The Empires Rise

As the memories appear before my eyes, I find that there shouldn’t have been anything wrong that would have led me to that white room.

The start of my day was "normal." I had a doctor's appointment to check that my heart was okay. For several years, my heart has been skipping beats. That led me into cardiac arrest on several occasions.

All of the investigations into this phenomenon have pointed to nothing. Other than a deformity on the side of my heart. I have tried several times to have it removed, but all to no avail. It always comes back, which leads to more pain when it does come back.

Recently, there have been signs of it growing. IE, the reason I was headed to an appointment was to make sure that it wasn’t life-threatening.

With the pain, the doctor has decided, after the last time, that I should give up on removing it and see if it leads to any issues further down the line as they study it, and with the now recent growth of this deformity that has slowly started to surround my heart and even follow the veins through my body.

Nothing is coming of the studies. At least nothing that they will willingly tell me.

On my trip to my appointment this morning. I thought several things were different about today. First, my sibling called. It seemed odd and out of place since we don’t talk often. When we do, the calls end within 10 minutes of it starting.

The strange thing about this call was that they talked to me for the entire walk to the hospital. As if they were afraid of something that I didn’t know about. It probably had something to do with the deformity. Since they also work in the medical field. They sometimes call the doctors I am visiting to see if they can get insights into what might be occurring with my body.

As we were conversing, I could tell that something was off. Other than the length of the phone call. They seemed almost distraught, which wasn’t new to me. They had broken it off with their boyfriend. And they are known to need emotional assistance whenever that occurs, leading to long conversations.so I just let it be and continued on my way.

At this point, they did ask when I was planning on getting to the hospital. I mentioned that I was just about to walk in the front doors so I could have my examination and hear if there was any information they could give me. To which they replied, “Good Luck.”

Finding it strange, I tell them to have a good day and that we will talk as soon as I hang up the phone.

Walking into the hospital wasn’t all that bad as the nurses at this point know me by my first name as I am constantly coming in at least 5-6 times a month for my checkups and for them to prod me with more needles than you can find in a sewing shop.

I get checked in. I am brought to a patient room to have the tests start again. With the questions of, “How are you feeling?”, “Any discomfort in your chest?”, “Have you been unable to breathe lately?” and so on. It is to the point that I am tired of it all and have very generic answers since I know that they probably won't tell me anything new today, as it is the same with any other day.

Soon, the doctor comes in and sits down across from me as the nurse is finishing up taking my blood pressure, and he looks at me with a slight furrow creasing his brow.

“Mr. Taldrit, I know that you are a bit frustrated with the lack of knowledge you have been receiving from us regarding what exactly you are experiencing. I would like you to know, though, that we are slowly finding that, while not good news, it is still a direction that we might be able to take in the future. I will let you know that we have seen a drastic increase in the activity that has been going on near your heart over the last two months to the extent that now, 12% of the veins in your body have a parallel set of veins. To all of us in the hospital, we can do nothing to help you.”

I look at the doctor and ask with a firm tone, “What does this mean for me then, seeing as you can’t remove the deformity, and now you are telling me it is growing in my veins like a cancer.”

“Now, Mr. Taldrit,” the doctor replies, “I understand your concern and frustration with everything happening, but I would like you to remain as calm as possible through this discussion. We don’t know what is causing the accelerated growth, but we have done some confirmation that it might not be bad for you once it has fully grown out.”

“And how could you possibly know that?” I started in a huff.

“Well, as you know, the cardiovascular system helps to regulate many things throughout our bodies; with the new set of veins, we believe that it might be possible that they will double the output of the system and make it more efficient for you as it works its way through your body. We have no examples to follow, but we think that will occur.”

“So you have no evidence it will help me, but we have evidence that it has been causing me issues in the past. To the point of needing, on several occasions, a doctor's intervention to ensure that I stayed alive after months of recovery from my last surgery to remove the deformity. I am of half the mind that I should get up and leave right now since this hasn’t been productive for either of us, and all I am hearing is that I will continue to need to be a guinea pig for you as you prod me in hopes of finding some solution or answer that you are looking for in some case study.” I state this in an ever-increasing volume as I start to get up from the chair I am sitting on.

“And I wouldn’t stop you,” they said with a slight smile, “Actually, I would highly recommend you leave as if anything gets out too fast to the higher-ups, they might not just let you leave.”

I look at him with confusion and then nod my head. I have read enough about the history of the world to know that not all things are as they seem on the surface. And it strikes me that maybe my sibling might have been worried that I wouldn’t be able to leave once I got inside.

Quickly looking at the doctor, I get up and leave the room.

“Mr. Taldrit, before you go, I will make sure that everything that I have put into your file states that you have left and that nothing has changed and that monitoring will continue, but we will push it back to a bi-weekly meeting to give you some time to decompress.”

Turning my head, I nod back at them and then continue and leave the hospital.

On my way back, I called my sibling, and it sent me directly to voicemail. Leaving one for them, I continue walking home as I consider what I should do for the remainder of the day. I feel like continuing one of the novels I have been reading but choose not to and decide that I should instead do something productive and clean my apartment before it gets too late in the day and my motivation is gone.

Considering it is an hour's walk home and it is already 2 pm by the time I left, it will be dark in about 6 hours.

On the walk home, I go to the store since I realized that I don’t have any dish soap or food for that matter, and I don’t want to eat out for the fourth time this week, considering that I am still unemployed and hardly anyone wants to hire me due to my health. I then reach out to my parents and see how they are doing for the first time in several months. I lie to them and tell them that the growth has slowed and that I shouldn’t need to undergo surgery for the seventh time in the last decade, relieving them.

I can tell they are busy since it is only 3 in the afternoon, so I hang up the phone and continue walking back to my apartment.

I get all my cleaning done, prep my food, and prepare for a shower since I have iodine from where I had blood drawn again. Proceeding to finish my night, I put out a couple of job applications, hoping to hear back from them soon. Finding that it was 11:24, I decided it is time for me to go to bed. And that is the last thing I remember before I was suddenly brought to the white room for my integration.

—

With my mind at least a little clearer about my last day in my home world of Culhara, I find myself back in what feels like a tunnel. There is no air movement and no light. I can hear strange noises that seem to be coming out of the void, but I can’t see anything to tell where they are coming from. And so I will wait. In the meantime, I say “Status” to review it again before going on to my next adventure.

Name: Drake Taldrit

Race: Human (F)

Gender: Male

Planet of Origin: Culhara

Class: Mage

Class Level: 1

Profession: Enchanter

Profession Level: 1

Health: 5

Mana: 10

Attributes:

Strength: 1

Dexterity: 1

Constitution: 1

Intelligence: 2

Wisdom: 2

Charisma: 1

Free Stats: 1

Skills:

Analyze Lvl 1

Arcane Shot Lvl 1

I notice that my intelligence and wisdom have gone up one point, and I have one free stat point. I also see another tab named “Materials” at the top. There is nothing in the tab besides rough names like “Wood, Stone, Metal, Food, and Enchanting Materials” with a grayed-out drop-down menu.

I decided that since I am going down the path of a mage, I should invest my single stat point into intelligence so that I can do a bit more damage. After adding my point, I looked around to see if I could find any constellations I might recognize, but I had no luck. I look down once more to see something coming up very quickly. So quickly it gets twice as big within a minute of looking at it. I see mountains, oceans, and extensive forests spanning hundreds of kilometers. I also notice that as I get closer to this planet, there seems to be an ever-so-light fog getting denser as time passes. Whole forests are swallowed by the mist first, then the oceans, finally leading to the mountains reaching the stars. This voracious fog covers everything.

I finally notice a small piece of land that hasn’t been covered with the fog; it looks like it can barely hold it off, and the territory gets so tiny it’s hard for me to see from my vantage. Still, it stabilizes at a 1Km by 1Km border with what appears to be a small hut in the center.