About 3,000 words
Pursuit Chapter 3
by Quest
Gino was bored. It wasn’t surprising since he was in a hospital and was being treated for a potentially life-threatening condition but come on. Did he have to spend his days sleeping, listening to the radio, eating, taking his medication, listening to the radio, and then sleeping again? What he thought at first was a boon since he no longer had to attend homeschooling turned out to be a nightmare of boredom. He stared at his breakfast with disinterest. It is porridge again.
As if he hadn’t eaten the same bloody thing the night before or the night before. He understood that heavy foods and the like might upset his already weak stomach due to his condition, but he felt like a peasant having to eat this thing that people called a meal. What was the use of being part of the most influential family in the city if he could not even get something decent to eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner? He spent the last hour groaning at the absolute state of his situation right now.
“Alright, that’s it.” Ana suddenly spoke up after a while. He then walked toward the bed where Gino was sitting. “What’s the matter with you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t ‘What do you mean?’ me. You’ve been groaning at your breakfast for the past hour!” He thought that Ana’s impression of his voice was mildly insulting. His voice wasn’t that whiny, was it?
“Sorry, it’s just that I’m so bored! We have nothing to do here!”
“Why not play a board game if you are so bored?”
“What?”
“Yeah, the hospital has a place where they keep board games for patients.” He felt like an utter moron now. Why didn’t Ana mention this sooner? Do you mean he could have been playing board games all this time? He clenched at Ana’s collar, pulling Ana closer to him. Ana’s response was to attempt kicking him in the balls. No touching. Roger that.
“Where?” He asked.
“It’s at the receptionist.”
“I see, then let’s g–“ He suddenly collapsed to the ground, probably due to the weakness in his knees. He was so frustrated that even with treatment, his legs became so weak that he needed support to go to the bathroom. He didn’t want some nurse looking over him while he peed, so he only went to the toilet when no one was around to help him. It sounds terrible, but he liked his privacy, alright?
“I’ll get you your wheelchair,” Ana said before leaving the room.
“Thank you.”
As Ana returned with a wheelchair, they continued their journey toward the board game. The novelty of being moved around in a wheelchair hadn’t gotten smaller throughout his stay in the hospital. He quite liked making people move him around instead of doing it himself. As they moved to the lower level of the hospital, where the reception area was, it became somewhat colder.
Not just due to the strange ornamental flowers around the hospital emitting mana but also because the heater inside the individual rooms wasn't present, leaving the perpetual cold of the outside to seep inside the ground levels of the hospital. When they got there, the receptionist lead them to where the staff stored all of the board games and toys in the hospital.
“You can only choose one, okay? Leave some for the other children here.” The receptionist said, fiddling with the keys in her hand.
“Okay.” They both replied in unison.
He suddenly shivered and he felt the little hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He was about to ask Ana if he felt it too until he heard the faint sound of someone…giggling…and it was coming from inside the room. The look he shared with Ana told him all he needed to know. The receptionist slid the key inside and the door whined loudly as it opened. They found the room to be completely ransacked. The couches were cut open, the windows were smashed, and all the toys looked like they were thrown across the room.
At the center of it all, sat a doll. It was perched in a little chair, staring straight at them. He bent down and picked up one of the many plush toys on the ground. It looked like it was completely gutted for its stuffing and all the other plush toys were in similar condition. He couldn’t help but feel uneasy being in this room so he quickly searched the room for a board game they could play. He didn’t want to stay here any longer than he needed to. In the corner of his eye, he spotted a wooden box with a checker pattern on it.
“Is that a chessboard?” He asked.
“Do you want it?” The receptionist replied. He then looked over to Ana, who shrugged.
“Yes, please.” The receptionist nodded and they all silently hurried out of the room. He looked back one last time and he could have sworn that the doll was sitting in a different position.
They both agreed that they did not want to rush their moves, so they did not play with a timer. Ana played White, while he played Black. He tried to give Ana the handicap since he prided himself on being, at the very least, decent at playing chess. However, the games against his father were different. In the games against his father, despite playing white and racking his brains for the best play at every turn, he could not quite win. Even more frustrating, however, was the fact that when he did win, it was because his father was busy taking care of his younger sister, reducing his concentration on the game.
He did not think it was a win because his father was doing two things at once. Snapping him out of his thoughts was Ana’s first move, a pawn to e4. He responded with his pawn at e5, stopping Ana’s pawn in its tracks. Ana placed his knight on f3, attacking Gino's pawn at e5. He responded with his knight on c6, defending his pawn. A very ordinary game so far. Ana responded by moving his bishop to c4, attacking his pawn at f7.
‘Ah, so that was his play.’ By moving his bishop there, Ana was preparing for an attack with the knight he moved earlier, moving it to g5 and then capturing his pawn at f7. No other pieces can capture that knight, however, other than Gino's king. But even the king would be unable to capture the knight since it was protected by the bishop he moved at c4. If the king captured the knight, then it would be open to capture by the bishop.
Allowing the king to be brazenly open to capture was an illegal move since the whole point of the game was cornering the king until it could not move to a place where it could not be captured. And so, his king and all the other pieces in the area were sitting ducks. He cannot allow such a thing to happen, however. Most importantly, he had his pride as a D’Agostino to uphold. If the knight were to be allowed to capture the pawn at f7, it would be effectively forking (having the choice to capture between two pieces at once) his queen and rook. He played knight f6. And Ana played the move he predicted earlier, knight g5.
‘Do you take me for a fool, Ana? As if I’d let you beat me, especially in this game.’ He played bishop c5.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. I’m disappointed Gino. And here I thought you were good at this game.” In due time Ana. In due time. Ana then played the predictable knight f7, capturing his pawn. He responded with bishop f2, check. He let a little smile appear on his face, assured of his inevitable victory.
Ana was sure of his victory right now. Gino was down on material and forked Gino’s queen and rook, essentially winning him the game. But something worried him; however, Gino was smiling. Was he a fool who thought that he still had a chance, or did he have something up his sleeve? Bishop f2 was a move that confused him since his king could take it at any time. He still held Gino’s queen and rook hostage, with his opponent not having the power to prevent the inevitable loss of material.
But something in that smile unsettled Ana, very much so. Bah! He was only worrying himself needlessly. There was nothing that Gino could do now that could turn back the tide in his favor. He captured the lone bishop at f2, removing the king from the check. Now all that remains is to capture Gino’s queen. Gino responded by playing knight e4, capturing the center pawn that he led at the start of the game, effectively placing his king in check again.
Gino was delaying the capture of his queen by continuously placing his king in check. Gino was fighting an uphill battle; however, it would only be a matter of time before Gino's Queen would be caught and checkmated. But it would be fun to see him squirm for a victory he had lost from the start. The least Gino could hope for now was a draw which was not acceptable. He evaded by playing king g1, hiding his king behind a wall of pawns.
Gino responded with queen h4, escaping from the fork he made. That was Gino’s mistake. Moving your queen so early and far inside enemy lines only left it vulnerable to capture. He played pawn g3, attacking the queen. Gino responded by playing knight g3, capturing the pawn.
‘Was he mad?’ He thought. Sacrificing a knight for a measly pawn capture was absurd. He figured that no one would be foolish enough to attempt it. He was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth and let Gino make continuous blunders, which would only strengthen his victory. He played pawn to g3, capturing the knight. Gino responded with queen g3, capturing the pawn, evading the ire of his now-released rook, and putting his king in check again.
He played king f1 to get away from the check. Gino took this as his chance to place his rook out of the range of Ana’s knight by playing rook f8. Oh, oh shit. He finally noticed that things might not be as peachy as he thought, as his knight was pinned into place by the rook. The knight is the only thing preventing the rook from placing his king. In check. Again. He played queen e2. Gino responded with knight d4, attacking his queen. He evaded by playing queen e4, attacking the knight, and ensuring it did not take the c2 pawn.
Gino retreated his knight back to e6, right into the range of Ana’s bishop. It is not a freebie, however, since Gino’s pawn in d7 was still there to protect the knight, but it was still an acceptable trade. With the breathing room he got due to the stalemate up to this point, he decided to deploy the pieces on the other side and played pawn b3. Gino responded by capturing his knight on f7, placing his king in check. He evaded by playing king e2.
Gino plays rook f4 and attacks the queen, supported by a pawn on e5. In response, Gino responded with the knight c3 to protect the queen. Gino then played queen f2 and checked the king. He evaded his king from check, again, by playing king d3. Gino then played rook e4 capturing his queen.
‘How the tables have turned and not in my favor,’ he was down a queen while Gino still had his. Weaselly bastard. Gino managed to turn the tides, but he had no intention of lying down and letting himself be checkmated or resign. If Gino was going to beat him, he intended to give him a hell of a time for it. He played king e4, capturing the rook. Gino responded by playing queen f4, placing his king in check. Seriously, the man would not leave his king alone. He retreated his king by playing king d3.
Gino responded by playing queen f3, placing his king, hear me out now, in check. What a shocker. He was resigned to being defeated by now. He evaded his king from check by moving it closer to the center of the board with king c4. His side of the board was free real estate for Gino by now and boy did Gino capitalize on it by playing queen h1, capturing his rook. The rest of the game was less exciting, marked by Gino picking off his pieces one by one with his queen and himself maneuvering into positions that only delayed his loss. Eventually, his king was left sandwiched between Gino’s queen and rook, leaving him in checkmate.
Gino sighed in relief after playing queen f1, marking Ana's defeat. Not that Ana made it easy by any metric, but the late game basically amounted to Ana postponing his defeat by improving the positions of his pieces to compensate for the lack of them, after most of them were captured in the middle game, and so he sat there, relishing in his victory over Ana. He had tasted the sweet, sweet taste of victory after a grueling battle that lasted what felt like hours. He felt like celebrating by bragging about it in Ana’s face for the next few days, like really rubbing it in.
“Good game, you nearly had me there at the start.” he then said to Ana.
“That’s a whole bunch of baloney, you knew the whole time what I was going for.”
“Maybe,” he couldn’t resist cracking into a cheeky smile after being caught red-handed.
“Indeed, it was impressive, young master.”
“Kyaa!” he yelped… like a man. “H–how long have you been standing there Josie!?”
“Quite a while now.”
“You could have said something, you know!”
“I didn’t want to interrupt, it seemed like you were deep in concentration,” He was about to say something to argue with her until he saw what she was holding in her hands. It was a basin; one he had seen a lot of in the past few days.
“No need to worry young master. I’ll do it quickly”
He nodded in reply. With help from Josephine, he went back to his bed and sat down. She, in turn, placed the basin on his bedside table. She then took his arm and brandished a knife. He didn’t wince or look away, but he did have to psych himself up for it. She then carefully dragged the knife along the palm of his hand, releasing deep, crimson-colored blood from the wound. She pressed hard on the exposed wound, making the blood gush out faster. After a moment, the bleeding stopped, and Josephine pulled out a bandage and began wrapping it on his injured hand.
“You were very brave not to cry, young master.” He did not reply but felt a sense of pride puff out from his chest. But of course, he wouldn’t cry! He was too old for crying anyhow, it was only appropriate. Bloodletting was an… uncomfortable procedure, but it wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle and besides it was helping him get better. Mana was concentrated on bodily fluids, especially two of them. Blood and one other bodily fluid his sister, maid, and even the doctors won’t tell him about. It was frustrating, wasn’t he a magus too?
So why wasn’t he allowed to know? Going back on topic, since the excess of mana in his circuits and body was what was causing his condition; blood was highly concentrated in mana. The treatment the doctors assigned him was bloodletting. Although it was an old practice that no doctor would prescribe to a patient without looking like a quack nowadays. It was still very much a viable treatment for magi with defective circuits since it reduced the amount of mana in the body efficiently without invasive surgery on magus’ circuits.
“Josie, what was the other bodily fluid again?”
“Maybe when you’re older, young master.”
“Aw.”
“Little boys like you aren’t allowed to know yet young master.”
“L-little?! Take that back, Josie! I’m 7 years old already! I’m practically a grownup!”
“Sure, you are, young master,” she said while patting his hair, causing him to pout. It felt patronizing, but also somewhat nice, so he let her do it to him.
“Josie?”
“Yes, young master?”
“Won’t you stay beside me while I sleep?”
“I thought you said you were already a grownup young master,” He only pouted more.
“S-shut up! It’s just that, I can’t shake off the feeling of being watched.” He practically whispered the last parts of that sentence. Josephine’s expression quickly went serious.
“What do you mean?”
“I feel like something is watching me from the window.” Josephine’s brows furrowed and she then proceeded to check outside the window if there was anything suspicious. The hospital was atop a hill in the city, surrounded by trees with only one road leading to it. The trees made it hard to see if anything or anyone was hiding there, further worsened by the constant snowfall.
“Alright, young master. I will keep you safe from any monsters by the window.”
He didn’t like the way she phrased it. As if he was still scared of monsters. Pfft, that's ridiculous. Regardless he felt a lot safer with her nearby and he didn’t have trouble sleeping that night. He had a strange dream that night as well. He was standing atop a mountain of corpses, and he was grasping up at a light in 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”
