Oh my lords and lady, here I come to tell you how thy comment and stone are vital to me, so o my masters give them to me.
The nurse—whose nametag read Carla—flicked the tubing of the IV bag with a manicured fingernail, checking for air bubbles. "Your color is a little better today, Maya," she said, her tone carrying that practiced, clinical cheerfulness that nurses perfected. "And your breathing sounds less... wet. Doctor Aris will be thrilled when he does his rounds."
Maya offered a weak, tight-lipped smile. "Thanks." The word scraped against her throat, sounding pathetic even to her own ears.
She wasn't calculating variables or analyzing her situation like a computer anymore. The adrenaline of the Mindscape had completely faded, leaving behind a profound, heavy exhaustion that settled into her very marrow. She just felt deeply, overwhelmingly human. And scared. Arthur had been a practical guy—he paid his taxes, he avoided confrontation, he liked things to make sense. None of this made sense. He was trapped in a body that felt like a house made of wet cardboard, terrified that if he breathed too deeply, a wall would cave in.
He—she, she had to start thinking of herself as she—looked away from the nurse and over to the corner of the room.
The woman who had been weeping by her bedside the night before was slumped in a vinyl recliner. She was fast asleep, her head tilted at an uncomfortable angle against the hard plastic armrest. A thin, scratchy hospital blanket was pulled up to her chin, but it wasn't doing much to ward off the aggressive air conditioning. Her face, even in sleep, was drawn tight with worry lines.
Maya's chest tightened, and it had nothing to do with her failing mitral valve. It was guilt, pure and simple. It felt awful to look at this woman's devotion and know she was directing it at a ghost. Arthur had lost his own mother years ago to a sudden aneurysm; he knew exactly what that hollow, devastating grief felt like. He couldn't imagine watching it happen slowly, day by day, to a child.
I can't tell her, Maya realized, the thought landing with the heavy thud of absolute certainty. It would destroy her. And who would believe me anyway? They'd just schedule a psych consult.
"She didn't go home," Carla murmured, following Maya's gaze. The nurse lowered her voice, adjusting the blood pressure cuff on Maya's frail arm. "We tried to make her leave at midnight. Told her to go get a real night's sleep. She made it as far as the elevator banks before she turned around and sat right back down in that chair."
"She's stubborn," Maya guessed, hoping it sounded like something the real Maya would say.
Carla chuckled softly. "Wonder where she gets it from." She patted Maya's hand—a touch that felt incredibly warm against Maya's perpetually cold skin. "I'll bring you some breakfast. Broth and jello. Don't look at me like that, it's protocol until your stomach wakes up."
As Carla slipped out the heavy wooden door, the latch clicked shut with a soft thud. The sound was enough to break the mother's fragile sleep.
The woman gasped, sitting up straight and blinking rapidly against the harsh fluorescent lights. Panic flashed in her eyes for a split second before they locked onto the bed. Seeing Maya awake, her shoulders instantly dropped two inches.
"Hey," the woman breathed, scrambling out of the recliner. She tossed the blanket aside and hurried to the edge of the bed, her hands hovering over Maya as if she wanted to hug her but was terrified of breaking her. "You're awake. How... how do you feel? Should I press the button? Do you need water?"
"I'm okay, Mom," Maya said. The word Mom felt strange on her tongue, heavy and borrowed, but seeing the immediate, watery relief in the woman's eyes made it worth it. "Just... tired."
"Of course you are. You had a terrible episode, honey. It was so scary." Her mother finally gave in, gently resting her hand against Maya's cheek. Her palm was warm, and her thumb stroked the hollow beneath Maya's cheekbone. "But you look better. You really do. Not as pale."
"I think the meds are finally working," Maya lied smoothly. It was the System, the single point of Vigor she had bled for in the mud of Avalon, but she couldn't say that.
"Good. That's good." Her mother let out a shaky breath and sat on the very edge of the mattress. She looked completely wrecked. Her clothes were wrinkled, her hair was tied back in a messy, oily knot, and she smelled faintly of stale coffee and antibacterial soap. "I was so worried, May. I called your dad, but... well, he's in Chicago until tomorrow. He said he'd try to get an earlier flight, but you know how it is."
Maya filed that information away. The dad wasn't in the picture, or at least, wasn't physically here right now. Good. One less person to accidentally alert with strange behavior.
"You need to go home," Maya said softly.
Her mother shook her head immediately, her jaw setting in a stubborn line. "No. No way. I'm not leaving until they move you out of the critical wing."
"Mom, look at yourself," Maya pressed, trying to inject a gentle pleading into her raspy voice. She didn't want to be alone—the idea of lying here with only her thoughts and the glowing golden UI in her head was terrifying—but her conscience wouldn't let her keep this woman hostage. "Your neck is going to be permanently cramped. You need a shower. And a real bed."
"I don't care about a shower—"
"I do. I'm the sick one, I'm allowed to make demands," Maya forced a weak, teasing smile. "Go home. Shower. Eat something that didn't come out of a vending machine. Sleep for four hours. The hospital isn't going anywhere, and neither am I."
Her mother hesitated, chewing on her lower lip. The exhaustion in her eyes was practically screaming for relief, but her maternal instinct was fighting it tooth and nail.
Before the argument could continue, a sudden commotion erupted in the hallway.
Maya's head turned toward the door. Through the small, rectangular window embedded in the wood, she saw nurses rushing past. A sharp, frantic voice cut through the heavy hospital quiet.
"No! Give it back! I want to go home!"
It was a kid's voice. Young. Maybe seven or eight years old, shrill with absolute, unadulterated panic.
"Sweetie, please, we just need to change the dressing—" an adult voice pleaded, likely a doctor or orderly.
"Don't touch me!"
There was the distinct sound of something plastic hitting the floor and shattering, followed by a frustrated sigh from an adult.
Maya's mother stood up, her brow furrowed. She walked over to the door and peeked through the glass. "Oh, poor thing," she murmured. "It's the little boy from down the hall. Room 412. The burns unit."
Maya frowned. The cardiac ward shared a floor with a pediatric burn step-down unit. She remembered seeing the signs when they wheeled her in.
"What's happening?" Maya asked, trying to sit up slightly, her core trembling with the effort.
"He's throwing a fit," her mother said sympathetically, stepping back from the door. "He won't let the nurses near his arm. They look like they're about to call security to restrain him."
Restrain a burned child. The thought made Maya's stomach turn.
And then, the golden text flickered in the corner of her vision, pulling her attention away from the door.
[Task 3 Pending: The Knight's Errant - Perform one act of "Common Chivalry."]
Maya stared at the prompt. Helping a civilian without expecting a reward.
She looked around the room. She couldn't walk. She couldn't fight off an attacker or carry groceries. But she had a voice, and she had an understanding of fear. That kid out there was terrified, cornered by giants poking at his most painful wounds.
"Mom," Maya said, her voice suddenly finding a solid, grounded tenor. "Wheel me out there."
Her mother spun around, staring at her as if she had grown a second head. "What? Maya, absolutely not. You are strapped to a monitor. You just stabilized."
"The cord reaches the doorway. I've seen the nurses pull the beds out to clean," Maya insisted, pushing herself up onto her elbows. The effort made her vision swim with black spots, but she fought through it. "Just to the door. Please."
"Why on earth—"
"He's scared," Maya interrupted, not entirely sure why she felt so strongly about this, only that it felt like the right thing to do. Not just for the System, but because lying here doing nothing felt like a betrayal of the second chance she'd been given. "I know what it feels like when everyone in a room is looking at you like a problem they need to solve with needles. Just open the door."
Her mother stared at her. There was something in Maya's eyes—a hard, unyielding stubbornness that hadn't been there two days ago. It wasn't the petulant defiance of a sick teenager; it was the quiet authority of someone who had decided on a course of action and would not be moved.
"Maya, your heart..."
"Is beating," Maya finished. "Please."
With a deep, reluctant sigh, her mother walked over to the wall. She unhooked the brake on the heavy hospital bed. "If your monitor spikes, I'm pulling you right back in," she warned, her voice trembling slightly.
"Deal."
The bed rolled forward with a squeak of rubber wheels. Her mother pushed her to the threshold, propping the heavy door open.
The hallway was chaotic. Two nurses and an orderly were clustered around a small boy wearing a hospital gown covered in cartoon dinosaurs. His right arm was wrapped heavily in gauze from the elbow to the wrist, but the bandages looked dirty. He was backed into a corner by the nurses' station, clutching a cheap plastic action figure like a weapon, tears streaming down his flushed face.
"Buddy, if we don't change it, it's going to get infected," the orderly said, taking a slow step forward, his hands raised in surrender.
"NO!" the boy screamed, throwing the action figure. It bounced harmlessly off the orderly's knee.
Maya took a shallow breath, feeling the strain in her chest, and cleared her throat.
"Hey," she called out. Her voice wasn't loud, but it carried down the quiet hallway.
Everyone froze. The nurses turned, looking surprised to see a critical patient hovering in a doorway. The little boy sniffled, wiping his nose with his good hand, and peered past the adults at her.
"They're not trying to be mean, you know," Maya said, keeping her tone conversational, entirely ignoring the adults in the room and focusing solely on the kid. "They just suck at explaining things."
One of the nurses, Carla, opened her mouth to scold her, but Maya held up a pale, translucent hand to stop her.
"What's your name?" Maya asked the boy.
"Leo," the kid mumbled, his lower lip trembling.
"I'm Maya. Do you know why they want to change that bandage, Leo?"
Leo shook his head, pressing himself tighter into the corner. "It hurts when they take the tape off. It feels like fire again."
Maya felt a pang of deep, genuine sympathy. She remembered the blistering agony of her hands in the mindscape. Pain was a universal language.
"I know," Maya said softly. "It sucks. But think of it like... armor."
The boy blinked, lowering his defensive posture just a fraction. "Armor?"
"Yeah." Maya leaned forward slightly against the bedrails. "When a knight goes into battle, their armor gets all dented and dirty, right? It takes the hits so the knight doesn't have to. But if they never clean the armor, if they just leave it broken, it won't protect them the next time."
Leo looked down at his gauzed arm, then back at her. The tears had stopped flowing, replaced by a cautious curiosity.
"Your bandage is your armor," Maya continued, weaving the metaphor carefully. She didn't know much about kids, but she knew about stories. "Right now, it's dirty. It fought off all the bad germs trying to get into your arm, but it's full. If you don't let them give you new armor, the germs win."
She pointed a finger at the orderly. "He's basically the blacksmith. He just wants to give you a shiny new shield."
The orderly, catching on, straightened up and gave a solemn nod. "Finest gauze in the kingdom, sir."
Leo sniffled again. He looked at his arm, then at the orderly, and finally back at Maya. "Does taking it off hurt?"
"Yes," Maya told him honestly. She wasn't going to lie to him. "It stings. But it only lasts for a minute. And a real knight doesn't let a minute of stinging stop him from getting back his strength."
Leo stood in the corner for a long, tense moment. The hallway was dead silent, save for the hum of the vending machine and the rhythmic beep of Maya's monitor.
Slowly, Leo stepped out of the corner. He walked over to the orderly, offering his wrapped arm with his chin tilted up in an attempt at bravery. "Okay," he whispered. "You can change my armor."
The nurses let out a collective breath of relief. Carla shot Maya a look that was equal parts bewildered and profoundly grateful.
Maya's mother gently grabbed the rails of the bed and pulled her back into the room, letting the heavy door swing shut. She engaged the brakes and walked around to Maya's side, staring down at her with an expression Maya couldn't quite read.
"Since when do you know anything about knights and armor?" her mother asked softly.
Maya offered a weak shrug, settling back into the pillows, suddenly feeling completely drained. "I read a lot."
Before her mother could press the issue, a warm, golden glow bloomed across Maya's vision, bright and triumphant.
[Task 3 Complete: The Knight's Errant]
[Reward: +5 Renown EXP] [Renown Level: Novice]
[Daily Routine Completed.] [The Avalon Protocol acknowledges your discipline.]
[Reward: Daily System Box added to Inventory.]
Maya closed her eyes, hiding the intense relief that washed over her. She had done it. She had survived the first twenty-four hours in a dying body, in a world she didn't belong in, playing by the rules of an ancient magic.
"Get some rest, Maya," her mother whispered, brushing a strand of hair from Maya's forehead. "I'll sit right here."
"No," Maya murmured, keeping her eyes closed. "You're going home. Or I'm going out there to yell at the blacksmith again."
She heard a soft, watery laugh from the chair. "Okay. Okay, you win. I'll go sleep in a real bed. But I'll be back before dinner."
As the door clicked shut behind her mother, Maya let out a long breath. She felt the heavy, comforting presence of the System waiting for her. She had a Daily Box to open, and tonight, she had a date with a massive, terrifying knight in a bruised-plum courtyard.
The heavy wooden door clicked shut, sealing Maya in the sterile quiet of Room 314. The frantic energy of the hallway faded, leaving only the synthetic, rhythmic hum of the air conditioning and the steady, slightly stronger beep of her heart monitor.
Maya let her head fall back against the starchy pillow, closing her eyes. She let out a long, shuddering breath that actually made it all the way to the bottom of her lungs without turning into a violent cough.
What the hell am I doing?
She rubbed her face with her pale, fragile hands, feeling the clammy sweat on her forehead. Arthur—the man she used to be—would have never yelled down a hospital corridor. He would have minded his own business, kept his head down, and let the professionals handle it. He was a guy who apologized when someone else bumped into him on the Tube.
But lying there, listening to that kid scream… something had just snapped. It wasn't a calculated decision to farm "Renown EXP." It was a visceral, sickening twist in her gut. She remembered the blinding terror of the car crash in London, the absolute helplessness of knowing her body was breaking and being utterly unable to stop it. Seeing that little boy cornered by well-meaning giants holding medical tape had just pissed her off.
"Okay," she whispered to the empty room, her voice a rough croak. "So I'm apparently a sucker for crying kids now. Add it to the list of weird bodily changes."
She opened her eyes and stared at the acoustic ceiling tiles. The adrenaline was completely gone, replaced by a deep, gnawing hollow in her stomach. She wasn't just tired; she was starving. It was a bizarre sensation, considering for the last forty-eight hours, her body had been entirely focused on not dying, leaving digestion completely off the priority list.
She needed to see what the System had given her. She needed an edge.
With a thought, she summoned the Avalon Protocol. The air above her bed shimmered, the scent of ozone and old rain pushing back the hospital bleach, before the golden knotwork flared to life.
[Status Screen] Host: Maya [Surname Pending]
Vigor: 4
Might: 2
Agility: 4
Aether: 12
Renown: Novice (5/100 to next rank)
Maya studied the numbers. She recalled the scaling the System had shown her when she first woke up. Super Soldier Baseline: 50. Captain America.
Fifty felt like a mountain she had to climb while wearing a lead vest. She was sitting at a pitiful four in Vigor, and every single point was going to be paid for in blood, sweat, and whatever fresh hell Sir Percy dreamed up in the Mindscape. She briefly wondered what lay at the top of that mountain. If reaching fifty meant she was as strong as a Super Soldier, did the System have something else waiting for her? A true knight's power? The thought was a tiny spark of motivation in an otherwise overwhelming ocean of dread.
But she couldn't worry about the summit when she was still drowning at the base. She navigated the glowing interface, her eyes locking onto the new tab.
[Inventory] 1 Item Stored: [Daily System Box (Common)]
"Open it," Maya muttered.
The interface shifted. A small, three-dimensional projection of a simple wooden crate bound in iron straps materialized in the air. The lid popped open with a satisfying mental click, dissolving into a shower of golden sparks that deposited two physical objects directly onto the blanket resting over her lap.
Maya gasped, instinctively pulling her hands back.
She looked at the door, her heart giving a nervous flutter. If a nurse walked in right now, how exactly was she going to explain the loot drop?
Resting on the white hospital blanket was a small, corked glass vial filled with a thick, violently crimson liquid, and next to it, a neat stack of modern, crisp United States currency held together by a paper band.
She snatched the money first, sliding it under her thigh to hide it. She quickly thumbed through it—five twenty-dollar bills. A hundred bucks. It wasn't exactly Stark-level wealth, but for a teenager whose mom was likely drowning in medical debt, it was a godsend. She could use it to buy better food, or clothes, or whatever she needed when—if—she ever got out of this bed.
Then, she picked up the vial. It was heavy, the glass cool to the touch.
[Item Assessed: Minor Draught of the Hearth] Description: A diluted alchemical tincture designed for squires recovering from the training yards. Restores minor tissue damage, eases joint inflammation, and provides a mild caloric surplus. Note: Tastes awful. A knight does not complain.
"Screw you," Maya whispered affectionately to the glowing text.
She gripped the small cork. Her fingers were weak, trembling as she tried to twist it free. She had to use her teeth, biting down on the cork and pulling the glass vial downward. It popped loose with a soft shhhk.
The smell hit her instantly—like crushed metallic berries mixed with wet earth and copper. It smelled exactly like a bloody nose.
Maya didn't hesitate. She tipped her head back and downed the liquid in one gulp.
She immediately gagged. The System wasn't kidding; it was vile. It tasted like someone had liquefied a handful of pennies and mixed it with sour cherry juice. She clamped her hand over her mouth, her eyes watering, forcing herself to swallow as her stomach violently threatened to reject it.
Stay down. Stay down, you stupid body.
A second later, the nausea vanished, replaced by an intense, radiating heat that bloomed directly in her chest.
Maya let out a sharp gasp, dropping the empty vial onto the bed. She clutched her hospital gown right over her heart. The heat wasn't painful—it didn't feel like the terrifying, crushing vice of a cardiac episode. It felt like standing directly in front of a roaring fireplace after being outside in a blizzard.
The warmth spread outward, flowing down her arms and into her legs. The deep, agonizing ache in her joints—the phantom pain from hitting the cobblestones of the Mindscape over and over—began to melt away. The lingering tightness in her lungs loosened, allowing her to take her first truly deep, unrestricted breath in what felt like a lifetime.
The heart monitor beside her bed trilled, the rhythm visibly smoothing out on the screen, dropping to a steady, relaxed baseline.
Maya fell back against the pillows, her whole body practically vibrating with relief. She wasn't cured. She could still feel the inherent fragility of her chest, the subtle skip of the damaged valve, but the immediate, suffocating threat of death had been pushed back a few more inches. She felt… stable.
She quickly shoved the empty glass vial and the roll of cash deep into the pocket of her hospital gown just as the door latch clicked.
Carla walked in, balancing a plastic tray. "Breakfast of champions," the nurse chirped, setting the tray down on the rolling table and swinging it over Maya's lap. "Beef broth, cherry jello, and apple juice. Try to get at least half the broth down, okay?"
Carla paused, looking at Maya closely. She reached out and felt Maya's forehead, then checked the monitors.
"You've got some color in your cheeks," Carla noted, genuinely surprised. "And your breathing is excellent. What did you do, make a deal with the devil while I was grabbing the jello?"
"Something like that," Maya said, offering a small, genuine smile. Her voice was still raspy, but it didn't hurt to speak anymore. "I'm just really hungry."
"Well, don't rush it. Small sips." Carla gave her a warm smile, the professional mask slipping to reveal real relief. "Doctor Aris is going to be very happy. If you keep this up, we might be talking about moving you to a standard room by the end of the week."
"That would be great. Thank you, Carla."
As the nurse left to check on the burn ward, Maya looked down at the pathetic plastic cup of lukewarm beef broth. To her, right now, it looked like a Michelin-star meal.
She picked up the plastic spoon, her hands completely steady for the first time since she had woken up in this universe. She took a sip of the salty broth, letting the warmth settle in her stomach.
She had survived the night. She had passed her first trial. She had magic blood in her veins and a psychotic ghost knight waiting to beat her senseless the moment she fell asleep.
Maya scooped up a quivering spoonful of red jello.
Bring it on.