I held my hand out and willed the mana to emerge. The strands eased out about a foot. I spent a few seconds moving them around. All seemed the same as this morning. To check everything, I poked my shoulder and winced—no sudden rapid healing. I wasn’t sure if that was what Constitution helped with, but maybe it did.
The mana cord still traced out of my chest. The beast still lived, which hopefully meant nothing had gone wrong while I slept. I picked Aurora up and opened the door to the hall. A pungent smell smacked me in the face. I gagged, covered my mouth and nose with my shirt, and hurried down the stairs. The sandbags were in the same spot, but the net had been folded up around the edge to allow passage.
“You’re awake!” Alex called from the room across the entryway.
I stepped around the sandbag pile and into the living room. Piles of supplies covered the couch—flashlights, batteries, food, camping gear, first aid supplies, and more.
“You hungry?” Alex dropped the notepad she held and stood. “Let me go make you something.”
“Don’t worry about it. I can grab something myself.”
“I could use a break. Take a look over what I got and see if we should include anything else.” She stepped over the small circle of supplies around her and headed toward the kitchen.
I was going to protest again, but she was already in the kitchen before I could come up with anything. I picked up the notepad. Each page had a list of items with their quantity and priority. Several pages down was a list marked “go-bag.” The page after that was marked “car.” Each page had several items listed but wasn’t full.
Alex had been hard at work getting things done while I was asleep, apparently. I followed her into the kitchen.
“I cleaned the blood from the baby wrap the best I could. There’s still the rip in the shoulder though. It should work fine as long as you don’t tear the holes any larger,” Alex said.
“Thanks.” I laid Aurora down on the coffee table and picked up yesterday’s flannel. I slid my fingers into the two slits in the shoulder. Dried blood crusted around the edges. I rubbed the flannel against my jeans for a few seconds and called it good. A little blood never hurt no one. I put the flannel on, followed by the wrap and Aurora.
I breathed out a sigh of relief, releasing the tension I hadn’t realized I had been carrying. Having Aurora bundled next to my chest felt safe—or at least safer. I glanced at the list of supplies.
“Been busy packing, have you?”
“Sure was. You don’t realize how long people sleep until you’re awake, waiting for them to get it over with already. Couldn’t even track the time with the power, and the internet, out.” She held up her phone.
“Power’s finally out?” I pulled out my own phone to find a series of cracks across the glass. It still powered on, but I placed it onto the table and tossed it from my mind. I had no use for it anymore.
“Yeah, happened a bit after you went to bed.” Alex set a plate with five sandwiches on the table. They smelled of fish. “I was going to make a variety, but the can had way more than expected and we can’t really keep leftovers. Hope you like tuna.”
“Looks delicious.” I grabbed the top one and took a bite. It tasted like a plain, room-temperature tuna sandwich. “And it tastes delicious. Thanks for the food.”
Alex smiled. “You’re welcome.” She grabbed one of her own.
We ate in silence until I had finished my first. “Did you get a chance to talk to Ami?”
Alex finished chewing. “Yeah, I did.”
“Did you find out about your class?”
“Mhm. My class is actually called Combat Medic, and the skills are Basic First Aid, Basic Combat Survival, and Basic Wound Healing. It came with two Constitution, four Intellect, three Dexterity, one Strength, and four Arcana.” Alex counted them out on her fingers as she rattled them off.
That didn’t sound too bad. It was only a fourteen-point class, but Ami said that wasn’t a bad thing. This was a good opportunity to compare the differences. I grabbed a glass. “Did you see how far your synchronization was?”
“It’s only at twenty-seven percent.”
I choked on my orange juice, spitting it back into the cup. I cleared my throat and set the glass down. “That’s great. You’re almost a third of the way done.”
“Oh, please, I’m sure you’re way further along. I saw you fight last night. You probably have the Ultimate Gladiator class or something cool like that.”
“Something like that.” I grabbed a second sandwich. “Do you have any idea what Wound Healing is?”
“Oh, my God! How did I forget?” Alex finished her last bite. “It lets me do healing magic. Let me fix you up right now.” She stood and brushed the crumbs off her pants. “Sorry, but you’ll have to take your shirt off again. It’s easier to do when I’m looking at it.”
“Are you sure it’s safe? What if you accidentally give me magic cancer or something?”
“I’m not going to give you magic cancer. Here, look.” She held up her pointer finger. “I cut myself earlier as a test, and now you can’t even tell anything happened. It will patch you back up in a flash.” She grinned at me.
“Hm, well, alright.” I pulled Aurora out, removed my layers, and set her on top of the pile of clothes. “Let’s do this.”
If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Alex peeled off the patch on my shoulder. She took a deep breath and pressed her pointer finger at the tip of one of the cuts. A familiar glow of mana poked out from beneath her finger. She held her finger there for several minutes before shifting down a hair.
“Woo-hoo, man, we sure are cruising.” I chuckled.
Alex blushed. “I might have exaggerated how long it takes.”
“How long was the cut on your finger?”
She glanced away. “About thirty minutes.”
“That’s actually amazing. Going from days to minutes is beyond incredible.”
I tried to lean my head closer to get a better look. “How’d you know it was time to move to the next part of the cut?”
“I don’t know. I just did. I get a feeling that it’s time to move, and then I do. It just feels right.”
I nodded. That sounded similar to the promptings I got. I spent a few more minutes watching her heal.
I summoned a mana-thread from the tip of my pointer finger. I tried to do the exact opposite of what I’d been practicing and shortened the mana to just barely extend from my finger. Getting the mana to do what I wanted took an embarrassingly long time, but eventually I figured it out.
“Okay, let’s take a break for a moment. I want to try something,” I said.
“Sure, no problem. We can take a break.” Alex sat down and wiped the sweat from her brow. She grabbed a second sandwich. “The magic makes me absolutely starving.”
“Magic uses up energy just like going for a run would,” I replied. Willing a bit of mana out of my pointer finger, I held it against the other end of the wound. I gathered the idea of healing the skin together in my mind and pressed the intent into the mana.
I yelped as a sharp pain stabbed into my shoulder like something bit me. A wave of exhaustion seeped into my body, and I slumped in my chair. My eyelids drooped. My vision blurred. Someone shouted.
I swung my head around and vaguely made out Alex’s face. I locked eyes with her. Bit by bit the spinning world came back into focus, and I made out her panicked words.
“Can you hear me? Hello? Dan!”
I blinked and sat up in the chair. “I’m fine, I’m fine.” I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths. “I think I tried to use way more mana than I could provide.” I wiped a layer of sweat from my forehead. “How long was I out?”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes, I’m fine.”
Alex gave me one last suspicious look. “Ten, maybe twenty seconds. That’s how long you were out for.” She sat back down in her chair. “What were you even trying to do?”
“I was seeing if I could also heal my wound.”
“What! You were trying to steal my cool thing?” Alex crossed her arms and glared at me. Without breaking eye contact, she took a bite out of her sandwich.
“Well, not on purpose.” The tip of the cut was red and swollen. “Didn’t seem to work too well though.”
A dark brown bruise covered my fingertip. I tried summoning mana from the bruise. A few strands streamed out around the edges like normal, but the rest poked out a tiny bit before dissipating. Pain pricked at my fingertip.
I held my finger out to Alex. “Can you see if you can heal this? You don’t actually have to. I just want to make sure I’m not permanently scarred.”
Her eyes lingered on my face before moving to my finger. “Fine. Let me look.” She grabbed my hand and pinched my fingertip between her fingers. She adjusted her grip a few times before responding. “Yes, it looks like I can.”
“Can you by chance tell me how long it would take to heal?”
Alex pursed her lips. “Maybe. Give me a second.” She closed her eyes and adjusted the hold on my finger a few more times. After finding the right spot, a slight glow appeared under both of her fingers. A few minutes later, she opened her eyes.
“Not sure what you did there, but it’s not in good shape. Can’t get an exact time or anything, but it feels like it would take several times longer than the cut on your shoulder.”
“Okay, thanks.” I pulled my hand back.
Alex returned to folding her arms. “How’d you even do that?”
“Do what?” I grabbed the last sandwich.
“Heal yourself? Do you also have a healing skill?”
“No, I just tried to copy what you did with your mana, but it looks like I’m missing something, or your class was closing the gap somehow.” I took a bite, the bread now dry.
“Copy what I did with my mana? How—” Alex threw her hands up in the air. “Even I don’t know what I’m doing when I do it.”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I just watched what your mana did and guessed the rest.”
“What do you mean by that though? You watched what my mana did? What does that even mean?”
It was my turn to be confused now. “What do you mean, what do I mean?” I took another bite and then held up my hand again. I summoned the mana-threads around my hand. “Do you see anything here?”
“Other than your hand? No.”
I chuckled. “Well, that explains it.”
“What explains what?” She leaned in to take a closer look at my hand.
“Something about my class allows me to see the mana.” Fate Binding was all about taking mana-threads and twisting them together. It made sense it was something I could do.
It was interesting that it wasn’t default across the board though. Maybe it helped keep us focused. If the aliens were only interested in giving us cool skills to kill each other with, then seeing mana would be irrelevant. It actually might actively get in the way, considering all the things I had tried to do with my mana that had nothing to do with Fate Binding so far. I probably only had it because it was required for the skill.
I looked down at my bruised finger. There were obvious advantages to being in the dark. It made using the magic more like a video game. Press the button in your mind, and it worked. Give Alex some time, and I was certain she would be healing people in minutes, maybe even seconds. All it took was blind focus.
Alex clapped her hands together. “Stop daydreaming in the middle of important conversations. Tell me more about how you’re the main character and have some extra, super-cool power. I need to make sure I’m not a red shirt.”
“I-I... what?” I stammered.
A smile cracked through Alex’s upset face for a moment.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not the main character, and you’re not a red shirt. You remind me of my kids.” I rubbed my face with my hands. Alex’s joking expression switched to a panicked, serious one.
I sat up in my chair. “Everything okay?” I scanned the room, searching for what had put Alex on edge.
“Nothing. I’m fine. Just tired.” Alex went back to eating the last of her sandwich.
“Alright. We don’t have to do any more today.”
“Nonsense.” Alex shoved the rest of the sandwich into her mouth and put her finger on the wound. Once she swallowed the massive bite, she continued. “I’d prefer to just get it over with. Not to mention, we never know when the next trial will start.”
I nodded and let her get back to work. I had a few things to work on that could be done from here anyway. Well, only one, really. I glanced over at Aurora. She was paler than she had been yesterday. I didn’t want to wait any longer. I delved back into the cord on my chest, mentally following it down the hall to the beast, and continued studying the last few questions I had.
Who was I kidding? I had more questions and unknowns than I could count. I had no idea what I was doing. But what choice did I have?
A few hours later, Alex released a loud grunt-sigh. “And we are done.” She grabbed a blue bottle and smeared a bit of jell onto her left forearm. She had received another attribute while she healed me. “You still have a bunch of small ones on your chest that were halfway healed already, but I got the cuts that required stitches patched up. Speaking of which.” Alex grabbed a small pair of scissors and cut the stitches free.
I blinked and rubbed my eyes. Seemed like I had entered a trance again. I looked down at my freshly healed shoulder and chest. I ran my finger over the smooth skin. There wasn’t even a scar. “This is incredible, Alex. Thank you.”
Alex yawned. “No problem.”
I looked down the hall. There was only a faint amount of daylight left. At some point Alex had brought in an electric lantern, keeping the windowless kitchen lit.
It had been over a day since the start of the Third Trial. I had no idea how long the standard gap between trials was, but this was the longest so far. The Fourth Trial could start any minute, and I doubted Aurora would survive until after. “I’m sorry to ask this of you after you spent all day healing me, but would you mind helping me again?”
It was time to bind with Aurora.
READ THE ENTIRE STORY ON NOW!
Website | | | |