The Birth of the New World

Private Jason S, Goldfield III

The tan canvas roof of a military emergency medical tent. This is the view that Private Jason Goldfield has had the pleasure of staring up at for the past week ever since waking up in a daze after getting dragged off the battlefield. Drifting in and out of consciousness, nearly dying mid surgery from blood loss, and somehow managing to not catch an infection, his life was saved. He will live because his brothers in arms had risked their lives to save his and to drag his dying corpse away from the drooling mouths of dozens of hungry Goblins.

He is alive…

…

But his legs are gone. Removed above the knee by a blade of wind so sharp that he hadn’t even felt it when it had happened. All he can remember is just falling forward after trying to charge at that Hobgoblin mage. He can still feel the presence of his legs like they are still there, his missing limbs still aching like he is still in mid sprint.

The surgeons had told him that the phantom pains might go away with time and therapy, but he has heard the stories from others, from veterans that had lost limbs back when wars were still just fought between humans, and magic was nothing more than smoke and mirrors.

A story that had stuck with him was of a man that had tried to save a boy from an IED. He failed and the explosive went off, killing the boy and ruining his arm. Even years after amputating the arm, the man could still feel his hand holding that boy’s arm, never willing to let go.

Private Goldfield doesn’t know what happened to that vet since meeting him or if he ever got better. He is probably dead now…

Private Goldfield isn’t the only wounded soldier here. These tents, which were only supposed to be temporary structures, have been up and in service around the area of the hospital, basically since the day this all started. The hospital, which needs to be available to service the almost half a million refugees that they have crammed into the base, obviously doesn’t have enough rooms to fit everyone that needs them. As a result, the foot of the hospital is now a maze of tents and ‘temporary’ structures that have been installed to house the litany of patients as they are attended to by teams of overworked doctors and nurses.

His tent in particular is one of the ones for the heavily wounded soldiers recovering from surgery, the ones that will probably never be able to serve again.

With the only thing to do being staring up at the tan canvas ceiling, Private Goldfield is admittedly more bored than he is anything else. Yes, there is the dread and anguish of knowing that he will never get to walk again, but even such sorrowful and depressing emotions can’t keep back the weight of boredom. Being depressed doesn’t keep your mind from anguishing in inactivity. Boredom doesn’t care how sad you are, or that your missing legs still itch despite there being nothing there. Boredom is a weighted curse like a heavy blanket of sludge that mixes with your depression to weigh you down even further and further until all you can do is stare up at the ceiling of your canvas tent and look up at the same discolored stain for hours on end, your mind latching onto to the task of trying to figure out what made that stain because it just doesn’t have anything else to do other than be depressed and bored.

There is nothing interesting going on in the tent. Every other soldier here with him is in a similar state of either being drugged out of their mind on pain killers, so their wounds won’t drive them insane, or they are similarly just staring off into space as their minds drown in their own sorrow and boredom.

Private Goldfield, in the week that he has been awake, has even gotten used to the cloying smells of antibiotic creams and the overwhelming smell of chemical cleaning from bleach that covers ever surface. Even the fading smell of burnt pork, a scent that he won't soon forget from his burnt comrades, is something that he is quickly learning to forget as he mindlessly stares up at the tan canvas ceiling.

Even the nurses that come to check on them every hour aren’t much to look at. All of them looking like tired and overworked mothers in their forties, looking utterly exhausted as they make the rounds to check on their hundreds of patients.

Contemplating getting some more sleep, one of the few things that is still enjoyable to do, especially when compared to his other options of pissing in a catheter and having to be helped so he can shit in a pan, Private Goldfield shuts his eyes and tries to ignore the phantom pains in his missing legs. Tries to will himself back into blissful unawareness despite the fact that he had just woken up not but a couple of hours ago.

It doesn’t work out well, and he instead ends up spending nearly three hours just lying in bed with his eyes closed, sweating as an itch on his no existent calf is trying to drive him crazy. He shouldn’t have pretended to be asleep when the nurse came by. He should have stopped her and asked that she give him something, anything to make it better. Some meds to knock him out and put him into a dreamless sleep would be a godsend right now, but all the heavy stuff is being conserved for the worst off of patients. Because surprisingly, there are those that are worse off. Those that have suffered more than just losing a limb or two…

Letting out an exhausted breath, he decided to just open his eyes and continue staring up at that stain again.

…

Some noise by the entrance attracts his attention, but Private Goldfield doesn’t pay it any mind. It is probably just the nurses again. He'll stop one when they check on him and ask for some meds. But he can’t be bothered to look away from the spot on the tan canvas ceiling right now.

Still, he catches some words as they talk.

“Here is the first tent ma’am. We would like for you to start here. Critical care is currently working to see who they can wake up safely. They’ll be expecting you soon.”

“Alright, I can work with these ones. I just require their consent.”

“Understood, please be quick. We have a lot of tents we want you to hit today.”

“Will the staff be able to handle so many at once? I know we have the meat on hand, but they will be rather busy with this, no?”

“We will be pulling from the civilian staff for this.”

“Alright.”

Private Goldfield blinks at the ceiling as he listens to them talk, a bit confused as he listens in.

Consent? Meat? What are they talking about?

His answer soon comes as the woman audibly clears her throat to get everyone’s attention. Her voice travels clearly into the tent and into everyone’s ears as if it is impossible for her to not be heard. With her voice comes a pressure that pushes down on everyone lightly, jolting some awake from fitful naps or their drugged-out stupors.

“Hello everyone, your attention please.” She says as she claps her hands together. “Who here is interested in being healed? Who here wants power? Who here wants to become beautiful, because I can do that too.”

This sounds familiar?

Turning his head, his neck sore from being underused and just staring straight up for the past week, Private Goldfield finds one of the most beautiful women he has ever seen standing at the entrance to the tent.

The first words that come to his mind is fallen angel. She is a Devil of pitch-black feathered wings, six eyes of divine gold etched into their dark surface, a crown of six horns growing from around her head, and golden halos burning in her eyes of black sclera. Despite the grey skin and the scaled tail that flicks about behind her back, she is probably the most beautiful woman that he has ever seen in his life. Her face is delicate like a flower, but at the same time, when she stays still, she looks almost as if she could have been carved from marble by the hands of God.

Wait, isn’t she…?

How could he forget? That event where that Demon girl had turned several soldiers into Demons. Where she had called down a god and made a promise, carved her words into her very flesh, right in front of almost twenty thousand people.

Private Goldfield had been there. He had witnessed the whole thing and despite not being in the front rows or being able to see everything happen, one of the soldiers that was picked had been missing an arm. Another had been missing an eye.

And she healed them…

But wasn’t she much smaller then? Just an Imp, like a lot of people would call her? No, that doesn’t matter, does it? What matters is that he has a chance to be healed! He can get his legs back! He’ll be able to walk and run again!

“Is anybody interested?” She asks again as she looks the room over with a raised eyebrow.

It’s then that he realizes that much like himself, everyone else is currently frozen in staring at this person. They can’t take their eyes off of her, their gazes drowning in those burning eyes of hers as she looks each of them over one by one with a weighing look.

Private Goldfield finally manages to rip himself out of his stupor, violently pulling himself into sitting up until he almost makes himself fall out of bed. Shooting a hand up into the air like a kid in middle school, he calls out desperately, “Please! Can you give me my legs back? I don’t want to live like this for the rest of my life! Please!”

She shifts her head slightly, her divine eyes resting their sole attention on him for a long second that seems to stretch out for an hour in his mind as she simply observes him.

And then she smiles, her gaze looking almost like a Devil getting ready to pull out a contract from thin air.

“Yes, I can.”

The next moment, she is right beside his bed, having teleported in a splash of darkness.

Private Goldfield jumps back slightly, startled, but not about to give up this chance.

“Know this, while I can give you back your legs, it does come with a price. Are you willing to become one of my Demons?”

“Yes.” He answers, not even needing to think. Even now, his hand is pressed against the mattress where his legs should have been. He can feel the itching and aching right there, his hands wanting nothing more than to itch them.

She smiles again. “Very well, then I have your consent to begin. But before we do, one more question. How do you feel about becoming a Djinn? I need some Demons that are more focused on magic over raw physical strength. You won’t get as tall as my Fiends or anywhere near as strong, but I can promise you plenty of magic.”

I’ll get to be like that Hobgoblin that took my legs?

His hand goes to one of his stumps, gripping tight enough to hurt.

Speaking through gritted teeth, he answers. “Yes. Please. I’ll do anything!”

She leans forward, speaking softly as sharp teeth peek out from behind her soft lips. “Don’t promise a Devil, anything, else they might take everything. Now, drink my blood, and I will make you more.”