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The mercy of Sanctus Medicus, the Ambrosial Arbor’s new growth. Disciples shall attain enlightenment together.
The mercy of Sanctus Medicus, the Ambrosial Arbor’s new growth. Disciples shall attain enlightenment together.
The mercy of Sanctus Medicus, the Ambrosial Arbor’s new growth. Disciples shall attain—
The mercy of Sanctus Medicus, the Ambrosial Arbor’s—
The mercy of Sanctus Medicus—
You awake with a start, head pounding and sweat trickling down your neck. The words repeat in your head over and over.
Sanctus Medicus, Ambrosial Arbor, enlightenment.
Sanctus Medicus, Ambrosial Arbor, enlightenment.
With a groan, you wipe the sweat from your brow and down the medicine that sat on the bedside table. A little more than a year, that’s how long you’ve been suffering.
Dreams full of reverent pray and promises of enlightenment, salvation from death. Even during the day you have no reprieve, the words turn themselves over and over again in your head.
The mercy of Sanctus Medicus, the Ambrosial Arbor’s new growth. Disciples shall attain enlightenment together.
Sanctus Medicus, Thousand-Handed Merciful Medicus, Yaoshi.
The Plagues Author.
You shake your head and rise from bed. There are more important things to worry about than the nightmares that plague you every night.
Sluggishly you change out of your night clothes and into your Alchemy Commission uniform. The cloth smells of medicinals and lingering death.
Picking up a brush you run it through your hair to make it presentable. Hallow eyes and dark circles stare back at you from the mirror. You smile, it’s thin and tight and does nothing to hide your tired eyes.
You try again, it’s passable.
There, fine, perfect, happy to serve the ailing another day.
A smile to hide the emptiness, makeup to hide the circles.
Affixing a pouch to your waist, you slip your shoes on and walk out the door.
The Alchemy Commission is busy, filled with desperate Outworlders seeking a chance at salvation. They beg and plead for the Physicians and Healers to save them, to save their loved ones, to save everyone.
Some utter the forbidden words. “Please,” they’d beg, “just a single fruit from the Ambrosial Arbor.”
The Ambrosial Arbor.
Those that ask are swiftly silenced and reprimanded for such a blasphemous request.
You hiss as you walk past a patient begging a fellow healer for the forbidden fruit. Ever utterance of the phrase sends a lancing pain through your head that no medicine can quell.
Hours later you stand before Chief Alchemist Dan Shu with a prescription in hand. It’s for a strong painkiller that is easy to make but highly addictive, only the Chief Alchemist has access to it.
“How are you,” the Chief Alchemist asks, “you seem tired.” She takes the sheet out of paper from your hand.
“Just tired from work,” you respond, hesitating before you add, “I haven’t been sleeping well lately.”
She hums, rummaging through the many drawers in her office for the requested medicine. “I’m sure the pharmacy would give you sleeping pills if you were to ask, it’s not good to have a healer distracted and barely standing.”
“I suppose not.”
She hands you the medicine along with a small pouch of standard issue sleeping pills with a kind smile. “I hope you feel better tomorrow,” she says and dismisses you with a wave of her hand.
The sleeping pills did not work.
In fact, they made the nightmares worse.
The mercy of Sanctus Medicus, the Ambrosial Arbor’s new growth. Disciples shall attain enlightenment together.
The chanting crowd of 99,999 stares at where you sit upon a platform.
The mercy of Sanctus Medicus, the Ambrosial Arbor’s new growth. Disciples shall attain enlightenment together.
A thousand hands, a thousand eyes.
They brush against you, they watch your every move.
There is no escape.
Hands rest upon your shoulders, rest upon your arms, rest upon your waist.
The crowd averts its eye.
Out of respect?
Out of fear?
Oh grant us enlightenment, Sanctus Medicus, grant us revitalization in death.
The hands squeeze; it’s soft, it’s comforting.
It’s suffocating.
You can’t turn around.
Whoever, whatever, is behind you responds.
Death revitalizes; all troubles are dispelled.
But it’s not human.
Not human.
It’s thousands of voices as one; one voice as thousands.
It leans closer; you feel its breath against your ear.
For you.
The words ghost across your skin, words just for you.
So you can enter eternal paradise.
It move lower, lower.
Its breath brushes against your shoulder.
Now no illness will take you.
Lips brush against the base of your neck.
Soft.
Now we can be together for eternity.
A soft brush against your shoulder.
Gentle.
Forever mine.
Then pain.
Pain that lances throughout your body from you leg.
Looking down you see a scorpion tail, its stinger embedded in your leg. From the wound grow vines, they twist and turn around your legs until you can no longer see them..
You try to move but your feet are rooted to the ground.
You look towards the crowd of 99,999 but they’re gone, in their place are 99,999 trees that wrap around each other and glow as they reach for the sky.
You try to struggle but the hands grow tighter, arms wrap around your waist. Whoever, whatever, is keeping you captive.
It nuzzles into your neck.
Mine for eternity.
You wake up screaming and tangled in drenched sheets. Sweat trickles down your neck and face as you struggle against the sheets that wrap around your legs.
You scream until you can’t scream anymore, chocking on your tears. Bile builds in your throat and you fall out of bed in desperation, sheets still keeping you trapped. Tremors wreck your body as you expel something that isn’t there.
The arms are still there though.
They’re wrapped around your waist, draped around your shoulders.
A ghost of a kiss on your check, on your neck.
Whispers in your ears proclaiming their every lasting love.
Now we can be together forever.
Now not even death can steal you away.