Aryan closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh, his emotions in turmoil. "Alright, thank you for your offer," he said, his voice steady but carrying an undercurrent of resignation. Reva smiled warmly at his decision, understanding the gravity of what he was going through. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small card, handing it to Aryan.
"This is my card," she said softly. "It has my name and phone number on it. You can contact us if you ever need help or run into any trouble." Aryan accepted the card, glancing down at the simple text printed on it: "Reva" followed by a series of numbers. He nodded, tucking it away without saying a word.
Sano, who had been standing quietly next to Reva, spoke up, his tone sharp but with an underlying concern. "If you find yourself involved in anything like this again, you should call us immediately. Remember, you're just a regular person, Aryan. You have no business getting caught up in things beyond your control."
Aryan met Sano's gaze, his eyes filled with a mix of frustration and defiance. "I know," he replied firmly, his voice betraying a hint of irritation. "You don't need to remind me."
Reva glanced at Sano, her expression one of quiet caution. She could see that Aryan wasn't the type to appreciate being treated as fragile, and she didn't want to push him further. "Alright," she said gently, "we'll leave you to rest now. We've taken up enough of your time."
Aryan watched as they turned and walked away, their figures gradually disappearing down the hospital corridor. He stared at the card Reva had given him, the faint glint of the overhead lights reflecting off its surface. "Can I really trust them?" he whispered to himself, unsure if the connection he had just made would bring him any peace or only further complications.
A few minutes passed, and the day quickly began to fade into evening. The sun had set, replaced by the quiet hum of nightfall. The nurse who had been tending to Aryan reappeared, her expression slightly annoyed as she approached him. "You've been talking with them for a long time," she said, her tone stern but not unkind. "I was starting to get worried."
Aryan sighed and shook his head. "I'm sorry," he said, "I didn't realize how long the conversation would go."
The nurse softened at his response, her previous irritation melting away. "It's alright," she said with a gentle smile. "But you should head back to your room now. You need rest."
Aryan nodded in agreement. "Yes, I think that's best." With that, the nurse began to wheel him back toward his hospital room, the quiet hum of the chair filling the air as they moved through the dimly lit hallways.
Once back in his room, Aryan found it difficult to settle down. His mind raced with thoughts of the strange encounter he had just had with Reva and Sano. The events of the past few days had been overwhelming too much to process all at once. He stared at the ceiling, his body still but his thoughts frantic. "So, cultivators really do exist," he whispered, almost as if saying it aloud would help him make sense of it. "And not only that... there are also people called Espers."
He sighed deeply, the weight of the realization pressing down on him. These extraordinary beings, with powers beyond anything he had ever imagined, lived in the same world as him. And yet, knowing that didn't change his situation. His legs were still crippled, his future still bleak. No matter how incredible the abilities of these cultivators or Espers, it didn't change the fact that he was left broken, both physically and mentally.
Aryan let out a bitter laugh, the irony of it all not lost on him. "It's almost comical," he muttered under his breath. For as long as he could remember, he had dreamed of becoming a cultivator himself, of mastering the ancient arts and wielding power like the heroes of legend. But instead, his life had taken a cruel turn. The very thing he had admired and longed for had become the source of his suffering. A cultivator—someone with the abilities he had once idolized—was the reason his legs were now useless.
"How ironic," he whispered, his voice heavy with both bitterness and sorrow. "I was hurt by the very thing I once admired. A cultivator... my childhood dream... destroyed me."
He could feel the tears welling up in his eyes, but he refused to let them fall. There had already been too much pain, too much heartache. Crying wouldn't change anything. He needed to find a way forward, even if he didn't know what that path looked like yet.
For years, Aryan had imagined a life where he would walk the path of cultivation. He had devoured stories of ancient masters, of those who had transcended the limits of ordinary humans and reached new heights of power and wisdom. He had studied the techniques, read the texts, and trained his body and mind with the hope that one day, he might reach that same level.
But now, all of that felt like a distant dream—one that had shattered in an instant. The accident had taken away his legs, but more than that, it had taken away his hope. He wasn't just crippled physically; his spirit felt broken, too.
As the night deepened, Aryan's thoughts became darker, circling back to the despair that had been gnawing at him since the moment he had woken up in the hospital bed. "What's the point?" he whispered to himself. "Even if I could somehow train, even if I had the knowledge, what good is any of it now? I'm a cripple. I'll never be able to cultivate with a body like this."
The bitterness in his voice was palpable, the despair sinking deeper with every word. But even as he sank into that darkness, a small voice inside him refused to be silenced. It was faint, but it was there a glimmer of something that hadn't entirely given up.
"Maybe..." he muttered, "maybe there's still a way."
The thought of healing, of somehow reversing the damage to his legs, flickered in his mind once more. If Espers had such a wide variety of abilities, surely one of them had the power to heal? Reva had mentioned that healing Espers were rare, but that didn't mean they didn't exist. And what about cultivators? Were there no techniques in the world of cultivation that could repair a body as broken as his?
He closed his eyes, trying to hold on to that sliver of hope. Perhaps Reva and Sano hadn't given him the answer he wanted, but that didn't mean there wasn't one out there. Somewhere, in the vast world that he had only just begun to understand, there had to be a way.
"I can't give up," Aryan whispered to himself, his voice barely audible in the quiet room. "Not yet."
But even as he said the words, doubt crept in. How was he supposed to find that path? He had no connections, no resources, no idea where to even begin looking. He was just an ordinary man, stuck in a hospital bed with broken legs and shattered dreams.
Still, that small flicker of determination refused to go out. Aryan didn't know how, and he didn't know when, but deep down, he knew he couldn't accept this fate. He couldn't spend the rest of his life trapped in this broken body, constantly reminded of what he had lost.
As the hours passed and the room grew darker, Aryan's thoughts began to quiet. The weight of exhaustion finally caught up to him, and despite the turmoil in his mind, his body gave in to the need for rest. His last conscious thought before sleep claimed him was a silent promise to himself: that he would find a way, no matter how long it took.