He Wants my Flesh

I have been playing Skrim as myself, controlling an avatar that was summoned to Tamriel to test his mettle. I chose to develop restoration spells, to heal wounds, bolster confidence in others and call to them to battle. I prefer to avoid direct confrontation by developing skills in sneaking around unnoticed. I also developed illusion skills to confuse and misdirect enemies efforts to turn on themselves while I find a suitable vantage point to watch. I chose companions that would help me out when there was really no other option but fight.

I'm a bit of a vigilante at heart. While I sneak around to avoid detection, it is because I simply don't want to have to kill if I don't need to. I can do the job without a lot of mess. In Tamriel, the Dark Brotherhood is a guild of assassins. For a price, someone can perform a ritual called the dark sacrament to send an assassin to eliminate an enemy. In a quest called Innocence lost, an orphaned boy name Aventus Aretino performs the ritual in a desperate attempt to escape a cruel headmistress of the Orphanage.

I wanted to see if I could dissuade Aventus but he wouldn't believe me when I said I wasn't an assassin from the Dark Brotherhood. I decided to pay a visit to Grelod the Kind. When I entered the orphanage, I noticed immediately the children were scared and cowed into submission. This head mistress spoke in harsh tones and I heard sounds that suggested physical abuse. When I confronted her about Aventus and his performing the dark sacrament, she struck out at me as if I was the assassin. Ironically, I was just trying to help her but in self defense, I struck back and that was her end.

The children gathered around but didn't seem too upset by what happened. Her hired assistant, Constance is is upset but doesn't report the incident to the guard and simply asks that I leave. I return to Aventus and tell him what happened. He is happy to hear that Grelod is gone.

I got a note a few days later from the Dark Brotherhood with a simple message, "we know". I wake up in a dusty shack the next day. I look up to see an assassin who says her name is Astrid, perched on a beam above me. She tells me why she brought me here and that she has taken three people hostage. She recounts to me that I completed a contract that I wasn't authorized to complete. To make up for this misunderstanding, she asks me to kill one of the hostages. She explains that each person deserves death. This is quite the conundrum because I want to keep my oath of peace; I don't want to kill. However, I know that if I don't kill one of the hostages, I will die. I decide that if I must kill, better to kill the assassin then potentially kill an innocent.

In my view, this was similar to a choice I had to make concerning cancer treatment. Do I undergo surgery to cut off a testicle or risk having the cancer spread to my lungs, heart and brain? I trusted the oncologist and the surgeons recommendation and went ahead with the surgery to fix an inguinal hernia and orcheotomy. The Oncologist insisted that there must be cancer in one or both of the testicles and that this was the only way to treat the cancer. After the test results came back, the tissue was cancer free. Do I trust anything else the oncologist or surgeon has to say?

The next recommended surgery in the treatment plan is to remove the left kidney along with the remaining tissue mass in the back and some lymph nodes and who knows what else? They seemed very greedy in their removal of healthy tissue. When I decide to forgo the surgery, the surgeon tells me that I'm certain to die if I don't follow through with this surgery. I protest, telling him that I am following a protocol of nutrition and cleansing that is reducing the mass and blood tests confirm that the cancer continues to be reduced. He doesn't care. He wants to cut my flesh, remove essential organs and leave me scarred for life with a huge gash running all the way up the front of my body. In addition, the surgery will put me much further into debt. I still haven't paid off all of the treatment I've already undergone. Insurance paid for most of it but I still have a sizable out of pocket to pay.

I'm angry and scared. I don't feel safe in any part of my life. I've been violated, I've been poisoned and I'm weak. I struggle to regain the strength I once had. I parted ways with the surgeon, oncologist and nurse practitioners. The price they demand is too high. Instead I juice beets, carrots, apples, ginger, turmeric and a lemon every day. I blend spinach, kale, apple and assorted frozen fruit into a green smoothie for lunch. I crave junk food and I give into these cravings from time to time. The tumor swells when I do and my energy levels drop. I worry that I'm screwed. I need to condition myself to see some foods for what they truly are, a threat to my health and well being. Dressed in colorful packages with chemically enhanced and genetically modified ingredients that my body can't handle.