A frail-looking boy sat in his bed wearing a blue hospital pyjama. He held a book in his hand and slowly turned pages. Being completely absorbed in the story he didn’t notice that someone entered his room.

“Arthur” the person said. The boy turned his head and with his blue eyes, he saw his mother looking at him.

“Mom. You are earlier than usual.” said Arthur.

“I got off work earlier.” She said caressing hers boy black hair. “Do you remember what day is today?”

The boy wondered for a second but shook his head in the end. “No.”

The mother smiled at him but she looked little sad. “I guess that keeping track of days is quite hard here.”

“Most of them are quite similar but I’m not bored I have books and Jenny come over nearly every day.” Jenny was a girl that also stayed at the hospital and sometimes talked with him.

The mother took something out of her bag. It was a cuboid like object wrapped in colourful paper. “Happy fourteenth birthday!” she said.

The boy was silent for a second he totally forgot what day it was today. “Thank you!” he said as he took the present. Slowly taking the wrapping apart to make sure not to damage it he looked at what was inside.

It was a book he wanted. He remembered that he complained to his mother once about the fact that the hospital library didn’t have it. “You remembered!” Arthur said happily. “But is it okay?” he knew that his mother was struggling with paying hospital bills, especially after his father died in an accident at construction work a long time ago. She got angry whenever he talked about it though.

“Of course! What kind of mother would I be if I didn’t celebrate my only son birthday.” she exclaimed.

“Thanks”

“I also bought a cake!” she said. Arthur's eyes opened at that, he didn’t have anything sweet for a long time and the food he was getting from the hospital was not the best in his opinion.

His mother took out a box out and opening it he saw a small round cake in it covered in cream. On top of it was written ‘Happy fourteenth birthday’. Arthur looked at it in amazement.

Suddenly they heard a knock on the door that opened slowly. First, they saw a red bulk of hair and then a girl came out from behind of the door. She was small and looked at most to be twelve years old but in truth, she was fifteen, apparently, it was connected with the reason of her stay here but Arthur didn’t know more.

“Jenny, hello, come in.” said Arthur’s mother.

“Hello, miss Hamilton.” she said getting closer to both of them noticing the box she said surprised. “Arthur today is your birthday?! Why you didn’t say anything.”

Arthur scratched his head “Ah, I kind of forgot myself.”

“You really sometimes don’t see the world outside of books.” she complained.

Arthur smiled.

“I don’t think that’s something to be proud of.” Jenny said.

“Let’s eat the cake then.” said Arthur excited. His mother cut three pieces out of the cake and passed both of them a piece on a paper plate.

They ate the cake and talked, after some time passed miss Hamilton looked at her clock and said “Ah, sorry, it’s already this time. I still have something to do today. You can eat the rest of the cake later.” Standing up she started taking her things.

“Is it more work?” Arthur asked feeling little guilty.

His mother looked at him and came closer “A little, but don’t worry about it. Happy Birthday.” She said planting a kiss on his forehead and after that, she left the room.

Arthur looked a the door in silence.

“You have a nice mom.” said Jenny “My parents don’t even visit me anymore, making excuses that they have to take care of my little sister. I have never even seen her till now. I wonder if they just want to forget about me.”

“That’s not true!” said Arthur “I met them once and I think that they really care about you.”

“But what if they just pretended and got tired of it.” she said, it looked as if she was going to cry. There was a silence he wanted to at least hold her hand but she was seated too far from him and his legs were too weak for him to be able to reach her. He just looked sad not knowing what to do.

Noticing this Jenny shook her head and came closer with her chair to his bed and said. “But whatever about that, it’s your day so you shouldn’t have such a long face. Hey, say did you have any of those dreams today?”

Arthur quite often had a dream about an adventurer that travelled the world with his party, he told about them Jenny and after listing to the story she got really excited about it. Now she listened to them everytime she could.

“Ah, yes actually.” he said.

“Tell me.” she said her eyes shining.

He started telling her a story about an adventurer Daniel and how he and his party of three made of him, an elven mage and dwarven warrior fought against a lich that abducted a princess, third in the line to the throne. Before turning into the monster he was a royal court mage that fell in love with her but was turned down and after his death, he proclaimed he would take revenge.

After they saved the princess and beat the monster and his army they returned her to the king. After that, a grand ball took a place in order to thank them and during it Daniel noticed the princess sitting outside alone and looking at the moon. He walked over to her and they talked for a while. Then the princess confessed to her saviour and Daniel enamoured by her beauty said that he would become even more famous as an adventurer and one day they would marry.

“Then?” asked Jenny excited.

“Then…” he said some red appearing on his cheeks. “They kissed…”

“Eh? It’s nothing to be embarrassed about,” she said. “but that sounds romantic. You should write it down and make it into a book. I could read it anytime I wanted then.” She said her eyes turning dreamy.

“Ehh.. that would be embarrassing and well… they didn’t end there…”

“Hmm? What do you mean?” asked Jenny tilting her head making her red hairs fall to one side.

“They… did some adult stuff…” his face turned even redder.

Jenny now too turned red and looked away “Are you interested? In that kind of stuff?”

“Eh?! Well, in books those things sometimes happen but I don’t know.” He said little embarrassed.

“Then… want to try it?” she asked.

He looked at her in shock, she may look young and despite his frailness, he was still bigger then her but she was a year and a half older than him.

She then looked worried at him “You don’t want too?”.

“It’s not that, I was just little surprised. But is that okay? I mean I’m like this and…” he said looking at his body. He had a condition where his mana would cause him to devour himself at a very fast rate and he couldn’t stop it unless mana was expelled from him so he was always forced to stay in the hospital at all times and even then it didn’t stop the degradation of his body completely.

“It’s alright. I like you.” she said taking a step towards him and with one knee on the bed, she got closer. Their faces in front of each other, both red. He looked into her green eyes and the little freckles she had. Slowly their lips got closer to each other and finally joined, their tounges meeting and tangling with each other.

After a minute of this, she backed away from him gasping for air and returned to her seat. Her face red. Arthur on the other side looked a little confused.

“Is something wrong?” she asked worriedly again.

“No but I thought that you meant…” he stopped himself.

She thought for a while and looked at him then turned wholly red and shouted “You pervert! I only meant a kiss! It’s too soon for something like that!” she said frustrated and hit his shoulder lightly.

“Sorry.” he said. “But does that makes us now a couple?” he asked smiling.

Jenny looked away embarrassed but nodded. “Yes, so don’t you cheat on me.”

“With who even?” he asked.

“I know how you look at the nurses.” she said.

Arthur chuckled a little and wanted to say that was impossible but second later someone knocked on the door and entered the room. It was a nurse, she looked at Jenny and said “Oh, there you are. It’s time for your examination.” she then looked around the room and noticed the cake and plates. Wondering for a second she sighed “Well, I guess it’s okay once in a while. Please come with me then.”

Jenny walked up to her and waved to Arthur “See you later.”.

He waved back “Sure.”.

As she walked out he made a mental note to ask his mother next time for some paper and pen.

-*-

Time passed normally with him still being bound to his bed but over time he and Jenny grew closer and as they grew older they tried to experience as many new things together as they could.

His illness didn’t progress much over the years and it even got a little better with hope of rehabilitation helping him walk again and Jenny also was more or less healthy despite the fact that she didn’t grow at all and there were talks about her release from the hospital.

Now he was seventeen and after many revisions, he thought that his books about adventurers of Daniel was finally finished. Over time the story only grew longer and longer as he dreamed but lately, in his dreams, Daniel settled down after many adventurers.

He planned to try and publish it and Jenny supported him in it. He already had made a contract with a publisher that was interested in his book and he already sent a copy of the book for revision. He was waiting for results and as always hanged out with Jenny every day.

Then one day as he and Jenny were talking a group of nurses together with men in black suits following behind them entered. Without saying anything they moved him from his bed to one that moved on wheels and started riding away.

“Wait, what are you doing!?” screamed Jenny surprised.

“We need to make a quick examination on him.” said one of the nurses seriously. She knew about their relationship and was usually kind to them but now her eyes looked cold and maybe little scared.

Arthur looked at her as he was riding away too surprised to say anything.

“Wait!” she screamed again but was ignored one of the men blocked her way.

“Please wait here. We would like to ask you some questions.” he said calmly.

Arthur already disappeared from her view, she stood there looking at the door, worried. Then she fell to her knees holding her chest in pain. Nurses run over to her.

-*-

Arthur was taken to the basement of the hospital. Here he was placed in front of a big device that took over half of the room and the nurses were connecting his forehead to it with cables.

“What is going on?” he asked scared.

The nurses were silent not looking him in the eyes. He had no idea what was going on. Soon the device was started and lights flashed out of it in many different colours. A man in a white coat looked at it, then the device flashed in red, one of the nurses covered her mouth and let out a small gasp.

“What does that mean!?” asked Arthur now terrified.

The person who he presumed to be a doctor just shook his head and said to the men. “Take it away.”

Despite his protests, he was taken to next room. No one said anything to him. He was taken to a simple room with a what looked to be a magic circle inside of it.

One of the men took him by his sides and threw him off the bed to the middle of the circle. He screamed in pain from the fall and tried to bring himself up but he didn’t have the strength to do so.

“Why are you doing this?!” he screamed his face now covered in tears.

“Shut up you monster! I don’t want to listen to your pitiful screams!” shouted one of them but soon he was shut up by who looked to be his superior. Arthur was silent after this not understanding what he was just told.

The men left the room and he was left laying there, shortly after the circle around him lit up in red light and he started feeling some discomfort and dizziness. He tried to crawl away but even after getting out of the circle he didn’t feel any better.

Soon he started feeling pain through his whole body, confused he screamed for help but no one came. He cried, he thought what could lead to something like this but his mind couldn’t come up with anything. He felt something on his eyes, he tried to wipe it away with his palm and after looking at his hand he noticed it was red. It was blood, his, he was bleeding from his eyes.

The pain slowly increased and soon all he could feel was a pain. His mind was blinded by it. He slowly realised that he was going to die, that there was no escape. He screamed incoherently, images of his mother and Jenny flashing in his head.

He remembered how he parted with his mother yesterday, she was smiling. How he talked with Jenny about her getting discharged, how happy his mother was when they said her about their relationship and Jenny’s parents which were less happy with this happening but in the end didn’t interfere. He saw Jenny again and how her small body that sometimes made him feel as if he was doing something wrong by having a relationship with her.

Then he only saw darkness and a pain that seemed to continue for eternity and then nothingness.

-*-

Leo jumped up from his bed. He was covered in sweat and gasped heavily. He grabbed his head and despite him still being confused he knew one thing. He had to run away.