Location: Unknown, A-class planet, D-zone (green)
Date: April 3 2728 — Standard Earth Calendar (SEC)
Pushing against the shore, I sat on top of my backpack and began to paddle out, past the island.
The lake's shore was gentle at first, covered in forest, but it became rocky later, with bouldered slopes rising above the water.
Sometimes I saw a deer slipping between the trees, or wolves chasing prey between the hills—all in the silence of the rustling forest in the gusts of wind.
My last fight with the wolf's pack was still fresh in my mind. They unnerved me.
And even if it seemed that my glitchy invisibility worked well enough, and no one paid me attention, I kept my distance, just in case.
But there was something else that worried me even more than wolves. I felt nauseous all the time. I also developed a fever, or at least it felt that way.
I didn't notice it at first. I blamed it on the glitchy invisibility or on being tired from a night of paddling. But my sluggish state in the morning and the body aches since then were telling a different story.
It was not a good sign.
Stopping, I set the paddle on my knees and, closing my eyes, looked deep inside.
In my inner eye, my body looked, well, normal. Nothing stood out, nothing was abnormal, though I doubted if I could even recognise a virus or bacterial infection.
I flew in blind here.
I had a medkit in my backpack with strong meds that might help, but the supply was limited. I didn't want to touch it until it was strictly necessary.
Regeneration then. Perhaps it might help.
Activating it, I made the core pulse, supplying the regeneration constellation with energy.
One, two heartbeats and it helped.
I felt a sense of relief spreading throughout my body.
More.
A few moments later, and I felt much better. It was strange. I didn't feel healed, but as if some inner tension had been washed away.
It was only temporary.
The pressure began to mount again after I stopped pumping the regeneration. I felt that clearly.
I also saw that the constellation stars and the pathways between them were pulsing, as if agitated. And my core, it was agitated too.
No, the whole system was agitated.
Shit.
Opening my eyes, I looked over the lake, slightly squinting from the sun's reflection.
Did I overstress it? Was it due to aetherium? Or because my anomaly system was just barely a few days old? Could I actually damage it?
The questions were racing through my head, but I had no answers.
The hell should I do?
Looking within myself, I activated regeneration again, this time letting even more energy into it.
It helped, bringing relief, but not for long.
I pushed a bit more, watching the agitation fade away. But then, out of the blue, I ran out of energy with a sucking feeling of emptiness in my core.
Widely opening my eyes, I grabbed the needler. My invisibility failed—of course, it did—exposing me to the wild.
I was in danger.
Forcefully breathing, drawing on energy, or so I imagined, I kept my eyes moving.
Sky. Clear.
Forest. Clear.
Water. Nothing.
Had I been seen?
I counted the seconds. I felt sicker with each one ticking away, and the reality doubled in my eyes.
Fuck.
I activated invisibility as soon as I felt I could, fighting the spinning world.
Still in danger.
Blindly reaching inside the backpack under me, I pulled the strip of meat and began to chew on it.
I needed the energy. Any boost would help. It had to help restore it faster—it had to.
Sweating heavily, I reached for the thermos and gulped down some tea, not really feeling the taste.
Fuck the nausea, fuck the fever.
I truly needed to know when the core was about to deplete.
—
One, two, three…
It was like active meditation.
Four, five, six…
I paddled on the left or right, moving the boat.
Seven, eight, nine…
I drew on the energy.
One, two, three…
I pulsed the core, fueling my regeneration.
Four, five, six…
I moved the boat.
I was at it for hours, ever so slowly moving along the lakeshore.
Seven, eight, nine…
Drawing on energy, inevitably agitating the core, and spending it to bring some relief.
It was an endless loop, where I never felt good, but I also didn't feel worse.
And somehow, with each passing cycle, I began to understand the core.
It was like a hand, or like a biceps. After doing exercises for a long time, you would just know what you could and what you couldn't lift, and for how long.
It was totally alien.
One, two, three…
But it worked, in a way.
Four, five, six…
And so I paddled along the shore, I breathed the energy in, and I counted in my mind.
Seven, eight, nine…
Because the timing? The timing was the key.
—
By the time the sun was about to set, I was able to manage the balance between drawing energy in, the active invisibility, and the system's healing.
Even the fog in my mind lifted for a bit, and I realised that I was still paddling, and that I was bone-tired.
My spine was stiff, my fingers locked around the paddle, but I just kept going.
If not for the self-healing—I was sure—I wouldn't feel my legs, and I would be bleeding from calluses on my palms.
I was also thirsty and hungry.
Looking around, for what felt like the first time in a while, I searched for a place to stop, perhaps even camp, if possible.
Nothing stood out as such.
I didn't recognise the lake, it wasn't the same one I started from, or I was far away from the last landmarks I clearly remembered.
The lakeshores were gentle again, with long strips of sand and shallow water, while the forest had been pushed away.
Slowly paddling in the direction of the setting sun, I was looking for an island, for a small one, preferably far away from the mainland.
I didn't see any.
Putting the paddle away, I flexed my stiff fingers and stretched my back, giving a respite to my tired body.
Reaching under me, I took out the NB ration, a strip of dehydrated meat, and a water filter. I filled the last one from the lake and set it aside.
Somehow, in my fuzzy state, I cut heavily into my stock of meat, and if this continued, I would run out of it in a day or two.
That was not good, not in my current state.
When I pulled the sealing strip from the ration, the rich smell of rice and butter chicken spread around, watering my mouth.
I was famished.
As I was eating, the sun was setting behind the forest, and the sky was turning in shades of deep blue with orange clouds.
I liked the colour. It was nice.
At least something was.
—
The Milky Way was shining brightly in the sky, with stars above and below me, reflected in the dark water of the lake. In a way, I felt as if I was floating in space, sailing between the stars, following into the unknown.
It was surreal.
At some point, my wandering mind returned to the morning, to the moment when the hex-field failed due to aetherium, and in my not-so-clear head, it felt like a good idea to test it again.
I had nothing better to do.
Removing all aetherium from myself and pushing my backpack as far away as the boat allowed, I activated the hex-field.
It didn't collapse, didn't fail in thirty seconds, as before. But for some reason, I felt worse and had to increase the rate at which I pushed energy into regeneration.
I didn't expect that, but, in a way, it was logical.
I had a freshly minted core, pathways, and stars. They were F-rated—no doubt about that—and they were in the D-zone. Or I was.
Which, perhaps, meant that the sickness I felt originated from the Anomaly itself—the two levels of higher density against my own.
Was it like external and internal pressure?
Perhaps flooding my circulatory system with energy and shielding it with aetherium were helping to balance that.
I didn't know for sure.
Perhaps, I never would.
Watching the stars and the Milky Way, I kept going through the night. I had a long way to go.
It was beautiful.
—
The morning fog came together with the first signs of dawn. It rose slowly from the water, forming wisps of mist at first, but soon became so thick that I barely saw anything.
Fortunately, before it fell over the lake, I saw an island not that far away from me.
It was small, mildly rocky, with a grove at the far side and a clearing. Ideal for a stop, especially being hundreds of metres away from any shore.
Paddling in the fog, navigating by memory alone, I was all but back in my childhood, watching Your Friendly Pirate holo.
Together with Captain Sorro, I was in the land of the dead, swimming through the mist of all lost things, fighting feral ghosts.
It was scary, thrilling. I loved it.
I also wanted to be her, one who bravely fights for all the good in the world, to save the day.
It was my favourite until I turned ten—she didn't save my father.
The giddy mood was gone.
Swatting away unwelcome memories, I silently paddled until I reached the island's shore.
I didn't say a word until the pot was on the stove and the water was boiling.
"Morning, Lola," I murmured sadly.
"Morning, Kat," she replied gently.
"There was a development," I added slowly while watching the bubbling water.
"About?" she asked.
"I have a fever," I said.
I was stretching it, I knew it, but I missed talking. And I needed something to distract myself.
"Describe symptoms, and we need to run a physical checkup. You have antipyretics in the medkit at the bottom. Take one right now—" she began, and I felt a smile tugging at my lip.
Mother, the hen.
"I think it is due to The Anomaly itself," I interrupted, already feeling better.
"Evolution, so fast?" she asked, and I paused with teal leaves in my hand.
I didn't think about that.
"Perhaps. As far as I could tell, my anomaly system is agitated," I finally clarified, dropping leaves in the water.
"Did you try to see if aetherium was responsible for that?" she asked.
"Yes. Removing it made the fever only worse," I replied.
"Ah," Lola said.
We fell into comfortable silence, the one that might stretch for hours.
The tea was ready, and as I sipped it, I watched the mist twisting around me, reacting to the slightest move.
Tea was nice.
I also felt better, and a quick check inside showed that the agitation had somewhat calmed.
Realising it was because of the tea, I set more water to boil. If it was helping, I was going to make as much tea as I could carry.
Sure, it would make me pee more often, as it was doing now, but fuck the fever.
—
"What's the plan then?" Lola asked when I was done with the unavoidable.
"Eat, rest, and keep going," I said, fixing my pants.
"I managed it so far, but I think the faster I leave the high-density area, the better," I added, adjusting my holster.
"Keep me updated then. Whenever you can," she said.
"Sure, darling," I said and began walking back to the site.
Something was bugging me.
With all the fever and pain in my body, I almost missed it, but I felt it pulsing now.
Danger sense.
Something was coming my way. Something dangerous.
Hastily activating glitchy invisibility, I pulled the needler and the claw knife out, looking around.
Nothing. But danger sense only pulsed harder, as if I made it worse.
And then I saw it—a towering moose, regally walking out of the fog, short of ten metres away.
How did it get here?
I froze in place, hoping it would just go away.
Instead, it stopped and inhaled loudly, flaring its nostrils.
It sensed me.
And then it forcefully hit the ground with its front legs, and a ring of twisted roots spawned from beneath, extending around him rapidly.
Shit.
I jumped over it, switching from the useless invisibility to the hex-field—silently starting the timer in my head.
I had only about thirty seconds left.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The shimmering air flashed around my target—it had a shield, of course it did.
Twenty-five.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Wooden spikes burst from the ground, targeting me from beneath and breaking into splinters against my hex-field.
Twenty.
I broke into a sprint, around the moose, without stopping to fire.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
It moved—I saw only a blur—and the antlers froze a few inches away from my face.
It charged me.
Our shields flared. A weight fell on my shoulders, and my knees buckled. My core was struggling to supply the energy—it was getting too much, too fast.
Fifteen.
I struck with a claw knife, stabbing it right into the moose's face, into the eye I saw in front of me.
The claw knife flared with hexes and went right through the shimmering shield, into the brain—I barely felt any resistance.
It was dead.
In a moment, it collapsed in heaps, pulling my left arm down with the knife. I let it go.
Ten.
I also had this weird feeling in the hex-field, as if it were on the verge of tearing itself apart, vibrating.
And it was draining my core, already strained to the limit.
I let it go.
The pain shot through me, through my body, head to toe, and I felt like my eyes were blown out in an indigo flash.
Everything was in pain, everything was in agony.
And an endless pit of hunger was pulsing inside me.
Heal, I needed to heal. To regenerate.
The thought was pounding in whirls of pain, confusing and looping in stretched echo.
Somehow, not even knowing how, it worked.
I felt the rushing energy. I felt it coming from around. I felt the cold relief.
The smell came back first. It was awful, and it clogged my nose.
Fur. It was burned fur and meat.
Meat, I needed meat.
An electric taste on my tongue came next, with a touch that found half my teeth cracked or missing, and a burned-bone aftertaste.
The eyes, I needed my eyes back. MEAT.
The sense of touch came next, and under my fingers I felt something warm and dusty over dry and cracked ground.
Then I saw light, the grey reality around me.
I was in the middle of an almost ideal circle of ash and burned ground. And the whitening skull—of what had been the moose's head before—was looking back at me.
Its body, left almost untouched beyond the burned circle, was the next thing I saw.
Meat.
The thought—it pounded in my head. It was all I could think of. And I crawled to it, stumbling into the ash—
Meat.
—on my twigs-thin arms—
Meat.
—I kept moving. I needed it badly.
I had no capacity to think, to act as a human.
Reaching it, I just sank whatever teeth I had into the meat before me and tore a chunk away, gulping it down my throat.
I didn't feel the taste or texture. But bite by bite, I felt returning, recovering my snapped sanity, my ability to think.
I felt how broken teeth fell out, and how new ones grew in their place.
I felt my charred skin peel away, with a new one beneath, itching.
I felt how my fingers grew nails anew.
I was coming back from the ashes with a new strength in my hands.
But was I still me?