The Two Week Curse

by Michael Chatfield

  His eyes went wide as he pulled his hand from his leg. His Mana bar stopped flashing so angrily. Every second, his bar increased in size; after two seconds, it stopped blinking and continued to grow, refilling itself.

  Erik laughed to himself in victory. If I can see through my leg, then there’s nothing saying that I couldn’t heal myself!

  Hope—true, tangible, and understandable hope—beat in Erik’s chest as he sat back in his seat. He could cast a spell!

  His lethargy only continued for a few moments before he jumped into action. He didn’t have any time to waste!

  Once his Mana bar was refilled, he placed his hand on his left arm. He once again remembered the same feeling from before.

  He saw through it, seeing the interior of his arm in brilliant detail. He felt less strain as he looked at specific things. After nearly a minute, he had to stop as the Mana bar flashed at him once again.

  “So the more in-depth my assessment, the more Mana that I consume,” Erik said. It had been roughly forty seconds he had studied his leg for. “I didn’t have to use a word, though.” Erik turned thoughtful. “Maybe if you break it down, then you might not need the actual words but only the same visualization or cue to cast the spell?”

  He once again started to go through the different spells people had shared. He went through the healing spells, paying attention to what people were thinking when they’d used these spells.

  It doesn’t seem like most of these people had a background in medicine. These are way too general. Seems that they were looking to just heal a wound, nothing overly complicated. Even some people said that it took them days to do something, but in time that their whole body felt better.

  Erik closed his eyes. Instead of just looking to examine one thing, he tried to get a full scan of his body. He only got to see the muscle layer of his body when his head felt as though it were going to explode. He stopped. Sweat covered him. His heart raced and his adrenaline spiked.

  A feeling of doom had filled him, as if knowing that doing anything more would have dire consequences.

  “Okay,” Erik said, pulling himself back together. “So, large-scale magic costs a lot, really fast. Small-scale is greatly reduced and specific casting costs even less, so working on a smaller scale and increasing looks like to be the best expenditure of Mana.”

  He waited the nearly thirty seconds it took for his 20 Mana to regenerate. It wasn’t much, but to him, it seemed there were multiple ways to reduce the expenditure.

  He reached with his right hand to his left arm nub. Unlike his legs, which had been cut off above the knee, he thought that this might be a bit easier and there was less to regrow.

  He scanned his arm three times, getting a clear picture of what it looked like. Each time left him a little bit more tired, even as his Mana regenerated. He scanned his right arm, building up an image of it and checking over what the complete structure looked like.

  After two scans, he grabbed Rugrat’s bag again and found a marker inside. He circled his arm at the end of the nub.

  “All right, well, all good ideas need to be proved or broken in the end.”

  He rested his hand on the nub again, focusing his mind on it. He felt the tug as he started to use Mana.

  He thought of the marrow growing, the bone sheathed around it, the veins, muscle, tissue, tendons, nerves, fat, and skin. His entire body was drenched in sweat as he felt himself reaching his limits after only a few seconds.

  With gasping breaths, he opened his eyes. His head spun and he felt dizzy. His green bar had dipped some as well. He looked to the mark on his arm. It seemed as if the nub had grown some, but if it had, it was so small as to be hard to measure.

  He recovered his energy and once again sunk his mind into his arm and thought of his arm growing. It was slow, as if at a snail’s pace. He didn’t even take time to look at his arm. He stopped only when he was near exhaustion, pushing himself again and again.

  His green bar continued to drop as he felt more and more drained. He didn’t know how many times he had carried out what he had hoped to be a spell.

  He looked to his arm to find that the line was now behind by a firm inch. Erik stared at it, dumbfounded. He laughed out loud and fist pumped into the air. “That’s right, mother fuckers! I’m growing back my arm!”

  He yawned, feeling tired and starving. He looked to his arm. His upper arm looked more defined, as if all of the fat from it had been drained out.

  “So while I used magic to make the new limb, a part of the materials came from my upper arm,” Erik surmised. “Going to need a ton more food and calories to keep this going.”

  He focused on his right leg and drew another line. As he thought of the different parts of his leg growing, he paused.

  “I’ll call this complex healing. It’s really in-depth. What if I was to just pour Mana into my leg and stimulate it to grow? Like a tree.” Erik recovered his Mana, thinking of what he wanted to do, the association between the word and the actions he wanted to happen. Once his Mana bar was filled, he put his hand on his leg.

  “Minor Heal Wounds,” Erik said. The Mana poured into his leg, slow at first, but then he found that he could speed up the rate at which he increased the Mana going into the spell as well as reduce it. He sped it up and could visually see a small section of his leg growing.

  He recovered his Mana and tried it again and again. His upper leg became more defined as his leg grew. His leg was much larger than his arm but the rate of growth for his leg was matching it and he wasn’t burning as much Mana.

  Now he only had to think of the words Minor Heal Wounds and a blue glow would surround his fingers and his leg. It was barely visible in the dimming light of the day.

  He moved to the other leg and used the concentrated growing spell that he’d used on his arm. He cast it on his left leg the same amount of times as he had on his right leg. It hadn’t grown as long, but his left leg was thicker, its structure stronger.

  He went to his right leg that he’d used the Minor Heal Wounds on and started to sink his mind into it. He tried to change the leg. It was much harder to do it to something that was already formed; there were a few slight issues but nothing that would have a great impact.

  I’m going to need a lot more time to figure out more of these spells. Once I have a whole bunch of them, then I can use them for each situation.

  He was thinking of using the spells much as a surgeon would use different surgical instruments to get the desired effect. It was medical instruments, drugs, and therapy all rolled up into one. The more he knew about each component or what he could substitute in, the faster his results would be.

  Could I use something else to get the nutrients and stuff I need from? Maybe raw meat? Form it into what I need and fuse it together?

  With just this one revelation of spells being able to heal, his mind started to open previously closed doors. He started to write down ideas that he had, losing the concept of time.

  Rugrat chucked his new purchases into the rear of the truck sometime later, startling Erik.

  He looked to see food supplies being tossed into the bed of the truck.

  Rugrat tossed the cart into a bay and jumped into the truck.

  “You get everything?” Erik asked.

  “Yeah. What you been up to in here?” He looked to his bag that had been opened and the sheet of paper and pen in Erik’s hand.

  “Look!” Erik held up his left arm, a big smile on his face.

  “What?” Rugrat asked after a few seconds, a perplexed look on his face.

  “See that line?” Erik pointed to the line.

  “What about it?” Rugrat shrugged.

  “That was how long my arm was when you left the truck,” Erik said.

  “Wait, so, huh?” Rugrat looked at how Erik’s arm was now a few centimeters longer.

  “I can use magic! I can heal my arm and my legs!” Erik laughed out loud.

  “Shit
.” Rugrat held his head and wiped off his cowboy hat, shocked by Erik’s words.

  Chapter: Returning Home

  Erik continued to use his Minor Heal Wounds on his damaged limbs. It wasn’t as comprehensive as the more advanced heal, but it allowed his body to heal faster.

  He ate, researched, and continued to heal.

  Rugrat was testing out his own abilities with a grip strength trainer. Whenever they stopped, he would be out of the car, doing push-ups or squats.

  He didn’t have any weights, but his strength was increasing bit by bit. Say he did two hundred push-ups on the first day; the second he could do two hundred and fifty, then three hundred, then four hundred, with no sign of slowing down. It became so easy he had to start doing handstand push-ups.

  While he trained his body, Erik researched and healed.

  He was eating all the time. His green bar that represented Stamina was already largely grayed out and he had to constantly eat to regain any sort of energy. Naps had become normal to him.

  Erik chewed on jalapeno jerky as he sat back in his chair. “Huh.” Erik let out a thoughtful sigh. It looked as though he was not the only person who had tried to take a few things with him. Several people had tried different things.

  Some had worked, some failed. There were the more normal measures and the ones that just sounded a little bit crazy

  “I think I was overestimating my abilities.” Erik ran a quick scan of his arm where he had done what he had thought to be his in-depth spell.

  The more he looked, the more he was assured. There had been issues in the area before; he had grown over them, but as he was making more of the new materials for his arm, he was finding that it was cleaner, there wasn’t anything to be in his way.

  “It would’ve been almost better if I started off from a stump than the formed nub that they gave me,” Erik muttered.

  “What are you talking about?” Rugrat asked.

  “I only have a Minor Heal Wounds spell. I can use it in one area or I can use it on a larger area. Consumption varies, but it basically just speeds up the healing process. Well, more accurately, it stimulates the tissues to form. Well, I guess I’ll find out when it comes to forming my hand,” Erik said.

  “Okay, got some of that—you’ve got two spells and it can heal you,” Rugrat said.

  Erik rubbed his head, a headache coming on.

  “You okay?” Rugrat asked.

  “Yeah, my brain just hurts.”

  “Happens to me all the time,” Rugrat said.

  Erik looked up at Rugrat with a raised eyebrow before snorting and shaking his head.

  “Did you find out anything else?” Rugrat asked.

  “I need to stab you,” Erik said.

  “Well, that wasn’t what I was expecting,” Rugrat drawled.

  “I can cast spells, but they haven’t been acknowledged by whatever system we have in our bodies. For the spells to be recognized, they need to be used on another person who is cursed. Now, most of the people who are cursed are at the same event or place at some time and they disappear at the same time. It looks like the curse targets an area, rather than a person, how we both got hit with it. Now we’re from the system, but everyone else isn’t. I can heal people all day long and get nothing, but once I heal someone else then the system that allows us to see stats will give me a pop-up,” Erik said.

  “All right, well, no need to stab me. I’ve got a cut on my knuckles.” Rugrat held his hand out over to Erik.

  “Heal,” Erik muttered under his breath. Mana was drawn out of his body and a faint magical circle appeared on his finger above Rugrat’s hand.

  Erik frowned. It was as if he couldn’t find Rugrat’s hand.

  He put the finger with the magical circle on Rugrat’s cut. He saw the break in the skin, the tear through the muscle, the broken blood vessels and coagulating blood.

  A glow appeared under the magical circle, feeling as the finger knitted itself together layer by layer.

  Erik cancelled the spell. Rugrat looked at his hand before quickly looking up.

  He yanked the wheel. They’d nearly come off the side of the road watching what Erik was doing.

  “Well, the light show is new.” Erik laughed as a screen appeared in his vision.

  Minor Heal Wounds

  ==========

  Novice

  ==========

  Heal live matter

  ==========

  Consumption of Mana based on area and effect

  ==========

  Simple Organic Scan

  ==========

  Novice

  ==========

  See through organic materials (bodies)

  ==========

  Consumption of Mana based on area of effect

  Erik wrote down the information before dismissing them.

  It wasn’t much information, but it confirmed some of his thoughts and created more questions.

  “Did it work?” Rugrat asked.

  “Yeah,” Erik said distractedly as he pulled up his character sheet.

  ==========

  Name: Erik West

  ==========

  Level: 0

  ==========

  Race: Human

  ==========

  Titles: From the Grave

  ==========

  Strength: (Base 7) +0 (-3 due to injuries))

  ==========

  40

  ==========

  Agility: (Base 6) +0 (-4 due to injuries))

  ==========

  10

  ==========

  Stamina: (Base 9) +0 (-5 due to injuries))

  ==========

  60

  ==========

  Mana: (Base 2) +0

  ==========

  20

  ==========

  Mana Regeneration (Base 1) +0

  0.95/s

  ==========

  Stamina Regeneration: (Base 7) +0 (-6 due to injuries))

  0.95/s

  ==========

  He studied the sheet in more detail. There was nothing like someone’s Health points like there was in most Magic games that he had been part of.

  One’s health couldn’t be easily broken down in numbers. They weren’t pixels, each system related to one another.

  There was no such thing as charisma, or intelligence; those were innate abilities that relied on the actions of a person.

  Nothing was given; everything had to be earned.

  “Yoo-hoo, earth to Erik.” Rugrat waved his hand in front of Erik, trying to get his attention.

  “Hey,” Erik said, jolted out of his reverie.

  “We’re here.” Rugrat turned off the engine and got out of the truck.

  Erik looked out at the simple cabin. He liked his peace, so he’d bought twenty acres of land and built a cabin on it. He’d thought about just hanging out here, letting time pass him by, letting the world sort out its own troubles.

  Now, he didn’t have that sort of time left. He and Rugrat had less than five days until they were summoned.

  Erik looked at his left arm. He felt like some kind of twisted comic book character as he looked at his adult upper arm and elbow that slimmed down into a toddler-sized arm and hand.

  Erik couldn’t help but make grasping motions with the hand.

  I’m a T-rex!

  Rugrat pulled out his chair, the noise making Erik clear his throat in embarrassment.

  Rugrat and Erik worked together to get Erik into the chair. They’d gotten proficient as Rugrat helped him out at their motels, or when Erik needed to go to the washroom.

  Rugrat didn’t make any jokes and although he didn’t say anything, Erik knew that Rugrat never would.

  Rugrat rolled Erik toward the front door while muttering, “Home sweet haunted fricking house.”

  “Who has more supplies?” Erik asked.

  “Who is crazier?” Rugrat didn�
��t miss a beat, making Erik temporarily unable to reply.

  “That’s what I thought,” Rugrat said.

  Erik looked around the home. There was a workshop off to the side all locked up, then the main house. It was a two-story affair, simple and easy.

  Erik took in a deep breath, a feeling of melancholy filling him. It was his home, but it would be ripped away from him.

  All of his plans, his potential future, had been torn away by that improvised explosive device.

  The two-week curse was the only thing that gave him hope. The more times he healed himself, the less Mana and Stamina he consumed and the more he was able to repair.

  He knew that Rugrat was as confused and scared of what might come. Hell, they might die. Both of them didn’t know. They would, however, face it as they always had: side-by-side with a gun in their hand, watching the other’s back.

  Erik looked around his home, using his wheelchair to tour around the first floor.

  “All right, I’ll go and get the materials moved to the workshop. You get some food and keep researching,” Rugrat said.

  “On it,” Erik yelled back, hearing the door close a moment later. Erik was confused by his thoughts, the reality of Earth and the two-week curse clashing with one another, the fact that he could heal his wounds.

  “If it hurts, then just keep on going. There’s no path back anymore.”

  ***

  Rugrat stepped out of the house. His smile faded as his eyes turned dull. His excitement, his energy, it all seemed to drain out of him as the exterior door smacked against the doorframe.

  In his eyes, he saw the friends they had lost, the funerals he had gone to. Seeing those widows, their children, the other military types who had served with them, talking to them over beers and telling them how it had happened. Seeing the coffin being lowered into the ground.

  A chill seemed to pass through his soul as loss, knee-crumbling and future-ending loss made to cripple him.

  Rugrat took a deep breath and focused his mind, raising his head as he gritted his teeth. He didn’t look toward the house but headed for the truck and the supplies that had been stuffed into it.

  I might not know what the hell this two-week curse is, what happens to us when we disappear, but I know that Erik needs me and that’s enough.