About 2,500 words

Pursuit Chapter 2

by Quest

“Young master, wake up, we're here,” Josephine said. Despite the weight still in his eyes, Giorgio opened them without a care. He looked out the window, through the fog and snow. In the distance, a tall building loomed, and in front of it stood a large sign. Black Apple Magicks. He put on his overcoat and got out of the carriage; the three of them walked silently toward the building. The only sound they heard was their shoes stamping on the snow. The moment they stepped inside the hospital, a familiar coldness hit him, as if he had been hit in the face with ice. Puzzled, he followed his sister and his maid. 

“Wait here.” Josephine gave him a bag of candy to ease his hunger, as he had not eaten anything since the night before. She then walked off with Angela to talk to the receptionist.

While waiting for them to return, he looked around the waiting room, searching for a hint of the cold that was seeping into the room. After searching for a while, he noticed that the coldness was concentrated on the ornamental flowers on the side of the room. He looked for anything unusual about those flowers but found nothing. The flower was quite ordinary to look at, bright blue and emitting a nice fragrance, but other than that there was nothing unusual about it. 

“Young Master, the doctor has agreed to come and examine you,” Josephine said as she seemed to have finished her conversation with the receptionist.

"Josie, what are these flowers?" Josephine raised an eyebrow at his question before explaining.

“That's Flore Caeruleo. It is a flower native to Albion”

“It’s…cold.”

“What do you mean?”

"The flowers, they feel cold." 

"Oh, I see. Your sister can explain it better than I can, young master. Why don't you ask her instead?” He paused for a moment, mentally debating whether to ask or not, before deciding it wouldn't hurt to do so.

“Why didn’t you wake me up earlier this morning Josie? How long have you known about what’s been happening to me?” 

“You didn’t seem well when I went to check up on you last night, so I decided against waking you up early.”

He nodded at her explanation and then the nurse led them to the examination room. He was having difficulty walking and limped along the way, having to lean on Josephine. His body ached with every step he took. When he finally arrived at the clinic, a young man greeted him from behind a desk. The man, who appeared to be the doctor, had long blond hair and eyes of the same color.

"Why, hello there. You’re Giorgio, correct?" The doctor asked him. He then nodded in affirmation.

"My name is Dr. Allen. I will be examining you today. Please have a seat."

“Okay.” As he was about to sit down on the chair, the ache happened again, and he had to ease into sitting down so it wouldn’t hurt too much.

“Have you been having trouble walking Giorgio?”

“Yes.”

"Then we will lend you a wheelchair." The doctor then looked at the nurse that accompanied them and nodded. The nurse, in turn, went out the door and fetched it for Giorgio. "I hear you have not been feeling well lately?" He nodded. “Can you explain it to me?”

"I woke up with my arms cold."

"Hmm, I see, so how long has it been like this?"

"Since this morning." The doctor listened intently while Giorgio answered his questions, but the doctor paused shortly before asking his next one.

“…Giorgio, may I have a look at your arm?” Giorgio obliged by holding out his arm to the doctor. The doctor then took out a strap, wrapped it around his arm, and took a needle filled with red liquid from a cabinet in the room.

“Now, Giorgio, I need you to stay calm while I inject this into you. Understood?"

“Yes.” Because he was a big boy now, and there is no way that big boys were afraid of an injection, so he can keep his cool. He admitted in his mind that one of the reasons he wanted to remain calm was to impress his maid. When the doctor stuck the needle in his arm. Glowing green lines began to reappear on his arm. The doctor poked the line with his finger and observed his arm further.

“97, 98…” The doctor muttered under his breath, with Giorgio barely hearing what the doctor said. “100 circuits!” The doctor exclaimed in shock.

“100 what now?” He asked as the doctor gradually regained his composure.

“They haven’t told you yet Giorgio?” He nodded slowly, unsure of what the doctor meant. “Well long story short, you’re a Magus.”

“A Magus? What’s that?” The doctor was about to explain before being interrupted by the sound of his sister coughing.

“Let me, Doctor Allen,” she said with a bit of authority in her voice.

 “Oh, of course. I’ll be out of your way then Madam D’Agostino” Something about the formality of his sister being called by their last name felt odd to Giorgio. Since the doctor should be years older than his sister and should have had seniority.

“Giorgino.” She said, pulling him out of his thoughts. “A magus is a practitioner of Magecraft. Magecraft is the study and application of magical energy in all living beings. The continued study of Magecraft is the legacy given to us by our ancestors.” She explained it to him by rote.

“So, I can do Magic?” 

“Not quite.”

“Wha– Why?” His question drew out a sigh from his older sister.

“We were going to tell you when you were older, but it seems that I have to explain it to you now.”

“What do you mean?”

“You were born with defective circuits.”

“And I suppose that’s not a good thing?”

“It isn’t. You possess circuits that have an unnaturally high Thaumaturgical Impedance, which makes your circuits unable to release the mana it takes in.”

“Sister, in Albish please.” 

“It means that you cannot perform Magecraft. You have to release a certain amount of mana to be able to perform spells, which is something that you are incapable of. Regardless of the number of circuits you possess, they are useless with your condition.”

“Wait, that doesn’t explain why I’ve been sick all morning.”

“It does. The fact that you can’t release mana from your body means that it has slowly built up in your circuits and spread throughout the rest of your body. The effect is that the excess mana leaking from your circuits is slowly freezing you to death from the inside.”

“I’m going to die?”

“If left on its own, yes. Lucky for you though, defective circuits can be treated and the fact that we caught it so soon means that you’ll live…probably.”

“Probably?”

“Probably.” The two of them stood there for a good few seconds before Angela broke the silence.

“I’m going to call Mother and Father, you stay here.” She said before she stepped out of the room.

The utter bombshell from his sister occupied his thoughts as he waited. There was a possibility that he could die, but strangely enough, he wasn’t all that scared of it. In his mind, it is as if his death is impossible. He could logically reason that he could die, but the idea seemed ridiculous and unrealistic. Even if he did die, he wasn’t scared of what would happen to him; he just wondered if his family would be okay without him.

He is a Magus, but he couldn’t do Magecraft, and what was supposed to help him perform spells was slowly killing him instead. ‘I want to go home,’ he thought. He wanted to go back home and sleep on his bed as if nothing had ever happened, as if he could return to how it was before he learned all this. If there was a possibility that he was going to die, then he might as well sleep with his family and inside the comforts of his own home one last time before he kicked the bucket.

“Young master,” Josephine called out to him while pushing a wheelchair in front of her.

“We’re going to have to move you to the emergency room while you wait for your parents.”

“Okay.”

He climbed into the wheelchair with Josephine helping him. She then pushed the wheelchair towards what he guessed was the emergency room. He somehow liked the experience of being in a wheelchair, not having to get tired walking around while letting someone else handle moving for him. On entering the emergency room, a doll on one of the bedside tables caught his eye. It wore an elaborate dress in the fashion of what would have been popular in the days of his grandparents.

The doll had pale blonde hair and deep crimson eyes. It looked scary to him because it seemed as if a person was hiding behind the eyes of the doll. Also, there was a sinister aura surrounding it, and it was strange that Josephine did not seem to notice it in the least. He entertained the idea of it haunting him, which his logical side dismissed as impossible. After all, dolls aren’t alive, nor do ghosts exist. Because if they did exist, someone would have written them down and told other people of their existence. 

But then again, he hadn’t known he was a magus and everyone else in his family until today. He snapped himself out of that train of thought, he was only needlessly scaring himself. 

“How are you holding up young master?” Josephine asked, snapping him out of his thoughts.

“I’m fine.”

“All right. If there’s anything wrong don’t hesitate to tell me. You know you can talk to me about anything, right?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Good.”

He looked at his maid and studied her expression. She looked tired and weirdly serious. He couldn’t understand why she was acting like that though. Maybe it was because of the fact he could die? But why would she worry about that? That was nothing worth being that serious about. Maybe he should crack a joke? But he couldn’t think of anything funny right now and it didn’t feel right to say something like that considering how serious she was. So, they sat in silence for what seemed like an eternity before she started talking again.

“The doctor said that you have to stay in the hospital for a few months.”

“…”

“You can pick whom you want to stay here with you though. Do you want Sally to look after you instead?” 

“No, I’d rather be with you.”

“Alright.” 

“Do you want to go to your room? The doctor has already assigned you one and I figured you’d want some rest,” she asked.

“Yes, thank you.”

“Alright.” She then stood up and helped him get into the wheelchair again before she began moving him toward his room. It was a few floors up but thankfully they had ramps, so Josephine didn’t have to carry him up the stairs. When they got there, he noticed that the room was occupied by one other person. It was a boy around Giorgio’s age with pale blonde hair and had on the upper half of his face a very ornate carnival mask. The boy appeared to be drawing on a sketchbook with a pencil and some crayons. The boy noticed his stare and looked back at him.

“So, what brings you here?” the boy asked.

“I’m sick,” he replied.

“Yes, I can see that, but what sickness exactly?”

He paused at the boy’s inquiry. He didn’t exactly know what this boy knew about him or how he would react to him being a magus. So, he didn’t reply at all to the boy’s question and instead looked up at Josephine, trusting her judgment. Josephine in turn sighed.

“Anastasio, please don’t tease the young master.” Josephine lectured at which Anastasio then burst out in a fit of giggles unfit for a boy.

“Sorry, I just couldn’t resist,” Anastasio replied, not looking apologetic at all.

“To answer your confusion, young master, this boy is also a magus, and he is being trained by a trusted associate of the family. This room is rented exclusively by the family in the case of magical-related injuries to prevent people from asking questions.” She then explained to Giorgio.

“I see,” he then said.

“So, what type of Magecraft can you do?” Anastasio asked.

“I can’t do Magecraft.”

“What do you mean? I thought you were a magus?”

“I have defective circuits.”

“Ouch. My condolences.”

“Anastasio, if you do not mind, the young master is tired and needs some rest.” Josephine interrupted the conversation to stop Anastasio from prying any further.

“Oh no, not at all. Nighty night… uh what’s your name again?” Anastasio then turned to ask him.

“Giorgio. My family calls me Giorgino though.” He replied.

“Giorgino huh? Well alright, I’ll call you Gino then. You can call me Ana, that’s what my sister used to call me.”

“Okay.”

“Night Gino” He swore that beneath that carnival mask the boy across from him held a mischievous grin.

“Goodnight…Ana.” He whispered the last part, but he thought that Ana heard him anyway. Josephine proceeded to help him get on the bed and then left the room to let him get some rest. Unbeknownst to the three of them, however, a pair of eyes continue to stare at Gino as he falls asleep. Gino then experiences a strange dream that night. He was standing upon a mountain of corpses, grasping at a light pouring from the sky.

“On mountains that I build out of corpses beneath me”

“I hope that it will reach up to the heavens”

“All that is good to me lost”

“Abandon all hope, and abandon all fear”

“In my hell, I reign”