The Atlantian System: Creation

The darkness she found herself in was becoming all too familiar as Leta’s mind slowly floated up from the void into awareness.

The blip of a heart monitor was the first thing that registered, followed soon after by the smell of disinfectant and the peaceful ambiance of conversations in the distance.

Out of the void, she could hear an echo of her feverish skin as goose bumps crept over her arms exposed to fridge air.

As her brain sluggishly crawled toward consciousness, she could sense more of her surroundings, like the rough texture of cheap cloth against her torso that seemed familiar and the slight weight of a blanket over her lower body.

More than that, she started to understand her being better.

She was exhausted. Her bones felt like paper straws, her muscles seemed to have the endurance of a marshmallow, and even the feel of her chest going up and down with her breathing felt like someone had put concrete blocks on her lungs.

And she was tired. All she wanted to do was wrap the void around her again and pull her back into the darkness where nothing could touch her, and she could rest.

She would have happily succumbed to her body’s desire to sleep, but something tickled her brain that she couldn’t ignore.

A sensation like lead weighing down her heart grated against her psyche like rough sandpaper, insistent on being acknowledged.

Worry, maybe?

It was a struggle, but Leta took a deep breath and opened her heavy eyelids. Her vision was blurry, then cleared as she blinked away the cobwebs of her mind.

Unadorned walls covered three sides of the room, with one taken up from floor to ceiling by a window overlooking a city. On the far wall were tasteful but cheap cabinets centered around a large TV playing reruns of a Greek game show.

Next to her bed, Leta saw a medical setup monitoring her vitals, beeping away rhythmically as a saline bag dripped liquids into her through an IV.

“Oh, great.” Leta breathed, her eyes scrunching shut in distaste, “Another hospital.”

She focused, trying to remember what had happened for her to end up here.

She remembered the bon voyage dinner with the rest of the dig team and getting a ride share with Vigo…

Her eyes shot open as yellow eyes and shadow creatures flashed through her vision.

The accident…

Channeling the storm…

Vigo’s body in the mud…

“Vigo. Shit!” She hissed and tried to sit on her elbows, but even that was an effort as she felt around for the bedside report. It took a moment for her to pull it towards her so she could press the nurse call button.

Her elevated heart rate must have tripped one of the nurse alert buttons because her door opened before she’d even had a chance to press the button.

In walked an elderly woman of maybe sixty with kind eyes and thick white hair that was artfully twisted into a bun on her head. Her pale face was weathered from years of fixing others, her sharp hazel eyes seeing much with a glance. She was dressed in a professional white collared shirt and black skirt, her low heels making a soft ‘click clack’ as she walked in and closed the door behind her.

As the door shut, Leta caught a clean whiff of linen in the air and realized this woman was another Arisen.

The doctor smiled warmly like a grandmother seeing her grandchildren.

“Hello, dear.” Her soft voice held an odd accent that sounded vaguely Baltic, “My name is Doctor Erienne Kudela. How are you feeling?”

“Uh. I’m… good.” Leta frowned, realizing that it was true. She was exhausted, but after being paralyzed from the neck down and channeling a bolt of lightning through her body, exhaustion was the only thing that was ailing her. “Tired mostly. My muscles feel heavy like I’d gone hard at the gym after not exercising for months.”

Dr. Kudela nodded absently as she pressed some buttons on Leta’s medical monitor, “That’s completely understandable. You’ve been through quite an ordeal.”

Satisfied with what she saw, she turned back to her patient, pulled back the sleeves of her white medical coat, and raised her hands, “Now, let’s have a look at you.”

Delicate fingers pressed lightly to Leta’s temples, and she watched as the older woman’s hazel eyes flickered a swirling golden color.

[Warning! A foreign entity is scanning the Host’s vital signatures and gauging overall health. Malicious intent not detected.]

Dr. Kudela’s eyes flicked over her face as if looking through her to see something else. She held Leta’s head in her hands for a few more moments before letting go with a smile.

“No healing needed from me. You’re dehydrated and weak but should quickly make a full recovery.”

She turned away, but Leta raised her hand to stop her. “Excuse me. I was with someone when we crashed. My friend Vigo. Do you know what happened to him?”

Something like uncertainty flickered across the older woman’s eyes before she put on a kind smile. “Oh, you must mean your Mundane friend. He’s banged up, but due to his inebriated state, his body was fairly relaxed when you both were ejected from the vehicle. He has some broken bones, but we’re working on healing those. I’ll let him know you’re awake and let you see each other when it’s alright to do so.”

Leta sighed in relief, her head falling back as she smiled. “Thank god. I thought he was dead.”

“You were both fortunate.” Dr. Kudela’s voice was firm, lips tight as she gave Leta a stern look, “You and young Koa were unnaturally lucky to have survived the crash, much less taking on a Minotaur without so much as a proper weapon.”

“Oh, jeez. Koa! What about him?”

“Unlike you two, Koa was smart enough to wear a seat belt and walked away with a few scrapes that had already healed. He’s right as rain.”

“Thank goodness.” Leta sighed with a smile, then frowned. “Now that that’s out of the way… where am I?”

She turned her head to look at the large window wall overlooking the city. She could tell by the signs over the shops below them that they were still in Greece, but they were not in Santorini anymore.

“You’re at the Aceso Hospital in Athens. It’s one of two private hospitals in the country owned by Chosen. We have a handful of private rooms on the top floor reserved for our kind because, despite our great talents, we still get banged up and bruised. As you well found out.”

She gave Leta a knowing look before her face got serious, and she grabbed a chair from the side and brought it over.

Leta gulped. “Uh oh. Doctors don’t sit down to give people good news.”

Dr. Kudela’s lips twitched as she sat down, legs crossed professionally and her back straight as if she were addressing a head of state. “You’ve been out for about 36 hours now. After you passed out, our people collected you and brought you back to Athens by air to be treated. You’ve healed up well on your own, but whatever you did back in Santorini put a lot of strain on your organs and muscles, and you need some prolonged therapy to ensure your body didn’t heal something incorrectly.”

At Leta’s confused look, Dr. Kudela waved a hand as if swatting away a fly, “It happens. Our bodies heal quickly, and sometimes that means broken bones that heal without being set properly will heal in harmful ways.”

Leta cringed as she remembered the pain of the Nanites putting her back together, a shiver of terror tripping up her spine as she imagined if the Nanites had just healed her broken bones while they were still pointing in the wrong direction.

“Anyway,” Dr. Kudela continued, “Your body needs rest and time to regain strength, but I fear you don’t have that right now. It’s the afternoon, but your team would have discovered this morning that you and your friend didn’t make it back to your accommodations. I’m letting you know so you can process this because we’ll have to decide soon what we’ll do.”

“What do you-” Leta asked, but the elderly woman raised her hand to stop her. “I just put our kind back together again, dear. I’m not the one who’s making the decisions, but you’re not the first person who’s stumbled head over foot into our world. If you go back to living among the Mundane, there’s an excellent probability that you’ll continue to be hunted by the Blessed - they’re the tainted faction of the Arisen, the creatures you met last night.” She explained when she saw Leta’s furrowed brows. “However, if you cut yourself off entirely from the Mundane, that would mean faking your death so you don’t have any loose ends that could be in danger of associating with you.

“Oh, the other hand, you could keep up pretenses and continue to stay immersed in the Mundane world while also being part of the Arisen, but you could put those you love in the cross hairs if and when the Blessed decide to make you a priority.” “Wow. You, uh, don’t sugarcoat things.” Leta mumbled.