I woke up, everything hurt, so, so badly. My chest burned, I tried taking a breath but after the initial intake of air, there was a wet rasp coming from deep inside and then a shooting pain spread through my lungs. I looked down, there was blood everywhere, soaked through the animal hide he used for a shirt and it matted all the fur. There was a deep gash on my belly, which blood was still oozing out of. The chances of survival looked grim. As the pain became too much again, I blacked out and the events of the last 24 hours replayed through my head.
~ Earlier that day
My eyes felt heavy, just opening them felt like it took substantial energy. I was in the hospital, my body was pathetically weak, I had been bed ridden for 2 weeks now going into critical condition multiple times. Covid 20 was running rampant in my body and had seemingly sealed my fate. The irony of it all was in a twisted way kind of funny, I was a single child and my parents, my everything were cruelly taken by Covid 19 and it seemed that it was now my turn. The Coronavirus had really seemed to have my family's number in the genetic lottery.
You see, after the crippling pandemic which spanned from the very end of 2019 all the way through to almost half way through 2021, everyone had been focusing on preventing the next pandemic. But nobody could have predicted how seemingly perfect Covid 20 would be at spreading between humans. It ravaged through the population across the world, but unlike Covid 19, which specifically targeted older people, Covid 20 was the cryptonite of people 20 and under.
As I was thinking about how messed up the fact that the coronavirus was about to end my family's bloodline, a nurse entered my room. "Good morning Max, let me open those blinds for you." The middle aged nurse called Alex walked across the room, she was dressed in what was protocol these days, on top of her normal nurse uniform, a mask and also a plastic face cover that was see through. She got to the blind and opened them. I flinched from the bright light of the sun. Alex then had a look at all the machines I was hooked up to, stating my heart rate, blood pressure and all that jazz.
"Not looking good" she mumbled under her breath, but I could hear it. She grimaced but when she saw me looking quickly smiled and said "everything looks good". As she took a note of all the mumbo jumbo numbers I looked out the windows, "seems like a nice day today" I remarked and she hummed in an agreeable response.
Once Alex had finished checking in on me for the morning and I was alone, everything just went quiet around me. The more I thought about the situation I was in, the more bleak it looked and the more depressed I got, why do I have to put up with this, I just want to give up. I tried to close my eyes to envision my parents, but the image of them in my head was now terrifyingly vague, I whimpered and a tear slowly rolled down my cheek as I lay there, I must have lay there 15 minutes just feeling sorry for myself and wishing I wasn't born. As I wiped away the last of the tears, suddenly my body spasmed, I felt my brain telling my lungs to intake a breathe but my lungs refused to move. I heard the blaring of the machine next to me and pretty rapidly Alex came in, took one look and shouted "I need some help, this man is critical." She ran over and was saying "shit, shit, shit" under her breath.
And then everything went black, and they stayed black for quite a while. It felt like I was in some kind of vacuum, darkness everywhere, nothing happening, I couldn't see my hands or feet that it felt like I was moving. It felt like time was still for hours on end, then out of nowhere bright lights flashed at me from all directions blinding me. After being blinded, something seemed to be burned into my vision, it was out of focus but after a second I could read it.
"Welcome to The Orc Experience" it read. Seconds later it faded and I woke up in this new body of mine.
~ back to present
I returned to my senses. My ears were ringing and it again felt like it took way too much tangible energy to open my eyelids. As my eyes focused, I see a thing standing above me, it looks quite concerned. As I take in the details I realise, this thing has tusks coming out their mouth, green skin that looked more like hide than human skin, tattoos on it's arms and piercings in its ears. "Help" was all I could bring myself to say as speaking was unbelievably painful.
It sighed and I could here it say "This doesn't look good, you're really fucked up." It then put a hand in it's mouth and made a really loud whistle. Then I passed out again from the pain. I woke up multiple times and they all blurred together as I was basically delirious, I remember being on some kind of sled, being dragged along, then being over the shoulder of the thing that saved me. Then it was dark again.
It felt like all I had been doing recently was waking up and being in pain. But I revived my consciousness again. As I became aware of my surroundings, I was in some kind of wooden structure, I let out a small groan, which might seem bad but compared to before where I couldn't even breathe deep enough for a groan, I felt relieved, the pain was still there and hurt like shit but it didn't feel life threatening like it did when I first woke up. I realised I was lying in a pretty comfy bed with blankets covering me for warmth. My saviour must have heard my groan as I heard noise in the room over and they walked through the doorway with no door that led into wherever I was lying.
I took as deep a breath as I could and tried to get my thoughts in order and piece together what I could remember of the rather shocking ordeal my first experience was in this world. I immediately saw a connection between the announcement that seemed to come up about about 'welcome to the orc experience' and the characteristics of the person that saved me. They seemed to be an orc and looking down at my hands and how large and green they were, so was I.
I looked up at my saviour and the first thing I said was "thank you for saving me". These were my first words that I could really listen to and I was shocked at how deep my voice was. The look of confusion must have been apparent on my face, as they positioned a seat beside where I was lying down they said "is everything okay?" It was at this moment I realised she was a female orc, her voice would have been deeper than most human women but compared to my voice it was obviously way higher pitch. She had turned around to get something and as she returned into my vision she had a cup of water. "Here, let me help you up so you can drink some water." I tried to get up myself but I was just too weak, "just let me help you up you big brute, you don't have anything to prove, just relax and let yourself heal." I grunted in response after realising how weak my body was that I couldn't even sit up in bed.
As she reached around my torso, which I realised was pretty substantial, I realised I was almost naked below the covers and my torso was also naked. Additionally the way she was raising me up was pretty awkward, she got very close to me and I could feel her breath against my neck and collar bone, it sent tingles down my spine. I put one arm around her to help her slightly lift me and I used my other arm to balance and scoot up the bed so I could sit up.
As I sat up and reached over to pick up the cup of water, I looked at her and realised she was blushing and slightly looking away. She sat down back in the chair "what's your name" she said whilst glancing at me curiously. "Max" I replied, even if it seemed like I was in a different body, in my mind I would always be max, so I decided to roll with it. "Isn't that a human name? How come you are called max?"