This is a fantasy country in the real world called The Republic of Veyra.
The currency is Veyra Marks (VM)
1 USD = 10 VM
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Aurelia City Hospital.
Jake Rivers woke to a ceiling that was too white to be real. "Argh.. Where I am?"
The fluorescent lights above him hummed in a steady, indifferent way, like they'd been doing it for years and would keep doing it long after he stopped caring. A monitor somewhere to his left beeped continuously.
"Huh? Why is my left eye only seeing darkness? Is it closed or something?" He tried to blink but his left eyelid felt heavy, as if someone had stitched weights into it. Then a sudden dull ache pulsed behind his left eye.
Jake swallowed, throat dry. His tongue tasted like cotton and metal. He turned his head slightly and winced; even that tiny movement made the pressure behind his eye swell like a bruise being pressed.
Memory drifted back in pieces.
A basketball court. A noisy evening. Friends laughing. The squeak of shoes on concrete. A careless elbow, faster than he'd expected. The sharp sting. The sudden warmth of liquid flowing down his cheek. Then… hospital lights. "That's about all I can remember right now." He said as he tried to connect the dots.
He tried to lift his hand. The movement came slow, like his muscles were underwater. His fingers found the edge of a bandage wrapped around his head. He stopped himself from touching it further. The last thing he needed was to rip something open. "What exactly happened? I can't remember much."
He turned his head again, more carefully this time, and saw a glass wall with a faded poster on it: *Surgical Ward: Patient Safety Is Everyone's Responsibility.*
Before he could comprehend what the poster meant, the door clicked open.
A man in a clean coat stepped in, tablet in hand. He was middle-aged, hair cropped short, his expression neutral in the practiced way doctors learned when they didn't want to give bad news too early.
"Mr. Rivers," he said. His voice was calm, professional. "You're awake."
Jake's mouth opened, but his voice came out hoarse. "How long?"
"Eight days." The man glanced down at the tablet. "You gave us quite a scare."
Jake took a breath, felt the pull behind his left eye. "My eye?"
The doctor's gaze flicked to the bandage, then back to Jake's face. "There was a complication during the procedure. Some bleeding. We addressed it immediately."
'That's the kind of word adults used when they don't wanna to say *something went wrong*.' He thought to himself as he didn't like the word complication. He still forced his mind to settle. Panicking wouldn't change anything. "Am I going to see?"
The doctor studied him for a moment, as if gauging whether Jake would handle the truth or not. "That shouldn't be a problem. You're going to see just fine," he said finally. "We'll monitor how well. But the prognosis is not… alarming."
'Not alarming didn't mean good. It meant *we don't know yet.*'Jake thought to himself but nodded once. "Okay."
The doctor's brows rose slightly, like he'd expected Jake to argue or beg for certainty. "How are you feeling? Any pain?"
"Pressure," Jake said. "Mostly on my left side."
"That's expected." The doctor tapped on his tablet. "We'll lower your pain medication. Your body has been healing well. You'll likely be discharged within forty-eight hours."
Jake stared at him, still processing. 'Discharged. That means home, school and it also means… work.'
He swallowed again. His part-time job was a small thing to other people, but to Jake it had been oxygen. It paid for transport, food between classes, and—more importantly—the little money he'd been trying to grow through trading.
He'd been grinding for months, turning small deposits into slightly less small deposits, as he was losing most of it, then trying again because once you've tasted profit—even a tiny one—you start chasing the feeling like it's proof you can escape.
A week in a hospital bed wasn't just lost time. It was a slow-motion disaster, especially for his part-time work.
The doctor stepped closer. "We'll remove the bandage later today. Any other questions?"
Jake hesitated. There were dozens. *Who paid for this? How much did it cost? What if I can't go back to school? What if my eye is ruined?*
"No," he said. "Not yet."
The doctor nodded, seemingly satisfied, and left.
Jake lay back and stared at the ceiling again. The beeping continued. The lights continued. The world continued, as if his life had not just been paused and rearranged without permission.
They removed the bandage that afternoon.
A nurse unwound the layers carefully, as if peeling away an old secret. Jake kept his eyes shut until she told him he could open them. "Slowly," she said. "Don't strain."
Jake opened his right eye first. The room was the room. White walls, pale curtains, medical equipment—ordinary. Then he opened his left. And the world sharpened.
The edges of objects seemed outlined by a quiet certainty. Colors deepened. The green strip on the nurse's ID badge looked richer, like someone had turned up the saturation. The tiny scratches on the metal frame of the bed caught light in crisp detail.
Jake blinked but nothing changed.
He looked at the nurse's face and could see the faint texture of her skin, the fine lines that came from laughing and squinting. He could see a small freckle near her jawline he hadn't noticed before.
His heart thumped once, hard. "Is this normal? Everything seems way to clear than before." he asked.
The nurse smiled lightly, the kind of smile people used to make patients feel safe. "You've been under medication for days. Your senses can feel… heightened. It'll settle."
Jake didn't argue, but his mind flagged it.
'This isn't medication.' He thought to himself.
He'd studied finance, not medicine, but he knew what hallucinations felt like. This wasn't distortion. It was the opposite—clarity so intense it felt unnatural.
A doctor came later and repeated the same reassurance. "Temporary effect. Your vision should normalize."
Jake nodded. He let them say what they needed to say. But inside, he filed it away.
The next morning, the discharge process moved faster than he expected.
Paperwork. Instructions. A warning not to strain his eye. Follow-up appointments.
His mother wanted to pick him up, but he didn't want the fuss. He told her he'd take a taxi. She argued. He insisted. Eventually she gave in with the reluctant tone of someone who knew they couldn't keep their son wrapped in safety forever.
Outside, the air felt fresher than it had any right to.
The city—Aurelia City, capital of the Republic of Veyra—moved with its usual rhythm. Cars poured through intersections. Vendors called out from sidewalks. Office workers flowed in and out of buildings like tides.
It was a modern place—glass towers near older streets, money and struggle living side by side with no clear boundary. The kind of city where someone could become rich, and someone else could stay poor their whole life, and both could ride the same bus.
Jake stood near the curb, one hand holding a thin plastic bag of medication, the other holding his phone.
He stared at the screen. He hadn't called his boss yet.
There was no "right" way to do it. He'd been gone a week without warning. People didn't keep part-time employees on payroll out of sympathy.
Still, avoiding it wouldn't help, so he pressed call. It rang twice before a voice answered. "Hello?"
Jake straightened. "Morning, sir. It's Jake—Jake Rivers."
Silence for half a second. Then the voice shifted into something sarcastic and tired. "Ah. Well, look who remembered he exists."
Jake let the insult pass. He'd learned early that pride didn't pay bills. "I'm sorry for disappearing. I was hospitalized. There was an accident last week and I had surgery. I—"
"I heard." The man cut him off. "Your mother came by. Said you might be out for two weeks."
Jake's throat tightened. "I'm out now. I can come in today if you need me. I'm good—"
"Jake." The man's tone softened slightly, but it didn't make the words kinder. "I had to keep the business running. I hired someone else. I can't leave shifts empty because someone got hurt. You understand."
Jake stared at the street. A taxi drove past slowly, then merged into traffic. He understood. Understanding didn't stop the sinking feeling in his chest.
"Yes, sir," he said quietly.
"I'm sorry, kid." The man exhaled. "You were reliable. But this is how it is."
Jake swallowed. "Thank you for the past months."
The call ended.
"Sigh..." Jake held the phone for a moment as if the screen might change its mind and offer him a different outcome.
It didn't.
He slipped the phone into his pocket. His face stayed calm, but his thoughts moved faster. No job meant no cash flow. No cash flow meant no deposits. No deposits meant no trading. No trading meant no escape.
And the worst part was that he'd already made mistakes in trading. He'd blown small accounts before. He'd promised himself he'd get disciplined—stop losses, risk management, patience. But discipline was harder when the money you needed was the money you were losing.
He stepped closer to the curb and watched traffic. His left eye made everything look too clean, too vivid, like the city was a high-definition video someone had paused just for him.
A taxi pulled up.
"Where to?" the driver asked.
Jake gave his neighborhood and climbed in.
As the taxi moved, Jake watched the streets slide by—shops, people, billboards selling luxury apartments and imported cars. Proof, everywhere, that money existed in absurd amounts.
Just not in his hands.
Not yet.
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