Content Warning: Some gross descriptions at the end.
The doors to the Heart are closed when you reach them.
You knock on them. You knock again. You push against both doors. Then try pulling. You strain with all your muscles. They don’t budge.
You try reasoning. You try begging. You try raging at the immovable doors, throwing items and prosthetic limbs. You try leverage. You try acid. You try everything you have in you to be let in, to stay. The doors remain impassive.
Finally spent, you slump down before the Heart and weep openly. It is here that Wick finds you, gripping you tightly, before guiding you back to the portals.
When you arrive, Aster and Urick are waiting for you. Urick steps forward. “This is all rather unfortunate, but I’m afraid there really is nothing I can, Adamo.”
“I understand, Signor,” it breaks your heart to say.
“But we can offer you one last gift,” explains Aster. “Urick and I have been talking, and we think we can edit the portals. We can drop you off anywhere and anywhen you like. In recognition of all the services you’ve provided for the Library.”
You nod your thanks, mind wheeling. Where would you even go now? What do you even want?
You see a most ethereal lady, hand against a portal like it is the most beautiful stained glass window. The blueish light reflects from the inter-dimensional space onto her pale complexion. You straighten your jacket and approach her, knowing in the back of your mind that this may be your last shot.
She looks at you with a sadness that makes you feel like you're trekking through molasses. Time, with all its quickness, stops as you bow in greeting. You have heard that Pascale has tried multiple avenues in an attempt to keep you here. And of course, if possible, you would absolutely stay, only partially for her.
“Doctor.” Her voice already sounds like it’s slipping away. “I'm afraid that your patients await you on the other side.” There is a remorse in her voice that is hard to place and a formalness that betrays the hiding of feelings far more visceral.
“Signora Pascale, I…” You clear you throat. You have one more chance. You hope she remembers you fondly.
“It has been an honour. No! A pleasure! I mean—” How do you put this? How do I put this? “I want you to know you are one of the most amazing women I have ever met.” Not very poetic, but certainly true.
Though, no man is a poet when his heart is in his throat.
“Your beauty is unparalleled and only challenged by your knowledge in alchemy. I just—“
Before you can continue your rambling proclamation, she pulls you by your collar and kisses you firmly on the lips, making her feelings absolutely clear without a single word.
You embrace her, inadvertently deepening your kiss in an attempt to hold her close, in the hope that you may both fall through the portal together.
But Pascale has already signed her contract. Though, it seems that she would not leave you empty mouthed, not without a souvenir.
As you part, you feel yourself chewing on something rubbery, like a piece of taffy or a hard-boiled egg. But as you open your mouth to ask her what is wrong, she only gives you a pitying look as a slither of beige escapes your lips.
You look down and see a plump, translucent beige leech plop into your hand, along with a glob of saliva. Its mandibles are black and nibble painlessly at your palm while its body undulates, many, many eggs incubating within it.
You pale in shock and Pascale presses something cylindrical into your hands, a look of apology on her face. You look down and see a translucent, orange vial with a thick white cap on the top. It has cryptic arrows on it.
“Thank you, Adamo, for being the last thing to ever matter to me.”
And then she’s gone.
“Okay class! Listen here. Once we're inside the palace, I want everyone to stay with their buddy. Remember no running, and no touching anything. If you get lost, find a member of staff, and remember our help phrase? ‘Excusez moi, je suis perdu’…”
Morgan zoned out her teacher’s voice as she gazed in awe at the Palace of Versailles. Even on the outside, there was so much gold! Golden gates, golden doors, golden railings, even a golden roof! No wonder those French peasants beheaded the King.
The courtyard outside the palace was a hustling thrum of tourists snapping photos and oogling at the décor. Skipping over the faces of the visitors, Morgan could see that everyone had a look of awe plastered across their visages.
Well, almost everyone.
What drew Morgan’s eyes to the stranger standing just outside the gates clutching a loose piece of paper wasn’t the grizzled shaving scar on his cheek, or even the prosthetic leg he bore. It was the sadness in his eyes as he stared at the palace, as though he had left something very precious inside, and now couldn’t get back in to retrieve it. Morgan wondered what it must have been that was so important to the man.
“Morgan! Pay attention, we’re about to go in.” Morgan snapped her head around to her teacher but, as her classmates began to make their way towards the entrance, she couldn’t help but steal another glance back. Except when she did, she found the stranger gone. Morgan frowned, then shrugged. Perhaps he has important things to be getting on with, she thought. Like I do. And with a swift turn of her head, Morgan put him out of her mind for the rest of her trip.
An explosion ruptures the quiet morning. A concussive force blasts past you, knocking several soldiers off their feet while the rest of them dive for cover. You crouch down and wait for the ringing in your ears to stop, nuggests of sun-baked earth falling around you in a shower of dirt.
When the ringing stops, a scream replaces it.
Without a second thought, you plunge towards the screaming. A soldier lies on his back next to a small crater, writhing on the ground, clutching a bloody stump of a leg. Landmine.
You ignore the yells from your Red Cross colleagues to get back! and crawl over to the soldier. Pulling a tourniquet from your medical bag, you fasten it around the man’s thigh, pushing the ribbons of wet flesh out of the way. The man grips you with bloody hands. “My leg!” he cries. “My leg…”
No time for a stretcher.
“Out of the way!” you bellow, heaving the soldier onto your shoulder like a burlap sack. With a Herculean grunt, you lift a fully grown man and his gear and begin to run back towards the UN Peacekeeper’s Forward Operating Base. All the while, you hear the man’s groans getting weaker and weaker with blood loss.
Let me save him, you beg. Let me save one more.
Reaching the FOB, you burst into the medical tent. Immediately, you are swarmed by field nurses who take the injured man off your shoulders. “He’ll need an amputation,” tuts one. “But he’ll recover. You did good out there, Doc.”
“I am no Doctor,” you correct. “Save the title for those who have earned it.” Then, you spin on your heel and march out, leaving the stunned nurse behind.
There’s still so much more to be done.
Once the sun falls in the campsite, whispers course through the crisp night air.
“There he is,” whispers the Private, pointing with his remaining two fingers. “Doctor Cavalcanti. Crawled through a firefight just to get to me, he did.”
“That’s nothing! He pulled me out of burning tank, then went back for my gunner!” exclaims another.
“The man pulled a piece of shrapnel from my back in the field that was ‘this long’,” gestures a third.
All around the tent, men and women point and whisper, or try to raise a hand in greeting, but the Italian doctor does not look back as he marches to his rucksack. It's as though he doesn’t even notice the praise being heaped upon him.