In the dimly lit hospital room, the air carried the sterile st of aic, mingling with the soft whirl of medical equipment. Kus y on the sole bed in the room, surrounded by the hum of life-preserving maes.

  Despite the frailty of his body, a will to defy death itself lingered deep in his sunken eyes. His indomitable will had been almost physical in the first few years Kus had been in the hospital, suffering from some wasting disease that modern society remained pletely uo cure. To this day doctors and stists alike had only the barest inkling of what the mysterious disease was that pgued him.

  Where before he had been hopeful despite the pain, these st few days Kus just felt tired. Tired of how his friends and family had gradually abandoned him to his suffering. Tired of being fio his bed. Tired, most of all, of the pain that raged unchecked through his body.

  While his will to defy death remained, his hopes were wasted away a little more every time a doctor or nurse came to his room to tell him of the failure of the test treatment or medie. Today had been just the test disappoi. Kus released a pain-filled grunt of morbid humor, briefly causing the nurse on the way out of his room to gnce back at him over her shoulder. Seeing Kus not desding into another fit, she tinued on her way out of the room. Probably to find the doctor for the est. The failure.

  Despite his hopes fading day after day, Kus tirying to smile and show good humor through it all. It meant little to him now, but he could tell those attempting to take care of him appreciated it.

  “Water,” he softly rasped. “Please.”

  The other hat had lingered in his room out of his line of sight hurried over with a cup in hand. L the cup in front of his face, she tilted it back slowly. Damn, ice chips again.

  While the cold feeling was refreshing on his parched throat, the meager water that came from the ice chips melting did little to help his thirst. Sadly it was the best he could expect, as he had begun struggling with the ability to swallow a week ago.

  The door to his room opened slowly, and an older doctor whom Kus did not see very often stepped into the room. Dr. Mountgomery, head Oncologist of Northern Sacred Heart. Shoulders hunched and head bowed over a clipboard, Kus could immediately tell something was b the old man.

  “Something wrong?” Kus asked slowly, as the half-empty cup of ice chips ulled away from his mouth, the epping back.

  “Sadly, yes,” Dr. Mountgomery said. “As much as it paio admit it, I think that test was our st option. The disease afflig you is just too aggressive. It pushes back against everything we have tried, and every inch ress we have made so far has bee with a foot of loss.”

  “No other options?” Kus asked after a long moment.

  Dr. Mountgomery sighed, but rather than answer Kus, he stepped past him to the window, eyes taking in the id-Autumn day outside. A light breeze stirred the trees outside the window, pulling the occasional leaf from brao glide slowly down to the ground. Winter was not long in ing now.

  “Do you remember what you said to me that first day you moved into this room?” Dr. Mountgomery finally asked, still looking out the window at the trees, refusing to gnce back at the patient he had worked so hard to cure for years now.

  “Yes,” Kus softly responded, remembering that day two years ago. “I asked that you never lie to me.”

  “Is that still what you want?”

  “Yes,” Kus said quietly, eyes drifting shut. Just so tired.

  “Very well,” Dr. Mountgomery said, turning from the window to look at Kus. A firm gaze for all that his voice quavered. “We hope, but at this point, all we do is try to make you fortable.”

  The doctor’s words almost seemed to echo in the quiet room. Rather than sadness or fear, Kus was surprised to find all he felt was gratitude and accepta had been years of tests and experimental treatments, ae this test failure, he khat everyo Northern Sacred Heart had truly done anything and everything to try to cure him.

  His pain spiked and the beeping of his heart rate monitor picked up to a fast clip. Fog hard until he could barely see the blur of the room around him, Kus pushed the pain down and away. Taking several more deep breaths, well, as deep as he dared take, the room came bato focus.

  Dr. Mountgomery stood at his side now, having moved as Kus had struggled to banish his pain. The older man’s face was covered in despair, though he quickly ba behind a mask of professionalism when he saw Kus’ eyes focus ba the room.

  “I am sorry, Kus,” Dr. Mountgomery began, “I should not h—”

  “No,” Kus interrupted Dr. Mountgomery. His right hand twitched like he was attempting to raise it, but he quickly gave up when he began to get tired simply trying to get it to move. “I appreciate your hoy. Thank you for never hiding the truth from me, no matter how hard it is to share.” With a light grunt of effort, Kus turned his head to look out the window at the leaves dang through the wind. “If you don’t mind…I’d like to nap for a bit…”

  After a long moment, Dr. Mountgomery stepped forward to lightly rest his hand on Kus’ foot. Or at least he thought the doctor did, since he didn’t have much feeling down there anymore. Without another word the doctor stepped out of the room, only pausing to gesture for the o proceed him. Kus felt a little guilty. She had been his shadow for over a month now, but he still didn’t even know her name.

  As he began drifting off, his mind turned again to the only thing that mattered to him for so very long now: his family. Unfortunately for him, it was a busy time of year for his family’s manufacturing business. Preorders for the holiday season were likely beginning to pile up, and it would be an all-hands-on-deck situation until mid-January at the earliest. That left almost no time for the fourteen-year-old son who couldn’t do anything to help. Still, while he knew his brothers and sisters, let alone his parents, would be busy for some time to e, Kus also knew he remained a priority despite his degeing dition. They would likely do what they did st year, coordinating visits so he did not go too long without a familiar face stopping by to che on him.

  The pain came again.

  Subtle and persistent, it cwed at his weakened body. A relentless ache, it was a dull but pervasive sensation that gradually seeped into every part of his body. Like a shadow it g to him, growing worse mio minute. Over the past several months he had pushed and fought against it every time it sank its cws into him. Today, in the face of the end of his st hope, he tried something different.

  Fog on the pain to the exclusion of all else, he tried to embrace it. His breath slowing, Kus pulled it close, sinking his mind into its embrace. Gradually the ag pain blurred first into exhaustion, then desded into slumber.

  It felt…nice.

  Finally.

  Kus’ eyes snapped open. Jerking upright, he became disoriented as the movement he had made tinued, dragging his body up and into the air to float over…himself?

  Drifting through the air, Kus stared down at his body, buried under all manner of cables and monitors, almost hidden in the shadows of all the medical equipment that surrouhe bed. He looked so incredibly small.

  Yes, yes. I know gazing upon your own body in this way is disorienting, but we really o move this along. This Soul Shadow, and your own, only have so much time remaining.

  As the deep, grinding voice echoed around him, Kus abruptly focused again on what had caused him to stir in the first pce. Gazing around the room, he grew fused. Nothing was out of pce, though everything had a slightly darkeint to it.

  To yht. The window.

  Kus felt pelled to obey the voice, looking in that dire. Where before the window had framed a chilly fall day just outside of Volksturm, now there was only darkness and a figure he could not quite make out h just beyond the gss. It had the vague shape of a man, but the shadowed form seemed to bend and in his vision to that of some monstrous beast, almost as if it ressing back against the darkness surrounding him. The air around him grew tense and still, the gaze of the being before him reag out across the room to grip him tight. No matter how much he struggled, Kus could not wrench himself free.

  We have little time for questions, bare minutes, so hold your tongue while I expin my offer. Your world rests in the embrace of aence so unfathomable to you in your current form that to share its descriptio alohe text in which it exists, would defy the limits of your merely mortal prehension. Know only that it spans universes uncharted, weaving through the tapestry of vast realities, the unspeakable words of its presence sharing the barest of glimpses into the Aruths and Essences of Reality to those cursed few who dare to catch the echoes of its echoes.

  Your world is one of untold thousands about to undergo the crucible of suffering and salvation that all such selected must experieo be Ied. Yet for all its remarkable unremarkableness, there is something here in this world that I wish to possess, and someoo which I owe assistance. You need not yourself with this, however. All that you should sider is my offer.

  Kus felt the barest flicker of the intangible grip that held his form still and silent. Despite his nearly paralyzing fear of what was happening, he spoke quickly into the pause that the speaker had taken, sure that it would be his only ce to ask his question.

  “Why?” Kus ground out, his jaw moving against the still lingering vice, tongue flexing as through through nearly solid mosses.

  Oh? Well, isn’t that iing. Even ohreshold of your final journey, you possess enough will to utter a single word in the barest sliver of my true presenever mind the ‘why,’ far better that you take my advice to heart and LISTEN!

  The st word struck him in a roiling bst of sound, and it was a wohat the gss did not break nor was the room itself disturbed in the wave that bore down upon his floating form. Rather than being buffeted in its wake, Kus felt nearly all his senses shut down. Sight aion fled until all he experienced was the lingering stillness of the room. Evehe pressure of the shadow’s presence bore down on him like a looming mountain.

  Better. Now, as I was saying. You do not o know the what, the why, or even the how. All that reement requires is that you know and agree to my offer. In exge for ushering you away from the void you have begun to fade into by rest your pitiful body, you will strive your best to serve my as yet unstated is when they are made clear to you upon this unremarkable world suffering through its Iion some iermiime from now.

  Now, do we have an accord? Yes or Yes?

  As soon as the shadow finished speaking the terms of its offer, the darkness in Kus’ vision ed and flexed until something unyielding as steel pressed down on all sides. Deeper and deeper it went, until it seemed his very soul was being gripped by whatever creature lingered outside his blinded sight.

  Kus tried his hardest to speak, first to ask more questions, then to simply say yes after he found himself pletely uo do so. Even that word he couldn’t say, but apparently it was enough for the foring around and within him. His desperate acquiesce was enough, and it quickly faded away after some sort of…click?

  Excellent, and with not a moment to spare. I would say I look forward to what es , but I really don’t care either way. I ’t guarantee what awaits you, as that is beyond the scope of my power within this opportunity you are so very lucky to have seized. I expect a more fitting expression of thanks iure, once you are capable of expressing it. A bit of advice before we part ways. Pursue power above all things. It is the only thing you t on in the ence you will eventually find yourself in.

  Until we meet again, little human.

  Bess and dull void turo blinding light and cutting brilliance. Kus felt a stretg, then a tearing, and finally, a jerking motion that only accelerated as his entire existence caught prismatic fire. The st thing he saw was his own glowing eyes jerk open as he hurtled back down to his body on the hospital bed.