Chapter 2: Where am I?

(1707 words)

(Mc POV)

'Damn.. this sucks.. I could feel sharp aches in my head every few seconds never letting me forget what a colossal idiot I am. In my defense, this was supposed to be a great death. My life was full of extraordinary accomplishments. Not to toot my own horn, wait actually, yes I am tooting my own horn. I am a very smart guy, I can build things and I can destroy them.

I was born in a regular family, nothing too special. Your regular first-gen greek-american wanting to do something with his life. I wanted to ascend the social ladder, move up the pyramid of existence. Did I do it for myself? Of Course I did, but my parents were a big deal to me.

My mom's rough calloused fingers from washing dishes for the family and her clients. She was a home-nurse, it was a tough job but it was good pay. My dad's aged face and his deprived-skinny legs from lack of use due to driving a taxi for 12 hours a day. Their struggles were a constant reminder that I had to do something, SOMETHING that could get us out. It turns out I was a smart kid and I was a curious kid; a dangerous combination if you ask me.

I got my doctorate in Computer Science, got a job at microsoft. I worked my way up to a partner of the company and started to make some money. I made some cool friends and life was good. If only it stayed that way.

Cancer hits like a sledgehammer apparently or in this case a random nosebleed and extreme lightheadedness. I woke up in the hospital bed with a throbbing headache, the doctor said it was Glioblastoma. An extremely aggressive type of brain cancer that always ends up with my six feet under the ground. I was in shock, my mom collapsed on my dad with tears streaming down her face. I was just looking at my hands, it was all a blur from there. After everything I've gone through, everything I accomplished, everything I had done, I would die. I mean I did think about death from time to time. But having it burst into my life was entirely different, especially when I was only 24 years old. The doctor gave me a deadline of 5 months before I hit the dirt..

The fact that death would be the end of my story. An afterlife? I didn't become the youngest ever partner of a technological giant like Microsoft by putting all my eggs in one basket. I refuse to die without a fight. I wholeheartedly threw myself into research. I researched botany, medicine, pharmacy, spiritualism. I even started doing martial arts in hope of getting a strong body would help in some type of way. I have an IQ of 160, learning was the easy part, finding a cure was the hard part. When the physical didn't work, I jumped towards the metaphysical. Research about the soul, about the brain and its interaction with what we call the mind. Research on the preservation of consciousness, I involved myself in spiritualism and meditation and its effects on the conscious mind.

I put all my energy into a way to escape death. I did things…. So many things that were morally wrong depending on the perspective. But I was just trying to survive, to live. It may not justify my actions but I'm not exactly trying to look justified. My life is in my hands and it was a dog eat dog type of world, only the fittest could survive or at least that was the plan.

I learned the hard way. Death didn't care about your struggles and as I left with barely a week left before I died. I regret not spending time with my mom, I regret not sharing one last drink with my dad. I regret not telling them how much I love them, what I would give to be with them more.

But I knew dying on the bed was not for me. I didn't want to go like that. So I picked the next best thing; skydiving. It was easy to get a private plane with only myself in it and a pilot, I already signed the waiver that if I died the company wouldn't be held responsible. I was gonna jump straight into the ocean, IF THAT DAMN CLIFF DIDN'T COME OUT OF NOWHERE. I remember hitting the ground and immediately shattering a bone or two unless its something else but shards of bone poking up against my skin.

I wanted to just continue laying down and laugh slowly at my predicament, but it hurt too damn much…

Speaking of which, where am I?? Because, I am damn sure this is not any body of water around New York, Why? It's totally not because of the creature made of rock that looks like a slime and is coming towards me…..

OH HELL NO

I'M NOT GETTING EATEN!!

From an outside perspective, the boy wiggled his body and tried to worm away, but not only was the "rock slime" jumping towards him, it also had a decent speed. The more it got closer, the more the boy struggled to move.

'Come on I need to move, move,MOVE GODDAMN IT!! I can't look back, the loud sound it makes when hitting the ground is reminder enough that it's getting closer fast. My arm's are useless, both bones are snapped clean in half and bone shards are poking my skin. If I put any pressure, its gonna pierce through my skin and I'm gonna die faster.

Someone please help… help me… I tried to yell, scream, but my throat was full of blood. Its so much blood.. It wasn't supposed to be like this..

I was gonna die like a bang…one last adventure and then splat….

I refuse…. I want to see my mom, my dad, my friends…. I WANT MY LIFE BACK!!!

Huh.. What's that???

A medallion of sorts ??? Why is it coming towards me??

It falls right in front me. The slime is barely a few feet behind me… the medallion its.. Glowing…

I slide my hand to it… I was gonna die either way. If not from that mass of rocky death coming towards me or my injuries killing me a few minutes later.

It feels warm.. As weird as it sounds.. It's pulsing. It was smooth to the touch. It had gold edges and was pulsating in my hand as if waiting for something. I could feel something in the air.

A set of words at the tip of my tongue that were about to alter the reality around me permanently. I knew for some reason that if I uttered these words, things would be changed forever.

Screw it… Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat

'Eden's purgatory'

There was silence. Then… Reality fractured.

Those were the only words I could use to describe what happened. Heat just blossomed around me for a second. I could feel the air around me screeching, like an impossible note in music was about to be hit. A crescendo that was going to hit a peak that couldn't be heard by the mortal mind. All of a sudden, the tension left the air.

I looked behind me, there was nothing left..

Let alone the slime, there wasn't even the peak of the cliff left. There was no smoke… There was no ash… it was just gone. It erased 20 feet of earth off the face of whatever planet I'm on. Also my bleeding stopped. I looked down at myself and my injuries were fixing qthemselves. A green hue surrounded me and my bones healed with a sickening crunch. I could still feel a dull ache all over my body, but it hurt much less.

QI could stand up now, still hurt though. I looked around and tried to ignore the giant hole of death behind me where the peak of a cliff used to be.

The sky was so clear and the breeze was fresh and I mean FRESH. I greedily took in a few breaths from my nose and felt the cool air just soothe my insides.

It was an emerald sight for all I could see. Trees and grass stretching beyond the horizon. However I could see a giant citadel from here, it was surrounded by water and had one large bridge leading into the forest. I could see that it would take me around 20-25 minutes and that's not counting any sudden danger or creatures like that slime.

It was just jumping towards me and I don't know if it was truly hostile, but I wasn't gonna take any chances.

Speaking of hostile, the natives of this place could also be hostile. I have to scout it out and be careful.

I sighed and looked down on the medallion in my hand. It had a deep red gem with a flame-like emblem on top of it. I knew what this was. I also knew what it represented…

I looked at the far citadel. I recognized it from a game that I used to play in college; Genshin Impact.

An open world rpg with gacha elements that made you want to unalive yourself when you lost the 50/50, especially if you were playing without spending money.

An amazing game to play, not so amazing when you have to live in it. The whole game is just death if you are not a character with relevance to the plot. Monsters on the level of gods, dangerous regions where a thunderbolt can hit you for NO REASON AT ALL. It was a death game for anyone not strong enough.

But it was also a place with unparalleled beauty and adventure. If just the sight from a regular cliff can stop my heart, how are the other places going to look?

I steeled my heart, Fortis Fortuna Adiuvat AKA Fortune favors the bold. It's what I lived by daily and these new circumstances are not going to stop me from continuing to live by it.

I started walking down the cliff, it was getting dark and I needed to find shelter fast.