“I don’t know if we can save you.”

Peeled open. Mind gutted. I can’t breathe.  

I barely manage to catch myself before sliding off my seat. Bracing myself upright, I adjust uneasily in my chair as I open my mouth to respond.

But nothing comes out. Apparently, being sucker punched by your own mortality doesn’t leave you particularly well-functioning. 

And now my pulse is clenching absurdly, painfully tight. I can feel my heart beating louder and louder until it seems ready to spring from my chest. 

My soul, newly terrified, stumbles away. 

The medico keeps talking, and talking, but I don’t register a single sound. All I can hear is that first, final sentence. Strange, how eight simple words so quickly transform into hangman palms casually tightening their grip across my throat. 

I can only stare blankly as the medico continues to drone on about the fine print of my death sentence. He doesn’t even make eye contact. Just watches the screen hovering over his desk while he rattles off everyday fates. 

On the outside, I sit frozen, unable to move. Inside, I’m burning. 

I want to scream out all the resentment and fear and despair I had never before given supremacy. To fight so long, so hard, for this to be my end? 

Although deep down, I’ve always known that I wouldn’t be around to see my grandkids. The life expectancy of a majteku of my ability and temperament is no more than three, maybe four decades. Five if we’re very, very lucky.  

Luck and I aren’t exactly close, personal friends. 

Plus, if you look at my ever-creeping past, my fight against the Comera, and my tendency to associate with certain, um, notorious figures…well. The end result was never one of gray hairs and peaceful sunsets.

And I am Pura. I, of all people, know very well that death comes for us all. 

I’ve even been trained for this exact moment. For accepting my inevitable fate with as much grace as I can. Yet apparently, all the training in the world doesn’t make the whole “take your passing in stride” thing stick when you’ve actually got death’s door in your sights. 

No, no. This is all wrong. I am not acting like myself. Not acting like a bionically-enhanced wielder of magic. A giver of hope and reaper of dreams. 

Someone who was hand-selected by the Shur’gara to be Rujae Pura. Someone training to one day command my own unit in MUSE. Someone who has survived the Undertow, thrived in different worlds, and faced down unimaginable demons. 

That someone is far away today. Like a reflection on the other side of a door. 

Dura, I know that there’s no glory in death. That grand, sweeping sagas and oh-noble-war epics are just sugar-throated pills designed to help us romanticize the ugly underbelly of humanity. 

I know that. 

But deep down, I thought that my passing would somehow be part of something bigger. Part of something that helps build hope for the future.  

Instead, I’m being tidily ushered to the exit while this stale, uncaring medico punches my ticket. No compelling swell of trumpets or heart-rending sacrifice here. There will be nothing profound, nothing meaningful about my death. 

Completely (and, I suspect, purposefully) ignorant of my internal meltdown, the medico keeps buzzing about pernicious anemia and natural killer cells. 

I know, dimly, there are other people in the room. My people. But they seem an ocean away. 

Suddenly, my anxiety decides that now would be a great time to flare up even further. Sure, why not? Humming angrily, it proceeds to drop-kick me deeper into a spiral that begs me to scream and flail and run until those eight fateful words go away. 

But my body is still frozen. I still can’t move. 

My brain judders and stumbles, throwing everything out of focus. My world slows, almost to a complete stop.

Severing hell, I need to get a handle on myself.