Twisted Destiny

Death, what does that feel like? A feeling I thought I would never be able to describe. And now that I’m experiencing it first-hand, something I know I will never be able to. Maybe something along the lines of ‘a feeling of everything happening all at once and a feeling of nothing happening at all at the same time.  

The fact that I’m here to tell you at all though, means this is not the end of my story. No, it’s not even close to halfway yet and even a fraction would probably still be an overestimation.

That’s the thing about deities. They tend to live rather long lives. With ends no one can really predict. 

Anyway, where were we? Right, my first death…

-badump- 

The first thing I felt as my mind was pulled back from the dark abyss was a slow heavy heartbeat. 

-badump- 

The second one kept me waiting for a while. 

-badump-

-badump- 

But the third and fourth quickly gained in both strength and frequency. 

The neurons of my brain fired back into action as the rest of my senses slowly came back online. My hearing came back to me and with it the sound of some crying close to me. Next my sense of touch as I felt droplets of liquid splash on my face and the warm, soft hand of someone touching the palm of my right hand. 

“I think she is pulling through!” An unknown female voice called out. 

The crying stopped and I heard a gasp. “Ami! Thank the Goddess.” It was the voice of my sister, loud and clear. 

I could feel her grab my shoulders, but that sensation quickly faded again as another unknown female voice called out. “Wait, give her some room. Let’s not hurry this. Let Bonnie do her work.”

My sense of smell came back next and I could immediately tell we were not on the other side of the portal anymore. I smelled grass and trees, only a faint smell of burning wood in the distance. 

Finally my sight came back to me too as I felt the strength to open my eyelids return back to me too. 

When I opened my eyes my previous thoughts were confirmed as I stared up at the canopy of a forest. It very much reminded me of the first time I had entered this world. 

I would have chuckled at myself if I didn’t come back to my senses at that exact moment. Sam’s demise flashing in front of my eyes as my memory returned too. 

“Sam!” My body reflexively tried to right itself but it was only answered with pain.

“Hold it there. Don’t try to move just yet.” The first female voice I had heard earlier calmed me down. Now I could see that it belonged to the healer who was sitting over me. She was still channeling a lot of magic into my body. “Your body has gone through a lot.” 

I tried to nod but even that was just a bit too far of a goal to set right now. 

“Don’t worry, Ami…” I heard Sam’s voice right next to me. It was weak, but definitely there. “I’m right next to you.” The soft hand that had been touching my palm, tapped it softly. 

I closed my eyes again and sighed a sigh of relief. The sense of relief almost made me lul back to sleep again, but the healer who was healing me quickly put a stop to that. “Please try to stay awake and talk to us. Don’t move, just talk. I need you to stay conscious. We don’t want to lose you again.” 

“Okay, I’ll try.” I forced my eyes open with difficulty and looked around further than the doctor. First of all, to my right, where Sam was laying next to me. 

Her eyes were red and she looked battered as hell, but she was smiling at me nonetheless. The tears ran down her cheeks. “Hey there, beautiful.” I could see from the pained look on her face that it required quite a bit of effort to speak. 

“Hey…” I replied and looked on. Right behind her sat our friends Max and Carol who were both crying as well and this continued to be a theme when I looked around more. Nikki embracing my sister and Hilda hanging on to them as well. “W…what’s everyone so emotional about…” Obviously I could kind of guess the answer, but if I had to talk to stay awake I did want to talk about something… 

Sam coughed as she attempted a laugh. “Maybe not the time for jokes. Everything really hurts.” 

“I think I’ll keep that sentiment in mind.” As the feeling in the rest of my body came back to me, so did the pain. The healing was doing something but it still hurt really really bad. 

“Are you not too cold, Amicia?” Veanya’s voice was coming from the other side of me. She sounded emotional but she could clearly hide it better than the others. “Carla wanted to have your clothes removed so she could observe your wounds better. 

“You definitely need to tell me where you can get clothes that can change into armor and back though. I’d find that really useful.” Carla smiled at me. 

“I fear they are one of a kind.” I smiled back weakly. “But I’m not really chilly, no.” 

“In any case.” She continued smiling kindly at me. “You will start getting chilly in a bit.” Carla looked at Veanya. “Giving her something soft to cover her chest and legs would be useful.” 

“Is a wolfpelt cloak okay?” 

“Should be, yes.” 

“Wolf?” I asked. 

“Yes, I too see the irony in this.” Veanya admitted.

Carla looked slightly confused but didn’t bother to pry into it at all. 

Carla, Veanya and the other woman, who I learned was called Kim, kept engaging me in smalltalk to keep me from nodding back to sleep at least until my friends and family had recovered enough from their immense sense of relief to talk to me as well. 

They told me how they found me after the battle I had with the leader of the devils and that they rushed me back through the portal to meet up with a healer, together with Sam’s body as well which Max had already evacuated too. Apparently during the battle I had pretty much broken every bone there was to be broken and that wasn’t even mentioning the sheer impact damage either. Luckily the adventurers who had just fled away did still linger around the portal for a possible containment. They immediately started reviving us and brought us a bit further away from the main group of people to continue healing us so they could grant us a modicum of privacy. The rest of Carla’s and Kim’s team set up thin canvas walls and poles to keep any peeping Tom’s out. After that they also sent their male party members out because of the medical necessity of having our clothes removed and to guard the area we were all sitting in. 

“Not that they would ever hurt a lady. Otherwise I’d bash their heads in.” Kim explained. 

“I understand.” I smiled. “Thank you for your consideration.” 

“Okay…” Carla nodded as she suddenly stopped channeling mana into me. “I can feel your body’s regeneration is pretty much stronger than how fast I can help so this would be it for me.” Carla stood up from her kneeled position but wobbled on her feet. Luckily both Sid and Kim could catch her in time. “I think I need a bit of a rest.” 

“Understandable. Thank you so much for helping us.” Veanya came towards them too. 

“That’s what adventurer’s do, right? Especially when some of them are gods in dire need of assistance.” Kim smiled at me and took over holding her friend. 

“We will compensate you richly for this.” Hilda came over and immediately offered them a sizeable bag of coin. 

“This is really not necessary.” Carla shook her head. “I’m a doctor in the real world. We really don’t need this.” 

“As we explained, this world is as real as our own. Please take it, if you don’t want it, use it for charity. We don’t want to let you go unrewarded.” 

“Take it, Carla.” Kim nodded at her exhausted friend. “We can use it to help build that hospital you were talking about.” 

“Okay… maybe we need it a little bit…” Carla carefully accepted the heavy bag of gold. 

“Do we send you a message when we are ready to head out so you can collect the canvas and poles again?” Hilda asked as Carla and Kim made their way out. 

“No, don’t bother. You can keep it. It barely costs anything anyway. See it as a little extra for our services.” Kim winked and then left us all alone. 

Hilda turned to me a couple of moments later and crouched down next to me. “Good to have you back with us, Ami.” She then ran her hand through my hair, softly scratching behind my ears. “Really really good.” Before she started to cry again. 

“Glad to be back.” I started crying as well and so did pretty much all the others as well.