Thankfully, our building is connected by an underground tunnel to Campus Central and I can get there without needing to return outside. As I’ve never been to the nurse’s office before, I don’t know what to expect. First, I see a lady sitting behind a window. There doesn’t seem to be anyone speaking to her.

I walk over and approach the window, clearing my throat. “Hello?”

“Are you here to see the nurse?” the woman asks, her white lab coat affording her a subtle air of authority.

“Yeah.”

“Okay, just fill out this sheet of paper and bring it up to me when you’re done.” She hands me a clipboard with a questionnaire attached to it.

I fill out my name and peruse the questions. Most of them have the option to check N/A, which is convenient. I check the boxes indicating that I feel “tired” “fatigued” and “cold” and hand the questionnaire back. The lady nods, then tells me to wait until my name is called.

I shrug my shoulders and sit down in the waiting area. Two minutes later, a man comes out with a clipboard. “Mr. Dunai?”

I look up. “Here.”

“Come with me, please.”

I stand up and follow him down a hallway into a small room with a table and a counter.

“So, just to confirm: you have symptoms of fatigue and chill.”

I nod slowly and steeple my fingers in my lap. “Right.”

“Has anything happened to you lately? Have you had any arguments with your peers?”

I hold up a hand. He thinks I’ve been cursed? “Wait, wait, slow down,” I say. “I never said the chills and the fatigue are connected.”

He taps his pencil on the clipboard. “They aren’t?”

I sigh. “I wasn’t able to sleep at all last night,” I explain. “And then I was outside too long this afternoon and my jacket got drenched by the snow. By the time I returned to my dorm, I was cold to the bone.”

“Oh, alright. I’ll let the nurse know.”

“Thanks,” I reply.

The official nurse comes in a minute later with a good-natured smile on her face. “Hello, Mr. Dunai. Tell me how you’re feeling.”

I notice immediately that she’s trying to charm me, making me feel trusting and at ease. I frown. A dual Life and Remorse practitioner?

“I had a nightmare last night and couldn’t sleep, so on one hand I’m exhausted.” I yawn right on cue. “On the other hand, I spent too long outside in the cold and my jacket and shoes were soaked through by the snow. My roommate told me to come and get treatment, so...here I am.”

The nurse nods. “Okay, hold tight–” she walks over and places a hand on my shoulder. I feel the energy in her touch as it flows into me, feeding warmth and alertness into my body.

I stretch my back. “Thanks, I feel a lot better now.”

The nurse gives me an odd look. “You’re not a practitioner, are you?”

Why is she asking? I made sure to dispel any death energy before I entered the nurse’s office.

I give her a pleasant smile. “No, I’m not.”

She jots something down on a slip of rigid glosspaper. “Feel better, Ignatius.”

“Thanks.”

“You know...if you’re having nightmares...”

I freeze in place.

“I recommend the counseling services. They’re provided free of charge by the school, and everything you say to a counselor is confidential.”

...Except if they think you’re a danger to yourself or others. No thanks.

Her expression quirks. “They even have a few counselors that have true confidentiality,” she continues. “I know many practitioners of the Arts tend to seek them out, for whatever reason. They are bound by life-death oath to never disclose anything that you discuss.”

Life-death oath? If true, then anything I spoke of to a counselor really would be confidential.

As I leave the office, I linger for a bit in the hallway. Wouldn’t it be nice to finally tell someone about everything? I reason. Someone who can help me think this all through, plan for the future.

I chew my lip, then look at the time on my glossY. It’s still only 2 pm.

Before I know it, I’m standing in line at the counselor reception desk. Unlike the nurse’s office, I have to wait a solid twenty minutes in line before I talk to the receptionist.

“Hello,” he says, voice cheerful. “I haven’t seen you here before. Looking to make a first appointment?”

I blink, a bit taken aback by his jubilant personality. “Yeah.”

“What’s your full name?”

“Ignatius Julian Dunai.”

The receptionist scrolls through some things on his glosspad before punching in some kind of number. “Great. So, why don’t I give you our selection of counselors?”

He turns the glosspad around to me so that I can see names and faces.

“How do I know if they have total confidentiality?” I ask.

His warmth flickers. “That’s a different list. Apologies; I usually only provide those counselors to practitioners.”

“It’s fine.” Soon, he turns the glosspad back my way. The number of options is greatly reduced, so much that it seems like I only have a single option.

I give him a look. “You could’ve just told me there was only one available.”

“So would you like to meet her?”

I shrug. “Sure. What’s the waiting time?”

“She’s available now. That’s why she was on the glosspad.”

“Oh. Great.”

He points to the hallway. “Second to last door on the right, room nineteen.”

I make my way down the hall until I stand outside of room nineteen, its number displayed in clean white letters on the door. I knock, then open the door.

—

Jasmine

The boy who walked in next–interrupting her break–wore an impassive gaze. He didn’t look particularly muscled, nor particularly stylish, or rich. It would be easy to call him average, but Jasmine recognized the subtle way in which he carried himself: He moved with the coiled strength of someone with power to spare.

A practitioner, then. And no novice, either. Interesting.

—

“Sit down,” the woman says, her short blonde bob accentuating the movement of her jaw. I sit down on the provided couch. The woman sits down in a chair across from me and gives me a wry grin.

“Before we begin,” she says, “I’m going to recite the life-death oath.” She holds a slip of cardstock in front of her. “I, Jasmina Hermina Fernandez, do swear on my life and death to never divulge the contents of this meeting, and all meetings henceforth between–” she looks over at her glosscomp screen–“Ignatius Julian Dunai, the Fourth of his name, and I. Even should I be under the effects of charm or compulsion, may all memories of these meetings be effaced from my mind and wiped from my lips. I do give this vow thus.” The slip of cardstock spontaneously bursts into yellow flames and burns up into nothing.

I gave a sigh of relief. “Thanks.”

“Now, it indicates in your file,” she says, “that you aren’t a practitioner. But, Mr. Dunai, I suspect that this might not be the case.”

I raise an eyebrow. “What gives you that impression?”

“The way you move, the way you look around you. There’s a certain...arrogance to it.” She gives me a look, as though daring me to disprove the observation.

“You’re right, I am a practitioner,” I admit. “And you can call me Ian, by the way.”

She smiles, though the gesture doesn’t reach her eyes. “Call me Jasmine.”

I look around. “What happens next?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll get us started off,” she says. “First, I’m profoundly curious: how did you forge the documents regarding your affinities and status as a practitioner?”

“I didn’t.”

“You can be honest with me; remember, I can’t tell anyone about what we discuss.”

I smile icily. “Before this morning, I wasn’t a practitioner.”

She returns the smile, eyes flashing with curiosity. “Care to explain?”

“Well, this is going to sound...” I cock my head, as though doing a mental calculation. “Improbable, at best, but...it’s the best explanation I have.” I take in a deep breath. “I’ve spent the past...well, it’s definitely been more than just a few years, though I can’t say how long it’s been exactly...let’s just say...I’ve spent an epoch of time in a dilation loop.” I give her a look. “Do you follow me?”

“Dilation loops...they’re rare, but they do exist,” she murmurs, eyes narrowing. “Continue on.”

“The loop always starts the same way.”

Jasmine raises an eyebrow as she jots something down on the glosspad. “How does the loop start?”

I chuckle humorlessly. “On a boat...a little dinghy, in the middle of the Illyrian Ocean.”

Jasmine snorts. “Y’jeni, what a horrendous start.”

“Every time, a cruise ship comes from afar. I found out that I’m supposed to board the ship, defeat the minions of undead on its surface, piece together a map of the cruise ship’s current location and target trajectory, and master decemancy from a grimoire in the captain’s cabin.” I pause. “Oh, and stop an outbreak from destroying Menocht Bay.”

Jasmine’s face doesn’t change. “Menocht Bay?”

“It’s in Illuet Province, near Mt. Honorus.”

Jasmine raises an eyebrow. “What a...random location.”

“So, in the past however-many hundred loop iterations, save the last one, I always rode the cruise ship into Menocht Bay. Oh, and I forgot to mention something: On the cruise ship are just over two-hundred captives that used to be passengers. At the time I find them, they’ve been stewing in a cesspool for weeks. Most of them are on the brink of death.”

Jasmine’s mouth pops open.

“Anyways. So, I usually ride the ship into Menocht. However, when I arrive, the entire city is always embroiled in a war against a contagious drug-borne pathogen that causes incurable insanity.” I sigh. “The entire time I’d been convinced that the way to escape the loop is to become strong enough to single-handedly win against a city of insane, hyper-aggressive, trigger-happy humans with access to defensive artillery.”

Jasmine coughs lightly. “...Seems like that wasn’t the case?”

“No,” I sigh, resting my head on the couch. “The way I was supposed to win, evidently, was by befriending one of the captives, leaving the ship on a bone wyrm, getting to Menocht Bay before the city succumbed to insanity, and killing the five-thousand or so infected before they passed the pathogen on.

“When I did all of that, the cruise ship had no issues docking into the bay and everyone was rescued. Just as they were being lowered out of the pools and onto the deck...I blinked.” I start to laugh. “And then I woke up and was here, with all of my memories.”

—

Jasmine

“Do you believe me?” he asked, his eyes alight with challenge.

“How about you prove it to me,” she said, pushing up her glasses. His story sounds ridiculous, but I can’t think of any reason he’d lie.

He began to float off the couch, ever so slowly, so naturally that Jasmine could hardly notice. Then he dropped down, bouncing against the couch cushion.

Jasmine swallowed. Self-levitation looked simple, but should be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, for a decemancer, of all things. Regardless of how, Ian Dunai was a practitioner, and likely a powerful one, at that.

It’s a good thing he’s come for help.