I hear the beeps of a hospital machine, it's my heart beating very slowly, almost as if it were announcing my end. I've been in a hospital bed for a few months, the reason? A terminal illness... I stop fighting and accept my fate, I take one last breath with great difficulty, my body seems to recognize that I'm ready and the beeps of the machine stop acknowledging the end of my life.
It seems like only a few minutes later, I was in the hospital, but now I feel my face wet and a familiar disgusting smell, at the same time I feel my stomach hurt, as well as my arms and legs. The pain I feel slowly leaves me as if it no longer exists and was just an illusion.
'Is this a dream?'
I ask myself, and get up from where I was lying. I'm sure I was still in a hospital bed, but now I'm in a dark alley with little sunlight coming in. The little I can see shows me where I was lying, a puddle of rain mixed with urine and who knows what else. I approach the little light that there is in the alley and see myself wearing linen clothing with some leather pieces. It's very primitive and I can tell because I see that it was hand-sewn.
In addition to the clothing, I see blood stains on my arms and legs and I feel something cold on my abdomen too. I don't know if it's dirty water or more blood. But I see that besides the blood, there are no wounds. I look in the direction outside the alley and see people talking, walking and some even shouting as if they were announcing something. I try to understand what they're saying but I can't. I finally take several steps and leave the alley, but at the same time, a huge headache hits me and I start to feel dizzy.
I lean on something I believe to be a pole as I endure the pain, and everyone's words begin to make sense, as if that language were something natural that I have spoken my entire life. The sentences are as I suspected; People selling items, others buying, and some just chatting as they walk down the street. A lady with a basket of fruit approaches and asks:
"Are you okay, young man?"
—Yes, I'm fine! I answer.
Only then do I realize that the words coming out of her mouth and mine are not any language I know on earth.
She asks me another question:
"Were you hurt? Do you want me to call the guards?"
I answer that I just got into a fight with some thieves. The answer comes out quickly, almost as if I know that having blood and no wounds can get me into trouble. I still don't know what happened, but the headache is subsiding and some answers can already be found in my memory.
I try to ignore some of the information in my mind and then look at the lady and ask:
—Where am I?
She says quickly:
"This is the Goulen shopping street in the northern district."
—Northern district of which city? I answer quickly, not believing the memories that were emerging in my mind.
"What are you talking about, child? Did you hit your head? We are in the capital, the capital of the great empire; Valyria!"
At the same time that I realize that the language we were speaking the whole time is High Valyrian, I sigh deeply in fear and terror, I don't ask what year it is because I already know the answer thanks to the memories that now fill all the gaps in my mind. I start to sweat coldly when I realize that I am in the year of the great disaster known to all as the "Doom of Valyria". A single word comes out of my mouth:
Fuck!