Chapter 14: Falling for you

I looked out over the buildings lit up from the inside and sighed. The views were wonderful, the streetlights outlining almost every street in the massive city, it almost looked like a spider’s web.

“I saw you read over part of the contract while I was driving us here, what do you think?” Charles stands beside me as Cecilia and Mary wander off in to the gift shop.

“Well, Cecilia read the other half and she was telling me that the last half is all just standard garble about finances and stuff. I read the first part and I noticed that you snuck in a line about me joining this special force you want to create.”

“Ah, you caught me, but it would only be in times of emergencies.” Charles scratches his head and smiles, “You’d probably have fun defending the city from these people though. It would be good training for you.”

“No. I will politely refuse this contract.” I hand Charles the stacks of paper and look back out over the city. “I am not interested in wasting my life attached to something like a police force where I will have almost no free say.”

“You’d have plenty of free time.” Charles walks over to me. “We wouldn’t be holding you down.”

“Yes, but written in the contract was that I would have to do as you said when you said it otherwise I would be forced to pay a fine. You are a sneaky man. I won’t call you a bad man, but you certainly aren’t good.”

“It’s unfortunate that you feel that way about me, Phillip.” Charles puts the contract in to his bag and takes a deep breath. “No more fancy words, no more hidden meanings. I would like you to fund exactly two hundred million dollars and occasionally help the force when it needs it.”

“I will think about helping the force. I will help only when I absolutely need to. I’m not going to claim to be a good person, but I’m not bad either. I will give you two hundred million and I will help only when I feel like helping, you cannot force me.” I glare at him, making sure he steps back a little. “If you even think for a second about threatening me and my family to get me to help, I will make sure you will feel my wrath.”

“Du-duly noted.” Charles straightens his jacket. He forces a smile back on to his face, “I look forward to working with you, Phillip Tethers.”

“Likewise, Charles Grainsworth.” I hold out my hand and we carefully shake the other’s hand. Somehow, everything has ended just fine.

Cecilia and Mary come back out from the gift shop empty handed. They both have smiles on their faces, I wonder what they talked about.

“Phillip.” Cecilia smiles as she hugs my arm. “What do you think of the view?” I look out the window with Cecilia attached to me.

The sky lit orange with the light pollution coming from the city below. The spider web like streets winding around and the towers in the center.

“It is a good view. Hey, if you look, you can see our house, Cecilia.” I point to a distant area of the city that looks like it needed to be rebuilt.

“Oh, you’re right.” Cecilia squints as she tries to get a better look. “I’m amazed you are able to see that far. Must be a cheat you get from being such a high level.” She nudges my side with her arm.

Charles smiles as Mary grabs his hand with a smile. Mary whispers something in to Charles’ ear and I tilt my head, Cecilia might know what’s going on. I turn to look at her, but she is still enjoying the view.

I suddenly feel something brush up against my back, it was a skinny looking man wearing a heavy jacket with its hood up. I feel his hand reach sneakily in to my pocket. If I wasn’t more alert, I wouldn’t have noticed it at all. His hand holding on to my phone, I grab his wrist and spin him around.

I put my right leg in front of him after I let go of Cecilia. I push forwards and bring the man to his stomach on the ground. Charles frowns and Mary looks startled.

“This man reached in to my pocket to try and take what he presumed was my wallet, but it was my phone, and I felt it being removed.” I keep the thief’s hand pinned all the way up to his shoulder blade. He was grunting in pain, maybe I shouldn’t have used as much strength.

I see a large man jog to where I am.

“Sir, what happened here?”

“This person tried to pickpocket me and I have made a citizen’s arrest. I have two witnesses to confirm this, as well as the fact that my phone is still in his hand.” The way I was holding the man’s wrist made it so that he was unable to open his hand.

The guard sighs and thinks for a moment. He was probably thinking of what to do with the situation.

“Okay, I will take the man from here. Could you and the witnesses please follow me to the office? We will have to take the elevator down.”

I release the man carefully and the guard prepares his handcuffs.

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say, can, and will be used against you in the co-” Before the guard can finish reciting the man’s rights to him, the man pushes the guard off with only one cuff attached. He dodges the guard’s attempts to stop him as he stands up.

A large amount of people start to run at him, but he suddenly pulls out a knife.

“If anyone comes closer this woman will die!” My vision loses focus for a second as I see the person he grabbed. Cecilia had moved to my side after the guard had started to handcuff the man and it was the perfect angle for the man to grab Cecilia and put a knife to her neck.

He moves to the window, so as to have no one behind him.

Cecilia was in shock from suddenly being grabbed and didn’t know what to do with a knife pressed to her neck. She had even stopped breathing.

I take a deep breath to calm myself as the guard starts to talk.

“There’s no need to do this. Please let her go.”

“No! You did this to me!” The man holding Cecilia captive looks at me with narrowed eyes. “You were talking about money and you forced my hand!”

“He may have been talking about money, but nothing forced you to take that woman hostage. There is no need to do this.” The guard tries to reason.

“I want money.” The man says quietly.

“Why are you doing this?” Cecilia asks this with tears in her eyes.

“Shut up bitch! You should die for even being with someone like him! Rebecca is in jail because of him!”

“Rebecca…” I quietly mutter this name to myself and images of a time I don’t want to remember comes in to my mind. I silently glare at this man. I know who he is. My old friend from high school, the one who tried to ruin my life.

“You should have just killed yourself like everyone planned! We had made bets with so many people higher up! You ruined it! You ruined it all! Logan and Lyle are dead! They were killed!” The man presses the knife to Cecilia’s neck harder and Cecilia winces in pain as a small trickle of blood slowly covers the knife.

Everyone stays silent. No one knows what to do or how to react. I calmly breathe making sure to stay quiet. The only other noise was the quiet music coming from the speakers above and people breathing.

“What do you want? What do you want so you will let go of Cecilia?” I calmly break the heavy silence.

“I want you to despair!” The man then pulls the knife across Cecilia’s neck, causing blood to fall to the floor. He tosses Cecilia aside as I sprint at him.

My mind goes blank and the only thing I hear is glass breaking and I feel a strong wind on my face.

---Cecilia---

I feel an intense stinging in my neck as I am thrown to the ground. I carefully breathe and try to assess the damage to my neck. Am I going to die?

I open my eyes as I see Phillip tackle the man through the glass. The glass that was advertised as almost unbreakable was easily broken through…

“Phillip!” I try to stand up, but moving my arms causes my throat to hurt more. Am I going to die?

I weakly fall to the ground as I close my eye. Phillip… please don’t die.

---Charles---

Holy shit!? This is two hundred stories in the air! Phillip is a goner. Oh my god.

Oh my god. What just happened!?

Think slowly Charles. Think slowly. Cecilia! I run over to her and check her condition. I’m very glad I took those medical course through college. Not that I even went near the practice again afterwards…

No! Don’t get distracted!

“Cecilia, listen to me. Keep your breathing slow and calm. Please open your eyes.” I calmly tear off a part of my shirt. I’m glad I wore cotton.

Cecilia opens her eyes slowly. Her pupils were dilated and her breaths were shallow and fast.

“Please try and slow down your breathing.” I calmly look at her wound without touching it. It’s shallow… it missed all of the important bits. No tendons were cut. Jugular was missed, trachea wasn’t even grazed.

No time to lose focus, even though everything important was missed, there is still a large amount of blood being lost due to her increased heart rate.

I gently apply pressure to the wound and pray that someone has called for the paramedics.

---Phillip - Later---

I slowly open my eyes with a grunt, my body hurts all over.

“Please try not to move Mr. Tethers.” I hear a calm male voice speak from beside me. I open my eyes to see I am in a white room. A heart rate monitor slowly beeping behind me. “You are in the hospital right now. How much do you remember?”

“Hm,” I close my eyes and think. “I was at Sky Tower with Cecilia… Cecilia! Is she okay!?” I turn my head to the doctor ignoring the pain.

“Please try not to move. Yes. She is fine. Miraculously, no vitals were cut with the knife. We received footage of what happened in order to determine your injuries… Mr. Tethers. With all due respect, you should be dead.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you fell from two hundred stories in the air, and crashed down on to hard pavement. The man you tackled through the window splatted on the pavement like a bug on a windshield.”

“That’s a gruesome analogy.” I sigh as I return to looking at the ceiling, a position that doesn’t hurt, it hurts less, but, I don’t stop hurting.

“You should be the same way, but you aren’t.” The doctor shuffles some papers around and starts reading from a list. “Your injuries, in words normal people would use. You broke both legs, both arms, twelve ribs were completely shattered, five were clean breaks and two were fractured. Your left lung was punctured and your appendix exploded. Intense bleeding from your brain. Your small intestine was split and had to be repaired. Spinal injury so intense you would be lucky if you were going to be able to stand again, not to mention being able to walk.”

“I see…” I close my eyes and sigh. Well, I’m alive.

“You should be dead, by all means, you should not be awake. You’ve only been out for a week. Those that said you’d wake up at all gave you a minimum of two months in the near death state you were in.”

“That… If I am as lucky as you say… then why don’t I feel lucky?”

“It is probably because you are injured beyond our repair.” The doctor bows his head. “I don’t know what religion you believe in… but you should pray.”

“Yeah…” I open my eyes, “Hey doc, I have one question.”

“Go ahead.” The doctor sets down the papers on the bedside table.

“You said; ‘beyond our repair’. Why phrase it like that?”

“On that note, I have good news. Since you are awake, I will fill you in on something that was missed just a week ago by most. Since we were able to look at legal records due to the incident, we figured out you own a VR pod.”

“Yes?” I take a deep breath, letting it out slowly through my dry throat.

“The new VR game, ‘Forged Path’. Anything you gain in the game, you can bring to real life, and vice versa.” The doctor then sits in a nearby chair for visitors. “So then, your condition, you would be the same in the virtual world, and there are healers there.”

“Are you saying… I can just go get healed in game and be all better?” My eyes brighten.

“If it were that easy it would be wonderful, we would clear the hospital in a couple weeks and then we could all retire happily.” The doctor then lowers his head. “However, in order for the VR pod to put you in to virtual reality, you need to be in peak physical condition, you can barely have a cold.”

“And I’m… half dead.”

“Exactly. There is no easy way for you to get in to Forged Path. Not to mention, we’d have to find a healer willing to heal you.”

“Hey doc… can you make a call for me. I can’t feel my arms…” I tear up a little thinking of this phone call. “I want you to call Cecilia and put it on speaker. It might be awkward at first, but I’ll need you here too.”

“Hm.” He checks his watch and smiles, “I’d be lying if I said I wanted to do this, but I do feel it is important to you, who is dying still.”

He grabs my phone off of the side table and checks his papers and puts in my password. Cecilia must have told them my password, oh well, I don’t even have a browser history. I have disabled it. He goes to my contacts, taps on Cecilia’s name and the phone starts to connect.

“Hello Dr. Juiles, are you calling me to give your daily update on Phillip again? I hope… I hope he gets better soon. I miss him.” I hear Cecilia’s sad voice from my phone. I tear up almost immediately.

“Hello again Cecilia, I am not calling to make the report. I have really good news for you.”

“Out with it.” Cecilia starts getting angry. “I’m making myself breakfast. I… I wonder if Phillip misses me too…”

“Oh he certainly does. The first thing he asked about when he woke up was you.”

“He woke up!?” I hear Cecilia open a door, “I will be right there!”

“Cecilia, please wait.” I speak up, my voice not as loud as I want it to be. “I need you to grab some things from home.”

“Of course!” Cecilia slams a door shut and breathes heavily, “I’m so happy you’re awake! Do you hurt? Do you remember anything?”

“Calm down Cecilia.” The doctor brings the phone closer to me “I need you to go in to forged path and do some things. First of all, talk to Arthur, he should be at the guard towers in his office right now… Tell him everything.”

“Wait… what are you planning?”

“Jacob. You know Jacob from the time you were in prison, he was the healer.”

“There’s no way! How are you… Ireina! You’ll get her to lift the restriction on the VR pod!”

“Yes, Cecilia, please explain to this kind doctor listening on speakerphone who Ireina is, and what she can do for us.” The doctor has a very serious look on his face.

“Ireina. If you’ve heard of Forged Path, you’ve heard of Ireina Orusu, the AI that built it all.” The doctor frowns, “How on this green earth did you get in contact with her? And you even think she will help you? I don’t mean to be too rude… but I think you are delusional.”

“Doc, please trust me.” I take another deep breath to try and ease the pain, “If I had a way, I’d even prove that she’s with me now.”

[I am not you’re servant you know.] I hear a familiar voice in my head, [Are you an idiot? Tackling someone near a window inside the tallest building in the city?]

I regret everything.

[As you justly should.]

“Hm.” The doctor makes a lot of grumbling noises. “Everything about this seems off. Normally, you’d call this lunacy. A patient just wakes up and then claims that an AI running a VRMMO can override your VR pod because she has attached herself to you…” The doctor runs his hands through his hair, “But I feel this voice in my head saying it has to be true. You survived a two hundred story fall. How else other than an actual miracle?”

“Dr. Juiles, are you, or do you know of anyone in the town of Innisgrale?” Cecilia speaks up.

“Let me think.” He makes a bunch of noises and then talks again, “Actually, one of my colleagues is there, and it happens to be their day off. What do you want from them?”

“I will show them Arthur Cunningham of the Royal Guard and his friend, Jacob, a healer.” Cecilia sounds determined. She’s doing all of this for me…

“Okay. I will call them right now.” The doctor grabs his cell phone from his jacket. He makes a call and puts it to his ear, “Ah, hello Julia, no… no. That’s not why I am calling you. I’m calling you here because one of my patients has woken up from a coma and has a friend who needs to show you something in Forged Path.” He stays silent for a second, “Yes, It’s that one. We all lost the bet. Anyways, in twenty minutes, I need you to meet a woman named Cecilia at the guard towers in Innisgrale.” He hangs up his phone after hearing her response.

“Phillip, I really want to come and visit you, but I really need to go and get Arthur now…”

“Cecilia.” I smile while looking at the ceiling, tears slowly filling my eyes. “I’m sorry I made you worry about me Cecilia. I miss you.”

“Phillip… I love you…”

“I love you too, Cecilia. I love you too.” Cecilia then hangs up the phone.

“The awkward part was at the end, not the beginning. I feel like I’ve been lied to.” The doctor sits down in the visitor’s chair once more and pulls a bottle of water from his jacket. “I guess what we do now is wait. I hope you aren’t lying to me. Julia’s gonna charge overtime for this because it is for work and it is going to cause a huge mess.”

“Thank you…” My eyes continue to water, “I really can’t thank all of you enough.” I wince in pain after I finish talking.

“Don’t thank me yet… all that’s happened is that you’ve woken up. You are in critical condition and I should by all means be putting you in to a coma to ease your pain. In fact, the only reason you are awake is because we forgot to adjust your dosage. But… I have a feeling you were meant to wake up right now while I was here.”

“Doctor… are you a religious man?”

“Before I became a doctor, I didn’t want to believe in any religion.” He sighs as he takes a drink of his water, “But after being a doctor for so many years, you see some things that people can only survive by miracles. You have no choice but to believe someone, somewhere is working behind the scenes to make all of these things happen.”

Ireina… do you have anything to do with me waking up?

[I don’t think so, but maybe. Some of the side effects of having a goddess living inside you is that you have increased luck.]

Please mention important things like this before hand. I sigh in my head, because actually sighing would hurt too much.