This was something I was commissioned to write some time ago. It was released on web novel. Never put it on my site. Decided to now. I have no immediate plans to write more. This is firmly just a few concept chapters.
Sharp pain. That was the first feeling that raged through my body. I felt like my insides had been pulled out through every orifice while my skin was set aflame. I wanted to scream, but I didn’t have a voice. All I could feel was the boundless pain amongst infinite darkness.
That’s when the sound struck me. It was muffled and difficult to understand like my ears were blocked with fluid, but I gradually began to understand words.
“What did you do?” The panicked voice of a girl was the first words I could make out.
“Me? I didn’t do anything. This is hardly my fault. He shouldn’t have gotten in the way.” Another girl said, her voice sounded less concerned and more irritated.
Did I know a pair of girls? I didn’t think so. I tried to think back to how I had ended up in this situation, but my mind was blank. When I tried to recall more, I felt a rebound of pain. My head nearly split in two.
“Ahhhhhhh!”
“He’s still alive?” A boy’s voice that sounded snooty spoke up. “How surprising.”
“Ahhhhhhh… ghhaaaaaa…”
“Will someone shut him up? He’s hurting my ears,” the irritated girl added.
It was only at that moment that I realized that the sound of screaming was coming from my lips.
“I will just put him out of his misery,” the boy stated as I heard the sound of steel being drawn.
“Niles, No!” The first voice I had heard cried out.
I might have felt fear if my mind could process what was going on, but the pain overrode everything else. I stopped screaming, but I couldn’t say it was because of the threat. Screaming only caused my throat to become hoarser, and it didn’t seem to relieve the pain, so I simply stopped. This proved to be the act that pushed me over the edge. Without screaming, I had nothing keeping me from succumbing to the intense pain, and I fell unconscious again.
My dreams were dark and filled with agony. I started to remember murky pieces of my former life. The problem was that the pieces didn’t all seem to fit together. I had memories of being a soldier fighting in a war. I had memories of being a farmer, working in a field. I became certain that these memories came from many different people. I tried to count how many, but the number was quickly lost. I remembered dying no less than fifty times, and many of those times were quite brutal. Very few of my lives were peaceful or pleasant. It seemed like I had been fated to live a rotten life and die an early death.
My hearing seemed to return. “He’s received a great deal of damage. I strongly recommend you do not send him home. We can keep him stable here until a healer with a healing familiar can repair the damage.”
“A healer?” A woman’s voice screeched. “Do you know how much a healer costs? I’m not going to waste money on this… this useless boy!”
“Now honey, it was our daughter who put him in this situation,” a patient older male voice said.
“So? It was his fault for overstepping himself. He has no relation to us whatsoever. He’s just some vagrant the help brought in.”
“Please… mistress. If you pay for the services, I will work to pay it off,” another woman with a gentler voice said.
“You’re already working to pay off room and board for this… waste of space! Why, if it wasn’t for your child being my daughter’s playmate, I would have already kicked him to the streets!”
“Honey, perhaps we can come up with something…” the man spoke.
“Please! I-I’ll do anything…” the kind woman begged.
“Didn’t you listen? You’re already working extra! This expense requires something a bit more.”
“M-more? What more?”
“Your daughter…”
“Catelyn, what about her?”
“As you’re aware, my daughter will be going to school soon. Her familiar is exceptional, so we’re sending her to the best school in the country, The Azure Dragon Academy. She will need someone to take care of her. Of course, her brother will be there, but he can’t enter the girl’s dorms, nor should he.”
“You want to send Catelyn to the Azure Dragon Academy?”
“She will go as my daughter’s servant. She already knows my daughter’s likes and dislikes, so she should be able to transition into the role quickly.”
“My daughter got a full scholarship to Griffin Academy. They have the best program for law. She wants to become a lawyer…”
“Hmph! That stuffy old place is nothing compared to the Azure Dragon. And of course, she will need to take the classes my daughter is taking as to aid her in her studies, so she can forget law,” the shrill woman said, as if things were already decided.
“As I was saying…” the other woman’s voice sounded strained as she tried to be polite.
A door creaked open. “I’ll do it!”
“Catelyn!”
“I’ll be Margaretta’s servant. I’ll go to Azure Dragon. Please, just heal him.”
I wanted to keep listening, but I felt a prick in my arm. While they were conversing, the doctor had been steadily working on my body. The pain immediately diminished with whatever he had injected me with, but my consciousness soon followed.
I regained my consciousness and my hearing several times, but I still couldn’t quite manage to lift a finger, or even open my eyes. I tried to listen in on conversations during the times I was awake, although most of the time I appeared to be alone. I could hear the steady beep of an EKG or the distance call for some nurse over the intercom, but that was it. I was able to reason I was in a hospital of some sort.
The pain was still there, although the drugs the doctor gave me did help. I wasn’t getting stronger though. My body was caught in a state between life and death. Since I had nothing but time, I went over my memories. Using the cues and names I had already heard, I started to pick out memories that I realized came from this life. I was able to remember my name.
“Jordan.” I felt a soft hand gently touch the back of mine. “We managed to get a healer. They will come and fix you up in two days. Just hold on for me. Please.”
This was the voice of the girl I had first encountered, and I had managed to attach that voice to the girl named Catelyn. Through my fragmented memories, I seemed to recall that we were friends. I had lived with her family. My family had died when I was younger, and her family had taken me in.
It wasn’t that simple. They were a family of servants, and their house was a building on the Augustus estate. Catelyn’s father had grown ill and died several winters ago, so it was just me, her mother, and her. Catelyn’s mother worked for Madame Augustus, and Catelyn had become friends with her daughter, Margaretta Augustus. As for me, I was just a lay-about living off their goodwill. I typically kept my head low, as Madame Augustus seemed to hate me. Catelyn kept their small servant space clean and did the cooking while her mother worked all day every day. Meanwhile, I spent my days lazing around in the fields and avoiding busy work.
My current situation had come when Margaretta’s older brother had come from abroad. He had returned home to escort her back to their new school. I had never gotten along with her brother, and two years ago when he left for school, I had never been happier to have him gone. He seemed to fancy Catelyn, and it was something I had found irredeemable. He had been gloating and trying to flirt with her. I had grown angry and ended up challenging him.
Even though he was two years older than me and had already manifested his familiar, I wanted to teach him a lesson. I had a trick or two up my sleeve. I had intended to chuck a rock at his head before he could act. Just as we were going to start, it was interrupted. Margaretta had attacked me instead from the side. She must have seen the rock hidden behind my back. I never saw her attack coming. I was engulfed in flames, and that was how I ended up in the hospital.
I tried to come up with more details, but they didn’t seem to come. My mind had been shattered, and now there were all of these other lives mixed in. It made it almost impossible to remember anything from my own life in any more detail. All I could say was that I had been a foolish young boy. The memories that came from various soldiers put some perspective on our encounter. Niles outclassed me in every way.
I was never a threat to Margaretta’s big brother. Niles would have brutalized me if I had given him the chance. I didn’t realize it at the time, but he had been looking at me mockingly. He had intended to break me in front of Catelyn as a means of winning her heart. In retrospect, his plan might have worked, and Margaretta had spared me the embarrassment.
I also realized that those thoughts were not the kinds of thoughts I should have had at my current age. I was only fifteen, after all, and could barely even be considered a man. Well, some of my memories included soldiers who fought alongside fifteen-year-old boys. I even recalled once being a fifteen-year-old who was handed a gun and sent to the front lines. That was one of my death memories. Somehow, these memories gave me a much richer range of experiences to pull from. I barely felt like the same person anymore. No, it was more accurate to say I had changed completely!
Time passed, and all I had to keep my company was the pain. Thoughts were difficult, and my memories remained a scattered mess as I just tried to deal with the agony of existing. Strangely enough, my memories included countless periods of suffering. Sometimes, it ended in the sweet relief of death, but other times, I pulled through. In a way, the knowledge of that gave me comfort.
Eventually, just as Catelyn had promised, the healer came. There was no fanfare. At some point, as I gritting through the pain and waiting for the next time I fell unconscious, I became aware of someone entering my hospital room. I felt two hands touch my chest, and then a sudden surge of cooling energy shot through my body. I felt like I had been splashed with ice-cold water. My entire body seemed to spasm in place, but her firm hands kept me down on the bed. It only lasted for a little less than a minute, but when it was done, my eyes fluttered open.
The pain that had haunted me for several days was gone. I found it incredibly difficult to grasp. I touched my body in disbelief, only to feel more disbelief that I was able to move. There was a lightly giggle, and I turned to see a woman was standing there in a white lab coat.
She gave me a smile and a nod. “You have been healed. You should be able to leave tomorrow after a night of observation.”
Her words took me a moment to process, and then all I could get out was. “Is that all?”
She let a soft chuckle. “That is all. Healing magic is much quicker than the traditional means, isn’t it? It’s just a shame there are so few of us.”
I blinked and then shook my head as I was reminded of my manners. “Ah, thank you.”
“Don’t thank me…” She held out a finger, and then I felt something small I didn’t notice jump off my body and onto her. “You should thank him.”
I looked at her finger where a snow-white bird was sitting. She raised it up and turned it to face me. It looked at me, cocking its head to the side like it was curious.
“Um… thank you?”
It felt a bit strange, but I thanked her bird as she asked. The bird seemed to chirp in pleasure, and the woman let out another laugh.
“He’s a caladrius. A very rare familiar, but he can do what modern science has failed at.”
“Caladrius.” I was merely repeating what she said, as I had no clue what she was talking about, but that was when several of my fragmented memories seemed to strike me at once.
The first was a fragment of a memory of what a caladrius was. It was supposedly a mythical bird associated with healing. In that memory, there was an emphasis on it being a myth. Such a bird didn’t truly exist but was from a realm of fantasy. The other memory came from this world, and it told me that such mythical beings were far from fantasies. They were servants of humanity. Everyone manifested some kind of familiar. Usually around the time they reached puberty.
“I have no familiar.” I began to recall.
This was the other reason that my fight against Niles had been a complete joke. Not only was he several years older and practiced in swordsmanship, but he also had manifested his familiar. He had a particularly strong familiar which had imbued him with ice magic. Wasn’t that why he had taken such a liking to Catelyn? Her familiar was a water element, making the pair quite compatible. On that note, Margaretta’s familiar was fire-based. It had been a fireball that had struck me, leaving me in such a painful state for nearly a week.
“It is a bit surprising that your familiar hasn’t manifested itself yet.” The doctor seemed to take my statement as a question directed at her. “However, everyone manifests their familiar eventually.”
“Yeah, but stronger familiars tend to appear early, while weak familiar manifest later.” As soon as one memory unlocked, it seemed to connect to several others.
The doctor’s smile faltered slightly. “That’s not necessarily true. Certain late bloomers simply manifest late. My brother-in-law was such a person.”
“What did he manifest?”
“A metal slime! Ah… ahem…” Realizing what she had just said, she wore a slightly embarrassed look.
“I think I recall metal slimes don’t have magic.”
“Errr… that’s right. They have an enormous defense though!” I shot her a side look, and she gave a helpless shrug. “Well, either way, you’re cured. Please rest now, as you’ll be released tomorrow.”
The healer quickly excused herself from the conversation and fled the room, leaving me with my thoughts. It turned out I wasn’t just a lazy loafer, but I would also never amount to anything. My familiar was likely to be something weak and pathetic. From what I recalled about this world, everything had to do with your familiar. Familiars didn’t just help you with various tasks, but your power was intricately linked to their own.
People with powerful familiars would have powerful magic. Many familiar granted an affinity to a certain element, which often became that person’s strongest element. Of course, there were also various side benefits. Some familiar could fight by their side, while others could function as a mount. The best familiars could grant their master unique abilities. Some could grant their master flight or the ability to breathe underwater.
I could only sigh as I thought about the possibilities. Unfortunately, this life didn’t seem to be heading in a better direction than any of the previous lives that were swimming around my head. I spent the rest of the night trying to organize and recall all of my memories from this life. I didn’t gain very much. I recalled that Margaretta and Niles weren’t the only children of the Augustus household. They also had a younger daughter as well, and even she had already manifested her familiar! Other than that, my mind was still full of holes.
The next morning, a beautiful woman with red hair and a small beauty mark on her cheek entered my room. She wore extremely nice clothing, and it was clear that she was not only attractive but also wealthy. Yet, the second her eyes looked at me, there was an expression of scorn.
“You cost me quite enough, peasant. Get your things. We’re leaving now.”
I immediately recognized her snobbish voice. She had been the woman who had cut a deal with Catelyn. This was the matriarch of the Augustus family, Marianne Augustus. I seemed to recall that of everyone in the home, she seemed to have the biggest grudge against me. She respected wealth and power, so someone like me who had not a penny to my name and my only connection being the sympathy of a widow and her daughter, it was not a surprise that she thought me beneath her.
“We’re leaving already?” I asked.
“Did your accident leave you deaf, boy?” She glared. “I have paid up your bill. It was far more than your worth. If you have any respect, you might be able to pay off your debts if you work for us for the next twenty years.”
I noticed that she claimed it was by accident, even though I was there because Margaretta lost control of her familiar and shot me in the back with a fireball. I ignored such a thing and threw back the covers. I was already dressed, wearing everything I had come to the hospital with. Most of it was ash now, which still meant a lot of my body was exposed.
“I will pay you back,” I declared.
All of those memories seemed to come from men who had at least some honor and respect. Not a single one of them was evil or despicable man. The former me might have thought about how to get out of such debt by any means necessary, but the current me didn’t believe in such a dishonorable thing.
Marianne didn’t notice my change in temperament. Instead, she was staring at my clothing with disgust. “You dare try to leave in that?”
“I don’t have anything else,” I admitted.
Neither Marianne nor any of the other visitors who had come since I had been put in the hospital had bothered to bring a fresh pair of clothes for me. I did wake up with basically nothing.
“Tsk… an embarrassment,” Marianne muttered, but she seemed to be thinking about something. “Very well, before we go home, I suppose I must purchase for you a proper set of clothing. It will be proper! You will pay me back for this, and I expect you to keep good care of it.”
I was honestly a bit surprised at her willingness. Although she glared at me like I was a bug, could it be possible that deep down, Marianne might be a good person? All I knew was that this was my second chance at life, and I had to make it count.