see terracotta-colored dirt beneath him. The first thing on his mind was the noticeable change in the atmosphere. The air was thick and heavy, pushing down on him. It wasn’t enough to stop him from moving, but it led him to believe he was on another planet. It felt like there was a change in gravity.

  The young man rose as quickly as he could, noting he was in an alleyway. The architecture of the buildings didn’t look like anything from his home kingdom, or the kingdom of Piquia, where he rehabilitated. The stone slabs of the buildings were carefully carved. Grabbing his cane, he used it to get off the ground. Once he was finished, he pressed a button on the left side. This caused it to collapse to the size of his hand. The young man placed it in his backpack before taking large strides towards the end of the alley, desperate to find out where he was.

  As the rest of the square came into view, Ayron’s jaw nearly dropped. ‘WHERE THE HELL AM I?!’