By the ti the sun climbed its way to the middle of the sky, casting short, cruel shadows on the sand, I was already wishing I could go back to sleep.
Not because I was lazy. Not even because I wanted peace.
But because everything—everything—hurt.
Alexis had helped sit upright under a shaded portion of our makeshift camp, a patchy lean-to propped together with driftwood and palm fronds that Evelyn had helped drag ashore. I was wrapped in blankets that slled faintly of salt and iodine, and every ti I moved, my ribs protested with a sharp, grinding ache.
No skills. No strength. No jobs. Just .
Just Reynard Vale—flesh, bone, and regret.
Across the little clearing, I could hear the others working. Camille was wrestling with so kind of vine that she insisted could be turned into rope or clothing—maybe both. Sienna was crouched near a freshly-dug firepit, stacking bits of driftwood into a triangle while Alexis checked over the ergency kits.
And ?
I was trying to fold a blanket.
Just a single, rough-fibered blanket that needed to be tucked and stored so the wind wouldn’t blow it into the sea.
It might as well have been a mission to the moon.
I grunted as I fumbled with it, my arms trembling with the effort. Sweat rolled down the side of my neck even though I wasn’t doing anything worth sweating over. My fingers ached just trying to keep the edges aligned.
Eventually, the blanket slipped out of my hands entirely and flopped onto the sand like it was mocking .
Camille, not missing a beat, called out: "You know, Rey, if you’re going for a dramatic sulking look, sand-in-your-eyebrows really completes it."
"I’m not sulking," I muttered.
I was.
Sienna walked by with an armful of dry twigs, her hair pulled into a loose braid. She smiled gently when she saw the blanket beside . "Let help."
"No, I’ve got it."
"Rey, you’ve been folding that blanket for ten minutes."
"I’m...being thorough."
"Right." She knelt beside anyway, her hands quick and sure as she tidied the edges, folding it up with a few swift motions. "There."
"Thanks," I said quietly.
"Don’t ntion it."
She left the blanket tucked under a nearby tarp and returned to the firepit.
It didn’t stop there.
I tried to help with the fire next. Just sothing simple—gather so of the dryer pieces of wood, carry them over, maybe stack a few stones to help hold the structure.
But the first ti I leaned forward to lift a bundle of driftwood, I got dizzy.
The kind of dizzy that makes the world dip sideways like a poorly edited film reel.
I gritted my teeth, reached again, and—
"Stop."
Alexis’s voice was firm.
I looked up to find her watching from across the fire. She didn’t even look up from her bandages as she added, "Don’t even think about lifting that."
"I can help."
"You can help by sitting down and not tearing sothing else."
"It’s just wood."
"You still have cracked ribs, a sprained wrist and cuts from when you were abroad. Not to ntion that now you have a full systemic cooldown," she snapped. "Try to lift that and you’ll pass out in the firepit. Then I’ll have to douse you like a campfire and we’ll be one dic short."
I opened my mouth to argue, then closed it again.
She wasn’t wrong.
The worst part was—she wasn’t even being an. Just honest.
Without my jobs, my body was a patchwork of failures. Everything my system usually corrected for—fatigue, pain, coordination—it was all back. Raw. Unfiltered.
I didn’t feel like a man.
I felt like a broken tool.
I sat down heavily on a nearby rock, my hand pressing against my temple. The sunlight was too bright again, or maybe my skull was just too fragile for the ambient noise of birds and breeze.
Camille plopped down next to , offering a small tin of dried fruit. "Want so disappointnt berries? They’re slightly less insulting than folding a blanket."
I took a piece and chewed without tasting it. "Thanks."
"Hey." Her tone softened. "I know this sucks. But it’s not forever."
I nodded vaguely. "I know."
She nudged with her elbow. "And hey, maybe this is good. You get to see how amazing we all are without you."
I gave her a tired glance. "You were amazing with ."
"True," she said smugly, "but now I get to say ’I told you so’ every ti we don’t die without your help."
She stood with a wink and skipped back to whatever designer-plant-based project she’d started. I watched her go, sothing warm and worn flickering in my chest.
They were doing fine.
Better than fine, really.
Sienna got the fire going with a single spark and a little encouragent. Evelyn sat beside the stack of supplies she’d organized into tidy rows, categorizing what we had and what we didn’t. Alexis finished rigging a second tarp between two trees for extra shelter. Camille was fashioning sothing between a net and a hammock with alarming enthusiasm.
And ?
I sat on a rock and watched.
Every ti I tried to get up, the ache in my body reminded that I wasn’t ready.
Not yet.
But I hated this feeling. This weightless role. This...uselessness.
When the sun started its slow crawl toward the horizon, I checked the ti again on my system’s interface.
Only three hours had passed.
Nine left.
Nine.
I leaned back, letting my head rest against the trunk of a tree. I didn’t even notice how tightly my fists were clenched until Evelyn’s voice broke through.
"You’re doing more than you think."
I turned my head slightly to find her walking toward , one hand holding a half-peeled fruit, the other tapping her thigh for navigation.
"What do you an?"
"You being here? Alive? Aware?" She sat beside , her blindfold catching the breeze like a veil. "That’s keeping the rest of us sane."
I looked down at my hands. "Doesn’t feel like it."
"Maybe not to you. But we don’t need another hero today. We just need you."
She stood again, nodded once, and walked away without waiting for a reply.
I stayed there for a long ti, staring at the sand shifting beneath the tree’s roots.
Eventually, I checked the ti again.
Three hours, twenty minutes.
Still nine to go.
I sighed.
And stayed still.
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