A/N: This chapter is really short and I'm sorry about that. I have a lot of homework to get done, so I should probably start it. Thanks for reading!

Also I watched the latest episode of SAO today. I realize it was a similar plot to my last chapter in regards to a general problem within the chapter. I published that chapter literally an hour before the episode was released online. So before anyone accuses me of stealing ideas, I did not see that episode until after I published that chapter.


I'm blinded by bright lights. Fluorescent lights. Hospital lights!

Have I awakened?

Am I truly back?

This doesn't make sense. I just had an arrow between my eyes. I couldn't possibly be alive. I didn't beat Skyrim. I didn't even create a plan on how to get out without even being the main character of the game.

Maybe I'm dead.

I finally gain my sight, and a horrific sight appears before me. A hospital bed, with hundreds of wires attached to the patient laying there. The patient wears in a light blue hospital gown and something over his eyes.

I tried to walk towards the patient, but I was being held back by some unknown force.

Before I could panic, the brown wooden door on the other end of the room creaks open. A woman and a man walk in, both wearing hospital scrubs. Behind them, an older but taller man in a tan suit and small glasses.

"This is her?" The man in the suit says as he turns to look at the patient.

"Yes," the woman answers softly. "She's been here for over a year now; fifteen months to be exact. She was found on the bed in her apartment, where she lived alone, weeks after Skyrim was released. If she wasn't taken here, she wouldn't be here."

I'm the patient in the bed. It's the AmuSphere X on my eyes.

"Well, then I can't give what Michael left for her." The suited man pauses, and walks toward the table beside my bed, where cards covered the surface of the tabletop. He didn't pick any of them up, but I could immediately tell he knew the significance of the cards. But I didn't. Were they from Michael? Family? How old were these cards?

"Does she have a secured bank account?" The suited man turns to the doctors.

"Not that we know of," the male doctor responds. "We were told she was only a college student; she didn't have a job. Her parents paid for her education and living."

"Fine then," the suited man confirms. "I'll write out a check for twenty-five thousand pounds for her parents."

What?! Why was this man giving me so much money in Michael's name?

"That's a lot," the woman raises her eyebrows. "This man loved her?"

"No," the suited man answers. "She was Michael's best friend. After this girl was put into this... coma, I should call it, he decided to work for a while longer, only to give all the money he'd make to her and her family in his will."

One of the doctors made a comment about his generosity, but I didn't catch it.

No. Michael couldn't be...

Michael was dead.


My vision faded, and I awoke under a night sky ornate with ribbons of auroras. I felt weightless, like I was floating in the air, until I felt a warm hand on my forehead.

"Thank the Nine," before I knew it, Conlan threw himself on top of me, smothering me with... a hug?... I could not escape from.

"Wha-" I mutter, until I'm freed from his embrace. I stare at him blankly, while he stared back at me with an unmasked, relieved face.

"Before you can waste you breath," Conlan begins. "I killed the last bandit. The archer was the last one. I made him regret shooting you."

"How did you..." I pause. "No potion is powerful enough to heal an arrow to the head, or am I wrong?"

"A few restoration spells are." Conlan smiles, and I realize what he means.

"You study restoration?"

"I used to. My mother was a priestess, so she was always studying restoration. I just caught on, and read some of her older spell tomes that were lying around," he trails off, as if he just shared to me the most embarrassing secret ever uttered by man.

I have no words. I didn't feel it would be appropriate to mock him right after being revived and rescued by him. I didn't know how to thank him. Words would surely not be enough.

Or maybe they would be.

"Conlan," I hesitate. He turns to me with wide eyes.

"Remember when I told you that I didn't remember anything about my home?" I stutter out my question, but Conlan nods.

"I remember now."