When I opened my eyes, the sky was too intense.
Not figuratively—the sunlight drilled through the makeshift canopy above in shafts of burning silver, every movent of the wind was a shattering thunderclap in my brain. My limbs felt like stone, heavy and unhelpful, my breathing shallow as if every inhalation had to be paid for.
Alexis’s face materialized in front of , her eyes red-rimd with worry, her fingers cold against the back of my neck.
"Welco ho," she whispered, though her smile was taut and strained.
I tried to sit up, and all my muscles protested. My ribs ached as if they’d been kicked in by a mule, and the throbbing dull pain behind my eyes thumped in ti with every beat of my heart. I felt like a wet sponge that’d been wrung out and trampled on for the fun of it.
As I heaved myself to standing with a grunt, the familiar sparkle of my System interface burst into existence.
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[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
Full Profession Sync was successfully used. Consequences include loss of consciousness, exhaustion and the usage of all jobs and skills has been temporarily disabled for the next 12 waking hours.
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Great. So I had a brand-new hangover chanic. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to laugh or just collapse again.
So that was the cost. Use every skill, every job, every ounce of what made who I was—synchronize everything into a perfect mont of power—and the System would shut down like a burnt-out fuse.
I rubbed my temples, still reeling from the aftershocks of the dream—no, the experience. I’d seen things. Lived them, even. But how? I hadn’t used Scan. I hadn’t reached for my skills. And yet I saw they gaining theirs as well as leveling them up. Observed human instinct and raw growth. Newton. Soldiers. Hunters. All different ti periods, all sharing one thing: they had a version of the System, sothing more primitive.
How was that possible?
"Rey," Alexis said softly, snapping out of my spiral.
She was crouched beside still, checking over my bandages. Most of them were freshly applied, her hands still faintly stained from whatever field dicine she’d had to improvise. Her voice was gentle, but I could hear the tightness behind it. The unspoken fear.
"I’m fine," I muttered.
"You’re not fine," she said, not even bothering to look up. "You collapsed the second you got on the raft and nearly died saving all of us. Again. Your body’s a wreck. I’ve never seen anything like it." She glanced up at last, locking eyes with . "I understand why you did what you needed to, but avoid using that Sync thing until you fully recover."
I exhaled slowly. "It’s fine, not like I can anyways."
"What do you an?"
"It’s temporarily disabled my skills," I repeated, softer this ti. "So type of limiter of sorts."
She didn’t answer. Just pressed a hand against my shoulder and helped to my feet.
Everything hurt.
It wasn’t just the soreness—it was like soone had dialed down. My limbs were sluggish. My thoughts foggy. Even my usual subconscious read on my surroundings—positions, threats, exits—was dimd like soone had taken a wet rag to a clean lens.
My System was offline.
We moved slowly, my weight leaning heavily against Alexis. The beach stretched out before us in soft sand and scattered wreckage. Not from the plane—we hadn’t even seen the crash site—but from the ergency supplies that had drifted in with the tide.
Down by the shoreline, Evelyn was crouched, thodically organizing what she’d collected. Pieces of wood, torn cloth, so ergency rations, and a few plastic-wrapped kits. She wore her blindfold, as always, but her hands moved with practiced efficiency.
When she heard our footsteps, she turned slightly, her head tilting just enough to track the sound.
"You’re awake," she said, a note of surprise in her voice.
"Apparently," I replied.
She moved toward faster than I expected. Then, abruptly, she wrapped her arms around —not too tightly, but enough. Just enough.
I blinked in surprise.
"Don’t do that again," she muttered into my shoulder. "Not without warning."
"I’ll try."
She let go almost imdiately and stepped back, her posture straightening. "Camille and Sienna went further inland. Looking for anything useful. I wasn’t about to go blundering into trees I can’t see."
I nodded slowly, trying to keep my balance. "Makes sense."
She hesitated. "The pilot. I’m pretty sure I’ve worked with him in the past. I’m not certain, but he was part of the operations drop team. A contact point, soone who ferried agents. It... doesn’t make sense that he’d turn on us. He wasn’t supposed to be that kind of man."
"They never are," I said quietly. "Until they are."
She turned her face toward the sound of the surf, her expression unreadable. "You’re not going to rest, are you?"
"Not until I know you’re all safe."
She didn’t argue.
I took another slow step forward, letting the breeze roll over . My balance was shaky, each step a gamble between stumbling and falling. My body had finally stopped burning itself alive. Now it was just broken, exhausted, hollowed out like a bell that had rung too hard.
We didn’t talk after that. There wasn’t much to say.
Then ca the sound.
A shriek—high-pitched, sudden, unmistakably Camille.
My head snapped toward the jungle beyond.
"What the hell—" I muttered, trying to run. My legs buckled imdiately, the pain in my thighs seizing like a vice. I collapsed hard onto the sand, face scraping against the coarse granules.
My vision blurred.
"Camille!" I called out, heart thudding. "Sienna!"
Footsteps approached.
Not running.
Walking.
I looked up, and there they were.
Perfectly fine.
Sienna was carrying a basket woven from fronds, filled with fruit and bark and sothing that slled like citrus and copper. Camille held up a bundle of leafy plants with a triumphant smile.
"These," Camille announced dramatically, "are so of the rarest jungle threads I’ve ever seen. They make silk feel like sandpaper."
Sienna looked at , tilting her head. "Rey? Why are you lying face-first in the sand?"
Camille blinked. "Wait, is that blood? Oh my God, are you okay?!"
I didn’t respond imdiately. I just stared up at them from the dirt, a sharp exhale slipping past my teeth.
"I thought you were being eaten by jungle cats," I muttered.
Camille pouted. "Please. I was being enthusiastic, not dying."
Sienna offered her hand. "Co on. Let’s get you off the ground."
As they pulled up—carefully—I couldn’t help but smile faintly.
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