Richard blinked several times, but the floating message remained suspended in the air like a materialized impossibility.
[**You have acquired the Ancestral Magic System**]
A part of his academic mind frantically analyzed possible explanations: hallucinations caused by the brain contusion, side effects of medications, perhaps even an elaborate technological prank. But the clarity with which he saw the bright text defied any rational explanation.
He extended a trembling hand toward the message, his fingers passing through the letters without encountering resistance. There was no visible projector, no cables, no hidden devices. Just that impossible text that seemed to exist between dimensions.
"This can't be happening," he muttered, rubbing his eyes with the thumb and index finger of his non-casted hand.
The message persisted, indifferent to his disbelief, glowing with the same hypnotic intensity as the spiral on the Sumerian tablet. The same one he had seen animate while losing consciousness on the campus pavement.
The door to the room opened with a soft creak, interrupting his contemplation. A young nurse with dark hair and a kind expression entered accompanied by a middle-aged doctor with thin-framed glasses.
"I see you're awake," the doctor commented, approaching the bed while consulting a tablet. "I'm Dr. Mercer. How do you feel?"
Richard briefly glanced at the floating message and then back to the doctor. It was evident that she couldn't see it.
"I'm... confused," he responded cautiously. "How long have I been here?"
"About four hours," the nurse replied while checking the monitors. "Your friends were here until recently. The dark-haired girl seemed especially worried."
*Emily.*
"The concussion is mild," the doctor continued, examining his pupils with a small flashlight. "And the arm fracture is a fissure without displacement. With proper rest, you should recover completely in a few weeks."
Richard nodded mechanically while his attention remained divided between the conversation and the message, which remained floating undisturbed about a meter away, as if patiently waiting for the medical interruption to end.
After some routine questions and recommendations, the medical staff left the room, leaving him alone again with the impossible floating text.
"This must be an elaboration of my subconscious," he reasoned aloud. "A recognizable pattern extracted from my recent obsessions with the Sumerian tablet..."
But as he spoke, the message began to slowly fade, like fog dissipated by the wind, until it disappeared completely.
The absence was almost as disturbing as the presence.
---
By nightfall, Richard was discharged with a light splint on his fractured arm, a prescription for moderate painkillers, and strict instructions to rest. The campus seemed different as he crossed it back to his apartment; the shadows stretched more pronounced, the architectural details more defined, as if the blow had recalibrated his visual perception.
Or perhaps he was just hypervigilant, looking for any other signs of anomaly.
His phone had been vibrating constantly. Messages from Emily, Jake, and Elliot asking about his condition, offering help, insisting on meeting. He finally agreed, arranging to meet at "The Last Chapter," the café near campus where they usually studied and socialized.
Upon entering, his friends already occupied their usual table by the window. The reaction was immediate.
"The living dead returns!" exclaimed Jake, raising his cup in a mocking toast while discreetly pointing his camera at Richard. "Do you mind if I document the patient's recovery for my documentary class?"
"If you bring that camera within a meter of me, you'll swallow it," Richard responded with a tired smile, dropping into the empty chair.
Elliot briefly looked up from his laptop.
"Statistically speaking, the chances of suffering a significant injury from falling in an oil puddle are quite low," he commented. "You managed to defy the odds."
Emily, who had remained strangely silent, finally spoke.
"You scared us," she said with an intensity that surprised Richard. "When I saw the ambulance..." she left the sentence unfinished and shook her head slightly. "Are you sure you're okay?"
Richard caught something in her gaze, a concern that went beyond casual friendship. For a moment, he wanted to tell them everything: the tablet, the spiral, the impossible message floating in his hospital room. But the words got stuck in his throat.
"I'm fine," he assured. "A slightly fractured arm and a severely bruised ego. Nothing I can't handle."
The conversation drifted to everyday topics: the pending presentation on Monday, upcoming exams, the latest eccentricities of their professors. Richard participated mechanically, but his mind was elsewhere, obsessively reviewing every detail of the Sumerian tablet, every stroke of the spiral symbol, every word of the floating message.
Had it been real? A hallucination? The first symptom of something more serious?
---
The weekend passed between forced rest and preparation for Monday's presentation. Emily insisted on staying several hours at his apartment, helping him organize his notes and polish his part of the exposition. The constant proximity, the moments when their hands accidentally brushed while exchanging documents, the gazes held for seconds longer than necessary... Richard was beginning to perceive patterns he had previously ignored.
However, the floating message had not reappeared, and gradually Richard began to convince himself that it had really been a brief post-traumatic hallucination.
Until Monday morning.
The group presentation on comparative mythology between ancient civilizations was impeccable. Richard, despite his casted arm, presented with an eloquence and depth that surprised even his friends. His section on the interpretation of magical elements in ancient cultures and the structural repetition of certain symbols captured the complete attention of the auditorium.
Professor Thornhill, a man generally sparing with praise, seemed genuinely impressed.
"Your analysis of the mystical narrative in terms of symbolic power is exceptional, Mr. Wonder," he commented when they finished. "The perspective on transmission of knowledge through recurring symbolic patterns is particularly provocative. A hundred for the team."
The class erupted in applause. Jake made a theatrical bow, Elliot smiled with satisfaction, and Emily, in an uncharacteristic impulse, briefly hugged Richard. He awkwardly reciprocated, still processing the professor's praise.
The feeling of triumph, however, was ephemeral. Inside, Richard felt a void. Weeks of obsession with the Sumerian tablet, sleepless nights deciphering patterns, and yet, the true mystery remained unsolved.
The true nature of that spiral surrounded by eyes.
The last class of the day took place in the Maxwell Auditorium, a spacious venue with tiered seating and advanced projection technology. Professor Harrington, an eminence in Ancient History with decades of excavations in the Middle East, presented a collection of recently discovered texts at an archaeological site near Göbekli Tepe, Turkey.
"These artifacts represent a fascinating enigma," Harrington explained as images of ancient scrolls and tablets were projected on the giant screen. "Carbon dating places them in a period prior to what we consider the first Mesopotamian civilization. However, the writing system seems surprisingly advanced for that era."
Richard listened with growing interest while taking notes on his tablet.
"This specimen in particular," the professor continued, changing to a new slide, "was found in a sealed chamber beneath what appears to have been a pre-Babylonian ritual sanctuary..."
The image showed what appeared to be the cover of an ancient codex of leather darkened by millennia. Its surface was engraved with arcane inscriptions and, in the center, dominating the composition, an intricate spiral surrounded by symbols reminiscent of eyes.
Identical to the one on the Sumerian tablet.
Richard's heart began to beat hard. His fingers clenched on the tablet, and cold sweat broke out on his forehead. The spiral on the screen seemed to pulsate, as if coming to life under his gaze.
And then it happened again. The air in front of him subtly distorted, and a luminous message appeared floating, visible only to his eyes:
[**New mission available**]
[**Objective: Find information about the Book of Ur-Kigal**]
[**Reward: Access to the First Level of the System**]
Richard held his breath. It wasn't a hallucination. It hadn't been an effect of the concussion. The message had returned, and now it presented him with a specific challenge.
Ur-Kigal. A name he had never encountered in his studies, in any archaeological database, in any academic text on Mesopotamian civilizations.
With trembling fingers, he discreetly typed the term into his tablet, searching for any reference. Nothing. It was as if that name had never existed in documented history.
He looked up at the projection of the ancient codex, the spiral seeming to observe him with ancestral knowledge. Could that be the legendary Book of Ur-Kigal? How could he access information about something apparently non-existent in historical records?
Beside him, Emily gave him a worried look, noticing his sudden tension. He tried to smile, feigning normalcy, but his mind was already accelerating, tracing plans, contemplating possibilities.
For the first time in his life, Richard Wonder felt that he was on the verge of a discovery that transcended the limits of academic history. Something that would challenge everything he thought he knew about the world.
And he had no idea how true that presentiment was.