Sorry I kind of dropped off the earth, there. After releasing Gerard as an ebook, I kind of opened a new chapter in my life, so to speak. Anyway, I'll be updating this place regularly again, so enjoy! Here's the first chapter of Arven's fourth life to kick things off again.
Alice's hand was rock-steady as she deftly wielded her scalpel. Her calm breaths were directed ever so carefully as to exit the mask from the sides, ensuring that her glasses would stay clear. Each patient that came to her table with a tumor to remove brought her thoughts back to her father ,putting a fire in her belly and the determination to save a life into her hands. This patient seemed no different, but a nagging thought ate at her as she worked her usual miracle. "Never forget who you are...", it rang in her head. Then came that name again. "Arven Repner."
‘Who the hell is Arven Repner?’, she thought to herself. She gave herself a mental shake, and the thoughts fell away along with the lingering voice. Her forceps, seemingly working on their own, peeled back a thin layer of gristle to reveal a small, smooth black mass of some sort within the patient’s chest. Alice was shocked to find that the object needed no cutting or other forms of convincing to leave its host. She simply picked it up with her forceps and handed it over to her waiting assistant, then began checking around in the area for any other anomalies. After five minutes or so of checking around, Alice was satisifed, closed the patient up, and left to clean up.
A few steps out of the operating room, Alice felt her knees trying to give way. They seemed to have gained sentience, and they didn’t want to go any further, no matter how hard she tried to get them to listen. Strangely enough, they had no problem letting her head over to a nearby row of chairs. She walked slowly and purposefully, waiting to catch herself and recover from a fall. The fall never came, and she made it to the chairs without any issue. They were a bit further from the operating room, and as she put distance between herself and the room, she began to feel woozy. Blood rushed from her head, leaving her pale. Her vision began to fade, and her razor-sharp mind raced over the possible causes for syncope. Fighting to stay awake, she compared each possible cause to her given circumstances.
“Ma’am, stop!”, came a frantic cry from the operating room. A crash and some indistinct shouts could be heard, then the door flew open faster than it had any business to, nearly breaking the hydraulics that kept it from slamming open or shut. Alice’s patient approached her, stark naked and oozing blood from her sutures. As the patient grew closer, Alice’s mind grew clearer and her senses sharper. She stood up. The patient extended her closed right hand, and Alice instinctively tensed, getting ready to block a blow. “How are you walking right now?”, Alice wondered aloud, “You’re full of enough painkillers and anesthesia to put down a baby rhino!” The patient shook her head. “That doesn’t matter. It talked to me.”, she said plainly, as if completely oblivious to how insane she looked and sounded. The patient’s hand opened, and inside was the stone that Alice had removed from her. It had been cleaned, and shimmered darkly in the stark, cold artificial lights of the operating room hallway. “Take it.”, she told Alice. “I’ve carried it my whole life, and it’s always wanted to find you.”
Alice was flabbergasted at just how stark-raving mad the woman in front of her must have been, but decided to play along in order to keep her from becoming agitated and dangerous. After all, somebody who could overcome the kind of chemicals running through her system was likely not someone to be trifled with.. “What makes you say that?”, she said in a subtly condescending tone, as if talking to a child. The patient locked eyes with her. “Arven told me.” A shock ran through Alicia, but she tried to give reasonable doubt a chance. “Who is Arven?”, she asked. “You. You are Arven Repner.” Alice’s blood turned to ice. Leaving professional composure behind, she turned tail and ran. The crazed patient followed her, shouting the whole way. “Accept your destiny! The universe needs you!”, she screamed, “He needs you! Arven needs you!” Alice zoomed past a nurse station, screaming for help. A pair of orderlies followed, and tried to tackle the woman.
As she went down, she threw the strange stone. It made contact with the back of Alice’s head, and she felt an incredible pressure. Her ears rang and she heard many voices at once. The pressure became pain, and Alice sank to her knees. Tears streamed down her face as she screamed. Her entire body had begun to feel like it was being seared with some kind of strange energy she had never felt before. It wasn’t the hot claw reaching up from Hell that you could expect when you get too close to a fire, it wasn’t the searing rush of a jet of water, it wasn’t the agonizing tingle of electricity, and it wasn’t the cool and sharp lashes of wind. The extremely unpleasant feeling was entirely indescribable. After a few seconds of incredible pain, it suddenly stopped. Alice felt weak. She noticed the patient behind her had stopped fighting, and she glanced behind. The naked woman’s warm smile was the last thing Alice saw before her vision faded and her other senses began to dull. She could feel herself being lifted onto a stretcher, then her consciousness was pulled out from under her.
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