My eyes swept over the room around me for what was surely the millionth time. I couldn’t help but smile to myself, seeing absolutely nothing new. Luxuriating in my wonderful and familiar sheets, I glanced to the side.

The large glass wall that made up one side of my room currently had it’s shutters all closed, as it usually did. I was typically allowed a great deal of privacy, given my rather unique situation. Turning my head to look in the opposite direction, I enjoyed the view out of the window. Rooftops and buildings stretched out before me, or rather, before the window. I only wished my legs would hold me up long enough to enjoy it more personally.

When the door to my personal hospital room creaked open, I turned to see who it was. Seeing the face of Nurse Dafnolder, otherwise known as Isaac and one of my few friends, I broke out into a smile.

“How are you feeling today, Alex?” Isaac asked while smiling in return.

I responded while he moved to my bedside, checking the machines that were keeping an eye on my health. “Ah you know me, just the pinnacle of health!” Isaac chuckled for a moment before leaning back with a satisfied nod.

Leaning to the side to look at me more fully, he grinned, “I got you a gift!”

With more than a hint of evil humor, “Oh? Are you finally gonna cut off that horse tail you call hair?”

He blinked before recoiling in mock offense. Pulling his black ponytail over his shoulder to hold, “Never! My glorious hair is my best asset!” We both shared a moments laughter for our old shared joke, originating from when I accidentally thought he was a woman from behind the first time we met.

Sobering slightly I narrowed my eyes at him, “Hmm.. New book series?”

Isaac grinned, “Nah, better. You’ll love it!” I thought hard for a minute before my eyes widened.

“NO! Don’t tell me! It finally came in?!”

He crowed with laughter, “Lizzie owes me five bucks! I told her you would guess it in two!” With a victory dance, he waltzed outside to grab his present. If my legs still worked, I would have been right there dancing with him!

When he entered again with a wide smile, he was followed by the shock of red hair that heralded Lizzie. As usual, the nurse’s uniforms helped emphasize their unique features each. I took a moment to laugh at the pout on Lizzie’s face.

“You couldn’t have taken at least a few more guesses first?” She complained, as she walked over to double check my monitors.

Evidently, Isaac took offense, “Hey, I already checked!”

“And you were also busy bantering with Alex, you’re not a great multitasker!” Lizzie winked at me before Isaac handed me the book he was carrying. With excitement, I snatched it. Well, as much as someone could snatch something when afflicted with muscular dystrophy. I had been waiting months for the book to finally arrive, I couldn’t wait to get into it and start reading!

“Thank you so much! You’re the best!”

Before Isaac could respond, Lizzie beat him to it, “Oh I know!” Isaac rounded on her with a matching offended expression to the one he wore earlier.

“He obviously meant me,” he paused before adding, “ You wench!”

LIzzie glared at him playfully, “Oh is that right? Which of us forgot movie night last month? Cause it wasn’t me or Alex!”

I couldn’t help but smile even wider as I watched and listened to them bicker. The playful insults being traded back and forth either making me shake my head or making me add them to my ever growing list of insults. LIzzie always was rather inventive..

Eventually they caught on to me laughing at them both, and they rounded on me. “What are you laughing at?!”

“Yeah, what?!”

I simply cocked an eyebrow at them and waited. I didn’t have to wait long before they rolled their eyes and gave up on pretending to be offended. With a play disgusted noise, Lizzie headed for the door. “I expect to borrow that when you’re done! I wanna read it too!” She threw over her shoulder as she walked out the door.

Isaac turned from watching her leave to glance at me. His face showed sudden concern when I winced and moved a hand to my chest.

“Alex, you alright?” He asked even as he moved to my side and began putting on his stethoscope.

I waved his concern away after a moment, but apparently he wasn’t to be waved away so easily. He never was actually.. “Yeah, yeah I’m fine.. Just a little pain in my chest for a moment..”

He focused for a few minutes, occasionally giving me directions as he moved his stethoscope to and fro, listening to my lungs and heartbeat. Once he was finished, he pulled back, not looking satisfied.

After a moment's consideration he nodded slowly to himself, “Alright, I couldn’t hear anything wrong, but if it hurts again, call the nearest nurse and we’ll get to the bottom of it, alright?”

I stared at him drolly for a moment, “Of course mother, right away mother.”

“Damn straight.” He responded, not fazed in the slightest by my sarcasm. He looked at me one more time while continuing, “Alright, I’ll go add this to the log, you know how it is.” I nodded, because I did indeed know how it was. Everytime anything remotely considerable as ‘something’ happened to me, it had to be added to a log so the doctors didn’t miss anything.

“Me and Lizzie’ll be back this evening for a bit, but I’ll be around. Just call if you need something as usual.” He paused long enough for me to say alright and to shoo him out of the room so I could start reading.

Even as the door closed, I was still smiling. My best friends might be my nurses, but to be fair, I didn’t exactly have many other options.

At twenty-seven years old, I had spent the last nine in the hospital. And for thirteen years before even that, I’d been a ward of the state, with no living family. I usually ensured that I thanked my parents at least once a week for having been filthily successful in life before dying.

Beyond faint memories, the only thing I had from my parents was an obscene amount of wealth and apparently my black hair and heterochromia. Oh, and super fucked up genetics too!

Thanks mom and dad, for all the ridiculousness! At least I got cool eyes out of it.. Half the time, even the doctors had no idea what was going on in my body or genes, but that was fine. I was personally of the opinion that my eyes made up for it. My left eye was hazel, but to the extreme. The coloring was almost pure grey, which contrasted nicely with the bright, vibrant blue that my other eye was.

Once Isaac had said my eyes would have made me a good anime protagonist. I had Lizzie punch him for that. Nevertheless, all the stupid amount of money that was technically mine had come in handy for a couple of things. First, it paid for me to have this wonderful hospital room and my own team of caretakers. And second, I gave away almost all of it.

I’d had near twenty lawyers all ask me if I was REALLy sure that it was what I wanted to do, but I eventually bullied them into listening to me. After all, even with all the wonderful care I was getting, it was an unspoken fact that I was almost certainly not going to live to see thirty, let alone thirty-five. I certainly wasn’t going to be out and about to use all that money.

I’d secretly set aside a portion of my will to have the remaining fifty million split between Isaac and Lizzie when I died. And yeah, fifty million was the leftovers of what I gave away. When I said my parents left me a stupid amount of money, I meant it. They’d left me over two billion. On the plus side, I was making sure no one forgot me anytime soon. I had enjoyed the short period of time when news articles cropped up about me donating almost two billion dollars to charity.

Every once in a while, Lizzie still made jokes about me being too nice for my own good. I really, really wished I would be able to see her face when she learned I left her twenty-five million after my death. But alas, the whole death thing kinda got in the way. It was rather annoying in that way…

Putting aside those thoughts, I turned to my book. Ever since I first landed in the hospital, I’d spent the vast majority of my time reading. Since screens tended to hurt my eyes after not too long, books were pretty much my best alternative to spending my days staring at the wall. The therapist they gave me to make sure I was alright had assured me that just staring at walls for years was a good way to go insane.

Funnily enough, I think I’d learned either an equal amount or more from my years reading compared to my years in school. Turns out there’s only so many entertainment genres you can read before you wind up reading educational books and nonfiction.

Either way, this was the newest book in a series, one that I loved. I’d been waiting for the newest book for what felt like decades, but was actually just a couple of months. Hey, I’m allowed some exaggeration from time to time!

It didn’t take me long to get completely engrossed in the book. I might not have been all that into reading before, but the years had turned me into an avid reader. When Isaac and Lizzie’s shifts ended, they came by to hang out for a bit. They didn’t stay too long though, they’d known me long enough to know when I was in the middle of a really good book and wanted to get back to it.

After a bit of ribbing and a tacit apology for rushing them out, I kept on reading. It was getting later in the night when the ache in my eyes finally was enough to push me to put the book down. Setting it to the side table specifically lowered to make it easier to reach for me, I sighed. I desperately wanted to keep reading, but I’d been talked to enough times by the doctors for staying up through the night before. Turning off the lights and getting ready for sleep, I couldn’t keep my mind off the book.

I kept trying to imagine the next scenes, trying to predict the book. Even as I was settling down fully, I could still feel my heart beating with excitement over it. And.. actually… that hurt.. That hurt a lot..

“Ah fuck.. “ I managed to grind out through gritted teeth and a grimace. My chest was seizing with pain, and my breath was coming shallower and shallower. I dimly recognized the sound of one of my monitors going absolutely crazy, but it was a bit too much to focus on at the moment.

I didn’t even notice the door to my room slam open. I only realized there were people in the room when they were rolling me onto my back and were shouting to each other. I think one of them said something about a heart attack? Yeah, that sound about right..

I managed to speak up, “Ow…” I ever so eloquently said, probably stunning the doctors with my broad knowledge of medical language. In actuality though, they were mostly ignoring that I said ‘Ow’, and were instead still focused on trying to make me not die.

Somewhere in the back of my head, I reflected on the wonderful service money could get you. More immediately, I was focused on the fact that the world was slowly darkening.

Dimly, I took a moment to think of Isaac and Lizzie… My last thoughts were that I really did wish I could have gotten to see their faces when they were told of my will. And with that, sight and sound both just.. Left.. Feeling was gone, everything was gone.

And I was dead.

…

…

Huh… Well.. This is.. Anti-climatic. It was just.. Black… No wait. That wasn’t quite right, it wasn’t black, it was nothing. The absence and lack of everything. It wasn’t a color, it wasn’t cold or hot, it wasn’t… anything.

Then, it was very suddenly something.

With precisely zero warning or signs, I found myself standing in a spotless white room. I noticed the outline of one or maybe more people to the side of me, as well as… The single most gorgeous woman I’d ever seen lounging on what looked like a throne in front of me. I couldn’t tell her ethnicity, or her eye color, or her hair color, all I knew was that she was perfect. No doubt I would have noticed a little more, if I wasn’t so busy collapsing in place. My legs were too weak to hold me, and I immediately fell in place.

I yelped out as shooting pain suddenly surged through me. I managed to drag myself from off of my legs to try and relieve the pain, before I noticed someone leaning down next to me. Glancing up through a grimace, I got my first good look at the people in the room with me.

There were three people immediately around me. Standing the furthest back of those three was a thin, coltish man. With the glasses he was wearing in combination with a hoodie, he looked the perfect description of bookish. Standing closer and looking down at me with worry was another man, easily one of the largest men I'd ever met. His shoulders were massive and he was clearly, and visibly a gym rat. Despite what all my books told me about the stereotypes, he seemed to be only barely holding back on asking if I needed help.

The only one not looking at me at the moment was a woman who was busy staring down the ethereal beauty seated on the chair. Her dark hair was hiked up into a bun and she seemed to be wearing running clothes. Closest to me, was another woman, and she was the one kneeling next to me. With an expression of worry, she reached out a hand, only to stop right before touching my shoulder.

"Hey, are you alright?" She asked anxiously, very clearly looking me over, taking in my hospital garb. If I still wasn't in pain I would have made a quip about having had worse, but as it was, I wasn't feeling particularly chatty. I gritted my teeth before adjusting my body to try and minimize the pain.

"Yeah.. Yeah I'm fine.." I managed to get that out, but I saw that neither she nor the man behind her believed it in the least. With the pain lessening now that I wasn't putting too much weight down, I managed to regain an edge of civility. "Don't worry, this is just how I am, genetic disorders and such."

I recognized a mix of understanding, pity, and worry on both their faces. Maybe I would have been angry over the pity, but that would have been years ago. There's only so long you can be in my state and still get upset about it. Besides, in the end it came from them feeling bad for me, not because they were trying to be assholes.

The massive man behind her opened his mouth to say something, before a voice rang out. Her voice was just as ethereal as she was, and just the sound of it precluded any notion of talking while she was. Turning to look at the woman on the throne, I saw that she was staring back at me. "Well, at least now I know why it was so difficult to grab you.. I knew I should have just let go and grabbed an easier one.."

She apparently decided to ignore the rising confusion on all of our faces, because she continued. "Back to my welcome speech then. Welcome to my hall! I am the Goddess Yuilana, and you are to be my champions!" She had raised her arms in a magnanimous fashion, looking at us expectantly. After half a moment's silence, the bookish man responded.

"Excuse me, but there are a lot of questions that..." He glanced around at the pristine white hall, "That everything raises..."

Yuilana, or the Goddess as she apparently called herself, smiled as though we were young children asking why birds fly. "Of course you have questions! It is only natural for those in your position!" She suddenly looked pensive for a moment before snapping her fingers. I could only look on in astonishment as what looked like a clock suddenly appeared and floated in the air beside her. I was further shocked when instead of numbers going around the face, it had things. Looking at the twelve position, I felt an enormous surge of calm emanating from it. In the one position was a roiling sea of flame, confined to a single raindrop. On and on around the face it went, with stranger and stranger things and ideas making up the clock.

Yuilana pouted at the clock for a moment before snapping her fingers and making it disappear just as quickly as it had appeared in the first place. With that singular pout, she went from ethereal woman I would absolutely believe is a Goddess, to simply just an insanely attractive woman. "Well I spent too much time grabbing you all.. Guess We'll have to do the short version..."

The woman who had been staring at Yuilana spoke up, "I died. I got hit by a car. What the fuck is happening." Her words might have made that into a question, but her tone indicated it was anything but.

Yuilana shrugged, supremely unbothered by the apparent rancor in the woman's tone. I took the moment to glance over everyone else here, and saw they all had expressions of remembered horror or fear on their faces. I turned back when Yuilana started speaking again, "Yes well, you all did. You all died and were on your merry way to.." She hesitated for a moment, "Well, it's complicated. Whatever, I just grabbed your souls. You were the five that happened to be closest, so here you are!"

Confusion warred with anger on the faces of most of the people I could see. This didn't faze the goddess, as she kept speaking. "The Hierarchy of Desmon is begging me for some heroes, but I have a couple things in the air at the moment so.. I'm just gonna send you all!"

The woman in running clothes suddenly looked pissed, "What do you mean you're just gonna send us?! How dare you just take us and-- " She was abruptly cut off as Yuilana's expression grew annoyed and she waved her hand. I felt a wave of fear wash over me as I looked at the space where the woman had been. She'd simply disappeared, vanished in a moment by a wave of the hand.

I looked back in time to see Yuilana begin talking again, "As I was saying, I'm going to send you all as my heroes. So, go be heroic and help out..." She hesitated for a split second before continuing, "I'm not going to spend too much power on this, given I have other important things to focus on.." She looked right at me as she spoke. "I was originally going to give you all a blessing or something, but that was before I realized one of you was going to be this damaged..." She looked up and down my weak and dystrophed body with a faint expression of distaste.

"Frankly, the power that was going to go into that is instead going to have to be used fixing you, otherwise you're just worthless to me." She looked up and swept her gaze across the others who were torn between staying quiet so as not to be disappeared, and asking one of a million questions that were racing through all of our minds. "You all don't need to be here for this, off you go!"

A moment of overlapping voices suddenly rose up as they all started trying to speak at once, before they all vanished completely. I swallowed hard, before turning to look at Yuilana, who I found it very easy to accept as being a Goddess now.

She smiled, "Frankly, this is going to hurt."