This is a Re-Work of one of my old Fanfictions. I hope to do better this time around. This chapter will be a bit emotional for me. I am bringing out some emotional baggage I have faced for having ADHD, Aspergers and Hypothyroidism. I am using a self insert named James for this story.
DISCLAIMER: I OWN NONE OF THIS.
You are not your illness. You have an individual story to tell. You have a name, a history, a personality. Staying yourself is part of the battle."
Never let the options of others become the measure of your self worth."
When someone is going through a storm, your silent presence is more powerful than a million empty words."
Life is never fair, they say. People with tiny problems have always said that. But if you want a true story of how life can never be fair, talk to someone with a mental illness. No matter how hard we work, we can never get rid of these issues. We don't choose this, it chooses us. People looking down on someone for something they cannot control, for something that resides in the body or mind, is hell. To rely on medication every day feels like a double-edged sword. Missing medicine would always make my body heat up, have me talk louder and faster to where I could barely be understood. I envy my two younger brothers for what they don't have to deal with. They are not judged by those who will never understand what we go through. Only if they are put in our situation will they understand.
I blinked and looked around, ignoring the lingering ache in my head. I was in an empty white hallway with tile so flawless I could see my reflection. I squinted but couldn't see an end. I pinched myself several times until I winced. I closed and opened my eyes over and over, to no avail, but I couldn't accept this was real.
I began walking down the hallway. The only thing I could hear was the clack of my shoes against the white tile. Hours seemed to pass, and with every minute I felt more uneasy, as I had the feeling I was being watched. I began hearing soft whispers, and I walked faster. The whispers became yells as I bolted into a full-on run. My mind lit on fire, images of my 20 years of life flashing through it. The innocence of my first five years, the pain and bigotry of elementary school, my middle school and high school years at a therapeutic school. Images of me in a mental institute after my medicine contributed to me having a mental collapse, the pain of being away from family, the happiness once I got fixed and out of there, the fear of getting into that state again.
Suddenly I was back in the white hallway as I tripped and the front of my body slammed into the white tile. It shattered underneath me into a million pieces, and I seemed to be suspended in midair. I gaped, seeing colors on all sides, floating in zero gravity. I looked up and could see where I fell through the hallway, piecing itself back together, a white tube that went on forever. The colors resembled the afterglow of a supernova, except for a blue ball of light in the distance that seemed to have a holy glow and rivaled the size of a star. It seemed to exert an authority that made it hard for me to breathe and impossible for me to talk.
All at once, gravity took effect again and my feet touched an invisible floor, which made me struggle to regain my balance. All of a sudden the blue orb of light seemed to rapidly condense to the size of a basketball, somehow without forming a black hole, I thought, and shot towards me. I winced and braced for impact, only for it to slow down to right in front of me.
I blinked and looked down at the orb. It was suspended in front of me and it gave off a feeling I couldn't describe. Divine was the only thing that came close. I could hear a very low, almost inaudible hum coming from it. "Do you know who I am?" a deep voice said, and somehow I knew the voice came from the orb.
I tried to come up with an answer, but only one thing came to mind. "God?" I guessed.
I could hear the orb chuckle. "Leave it to one of my more flawed creations to be able to tell what I am," it said, amused. "The human ignorance in assuming that the creator of all things exists in a human shape never ceases to amuse me." I was shocked at how human it sounded, but I tensed slightly at the flawed creation part.
"Don't take it personally about the flawed thing." I could tell it was getting a kick out of this. "I have seen what you have gone through and have decided to give you a choice."
My eyes narrowed at the glowing orb. Any offer from a god always had an ulterior motive, no matter the good intentions. "A choice?" I asked.
"You are the first person in around a thousand years to be given this choice, with the last being William the Conqueror of England," the orb said. The world around me seemed to get tenser, and I shivered at the feeling of power. "You can wake up normally in your bed like nothing ever happened, or..."
"Or?" I asked, motioning for it to continue.
"You can wake up in another world, never to return home, cured of your illnesses, and any trace of your being on Earth will be forgotten."
My blood ran cold. My family had gotten me through my illnesses. It stung my heart and somehow I knew he spoke the truth. "What do you get out of this?" I asked.
"Amusement," he said, and I was glad I wasn't that religious.
Now it was time for my decision. Give up my family and get rid of my illness, or wake up and have to deal with bigotry for the rest of my life. I swallowed. It was a hard choice.
"If you agree to the deal, just step forward and lay your hand on me," the orb said.
I was frozen in an inner war. I wanted to see new things and be free of the mental illnesses that afflicted me, but was it worth giving up family? I closed my eyes and my heart felt heavy as I made my choice. Mom, Dad, my brothers, forgive me, I thought sadly, as I slowly stepped forward and calmly laid my hand on the orb. I felt a wave of sadness seep through me, as memories of my family came to mind.
Suddenly I was blinded by the light and my mind was seared with pain, as if my brain was being lit on fire with a flamethrower from the inside, before I had the feeling of falling into a void and everything went black.
I groaned in pain as I began to regain consciousness. Hell of a dream, I thought, wincing. I realized I was sitting up and not laying down. I heard birds chirping and could feel a gentle breeze hitting my face. I opened my eyes and realized I was leaning back in a wooden carriage facing the blue afternoon sky. I winced at the crick in my neck but leaned forward and realized I had new clothes on, and boy, were they strange. I was wearing a medieval black tunic with the sleeves cut off, a blue undershirt, woolen beige pants, and brown leather boots.
"Ya awake there, mister?" I heard a voice ask in a southern accent. I tilted my head forward tiredly to see a familiar face.
Donnel Tinhead from Fire Emblem Awakening. No...fucking...way, I thought, my eye twitching. I slowly put things together. The medieval clothes, the dream, along with the unpolluted air.
I felt my heart shatter as I realized I had truly given up my family for a cure. It made me feel like a monster after all they had done for me. I was already feeling the regret. I noticed Donnel looked a little freaked out, and realized I was just staring into space.
He perked up. "Well, my pa thought it'd be fine for me to get some fighting experience, so he hired a stagecoach to drive me t' Bordertown, two miles up from Southtown, to be hired as a city guard. Along the way, we found you lyin' on the ground, so ah pulled some leftover gold together and gotcha a ticket to come with me an' become a city guard like me," he said timidly.
I sighed in annoyance. My life expectancy just rapidly dropped.
On one hand, the job could get me killed. On the other hand, I had no skills suited for a Middle Ages lifestyle. Also, it would be a dick move to just up and leave after he forked over gold to get me on this thing and not leave me stranded in the middle of nowhere. I made my choice, but I wasn't very happy or excited about it. I just nodded. Then I remembered what he called the town, and shook my head at the lack of creativity.
"We are nearing Bordertown!" the guy up steering the horses yelled. What I saw took my breath away. If you can think militarized Middle Ages village, that would be it. Watchtowers, makeshift moat, tough wooden reinforced walls, and a primitive firework launcher here and there, not to mention other defenses that would make a bandit think twice about trying to pillage it. We neared a makeshift gate bridge, and my gut told me something was not right. Donnel and I shrunk back as men on the walls appeared and aimed bows at us. I eyed the barbed arrows, knowing that just one of those could easily kill me.
"Halt! Who goes there?" said a voice like a stereotypical guard. I eyed a man decked out in plate armor, chain mail, and a greatsword, all in European fashion. Veteran soldier at the least, I thought.
The stagecoach driver explained our situation.
"So these two boys are to join our recruits," the man said. My eyes narrowed and my fists tightened at how he said "boys," as if I wasn't worth his time. My emotions weren't as suppressed as before, so I was having to deal with an array of new feelings. Several minutes passed as I worried they would just shoot us and hide the bodies before we finally got an answer. "Okay, they can come in." He didn't sound happy about it.
Donnel and I exited the stagecoach and I watched the gate to the village open and hit the ground with a clunk. I looked at my leather boots against the tough brown gate as we walked in. I looked around and saw residents in their homes looking at us from their windows with distrust, some even gripping weapons. That told me this village had seen its fair share of violence.
"I reckon this here is a li'l over kill," Donnel mumbled, snapping me out of my thoughts, and I saw a wide array of people run up, wearing armor from leather to bronze to steel, all with their weapons pointed at us, in effect daring us to make a wrong move. I watched as the guard that had greeted us walked up, every step accompanied by the clanging of his armor. He took off his helmet and I could see pale white skin, wavy hair, and eyes so blue it would have made Hitler proud. I inwardly chuckled at the thought.
"So you two boys are going to be our new guards," he said. I tensed as he walked back and forth in front of us. He looked us over, examining every detail. He seemed to be neutral about Donnel, but I could see a serious look of disappointment when he looked at me, and he sighed. "We have the Plegians coming from the west and vandals from the south, and the occasional egotistical swordsman from Regna Ferox, and all the while minimal troops coming in from the capital." He was clearly not in the best of moods. "I don't know what kind of minimal training or farm work you boys have done, but it will be nothing compared to the training ahead of you, so be prepared for hell." I gulped, knowing what was to come would have me aching.
I could smell burning coals, metal, and other stereotypical blacksmith things. My eyes widened at seeing Andre of Astora from Dark Souls, working a forge near the armory. I never played Dark Souls; only a couple videos I had seen let me identify him.
"Andre, we got some recruits," the guard commander said as the man eyed us.
"The boy from the farm is first," Andre said in his rough voice. Donnel walked forward. "Hmm, works on a farm, most likely from Southtown. A lance and some leather armor will do fine." We watched him grab the materials and begin to forge. The intensity of the heat made me sweat, but I didn't move. I didn't want to look weak.
Soon enough, Donnel was decked out with leather armor and a bronze lance. "The skinny lad is next," Andre said as I walked forward. I looked him in the eyes and suppressed a shudder. A chill went down my spine as the man observed me, not saying anything. It took all I had not to shrink back. The atmosphere got intense enough that the guard commander watching frowned, and not in the normal way. "You're a long way from home, boy," Andre said in a tone that radiated power. He seemed to get a faraway look in his eye. "Last time I saw someone from your lands was many moons ago, a lad that went by the name of William, no last name." My blood ran cold, and he laughed. "The man would go on and on about how he was king to some foreign land named Eunglund or something like that," he said, butchering the name of England, before looking me over with a critical eye. "Now that I think of it, I sense a similarity in your blood to his, but much more docile then that violent man," he said, as he resumed working the forge.
Andre continued. "Outrealmers like yourself are such a rarity in this era, an anomaly in plans shaped by fate."
"I don't believe in fate," I said suddenly without thinking.
Andre stopped working instantly and gave me a look that made me shrink back. "You better start believing then, boy, 'cause fate is as real as the air me and you breathe." Just then I noticed it was nighttime, and that the guard commander and Donnel were gone. "And fate doesn't like anomalies messing with her plans, so I would watch your back, or you will end up not liking what she does to you, boy," he said ominously, and leaned back and laughed a very rough laugh that sent chills down my spine.
Suddenly, he tossed me a knife at high speed, and my arm shot up and caught it. My jaw dropped at the fact I caught it inches before it could impale my face, and I fell backwards in shock, breathing deeply in panic as Andre laughed further. I got up and, with shaky hands, examined the knife. I discovered it was a bronze dagger, and I was shocked to see my family's coat of arms engraved in the handle. I could hear my heart pumping in my chest. Everything seemed to slow down as I looked at the crest. This crest was around in medieval times, long after the Norman conquests of England, and supposedly William was the last one to be sent here. So how would anyone recognize my family's medieval coat of arms?
I suddenly felt some cloth hit me. I grabbed it and looked at it. It was a black thieves' hood that covered my face and most of my upper body and went down slightly to my thighs, with a slit up the front that allowed one to see my tunic.
"Leather armor would be too heavy for your skinny build, so I would suggest you get right to some training, or you are not going to last very long," Andre said, and I looked at him. "Well, what are you waiting for? Get out of here, you're stinking up my forge," he roared. I hightailed it out, knowing things would never be the same for me.
That's it for this chapter. That is one of my longest chapters and I expect to make future chapters even longer now for possible questions.
My family does have a coat of arms. Type in Hartsock Coat of Arms into Google and the first four or five image results should have my Families coat of arms on it.If you have suggestions then send them to me. James won't be meeting the shepherds for some time and it is several months before the beginning of Fire Emblem Awakening so James has time to get some level of skill. I choose daggers cause they are light, and since he is based off me James is very lanky and can't carry anything heavy, so a sword or armor would only slow him hence the robe and dagger. Read and Review. HeavyJ15 out.
