"Ten minutes?" The technician repeats, his voice cracking. "The nearest public Dive Center is a ten-minute drive. And that's if you hit every green light. You won't make it."
My pulse is steady, but the fire in my chest is roaring now.
"I'm not driving anywhere," I say, stepping toward him. "This is a Priority 4 Clinic. You have emergency containment protocols. You have a basement."
He blinks, stunned. "The Emergency Shaft? That's fifty floors down. The elevator ride alone takes about five minutes."
"Then we better start moving."
He looks at the timer. 00:09:15.
"If you drift without a pod," he stammers, "the shock will stop your heart in 5 minutes. Your soul will anchor, but your body here will seize. You'll die on the floor."
He pauses for a moment, eyeing me up and down, scanning for every bit non-verbal information he can, then sighs and continues:
"You look healthy enough. Some healthy folk can take ten—hell, even twelve—but you... nine. Maybe?"
I slam my hand on the counter next to the emergency override. "Then stop talking and press the button."
He swallows hard and punches the red key.
The room explodes in noise. Klaxons scream, oscillating between a high shriek and a low, gut-vibrating bass.
The door behind the reception flies open. Two armored guards with submachine guns burst in. They don't ask questions. They see the red light, they see me, and they move.
Rough hands grab my arms.
"Code Blue!" the intercom blares, a mechanical voice cutting through the sirens. "I repeat, Code Blue. Imminent unscheduled Dive detected in Sector 3."
They don't escort me. They drag me.
My feet barely touch the linoleum as they haul me toward the heavy steel doors at the back of the clinic. The technician and two nurses are right behind us, pushing a crash cart.
We pile into the freight elevator. I experienced this many times, but even now my heart is in panic.
The technician slams the override key into the panel. The floor drops out from under us. We descend so fast my stomach hits my throat.
"Listen to me, kid!" The technician is shouting over the hum of the shaft. "These are Government Level 1 Emergency Pods. They aren't calibrated for comfort. They give you a standard injection of 1,200 OXI. That's it."
I lean against the cold metal wall, trying to stabilize my breathing.
Twelve hundred.
That's barely enough to manifest clothes and a weapon. It's poverty wages.
If I had money, I'd be in a private clinic, getting a Premium Dive with 3,000 OXI and a starter map.
But I don't have money. I have ten minutes and a death wish.
"It's fine," I wheeze. "I couldn't afford the upgrade anyway."
The technician wipes sweat from his forehead. He looks at me with genuine pity. He thinks he's watching a dead man walking.
"You have to be smart," he says, pleading. "1,200 won't last two days if you exert yourself. You need to find civilization immediately. You need to find OXI before the environment kills you."
He pauses, realizing something. "Shit. I didn't even give you the briefing. You don't know what Thirstfall is."
"Save the speech," I say, closing my eyes for a second. "My dad was a Drowned."
It's the perfect lie. It explains why I'm calm. It explains why I know about the basement.
"Oh." He nods, looking relieved. "Okay. Good. So you know the risks."
The elevator brakes scream. We have almost hit the bottom.
The doors hiss open, revealing a cavernous concrete bunker lined with rows of ominous, coffin-like tanks.
"Sub-level 50," the technician announces. "Each entry is different. The System drops you randomly based on your Aptitude. Just... find people. Find water."
I nod and take a step forward.
And then the world tilts.
My knees hit the concrete hard.
The burning in my throat isn't just gravel anymore. It's magma. My vision blurs, the edges turning a violent, static gray. The connection to Earth is snapping.
"Shit!" the technician yells. "We're out of time! He's already drifting!"
I feel myself being lifted again. The guards run.
I see the ceiling lights streaking by like comets. My body feels impossibly heavy, like a snail in a quicksand.
Hands are everywhere. Tearing my shirt open. Ripping my sneakers off.
He grabs a radio on his waist: "CODEBLUE! Prep the tank! Bypass the sedative!"
Cold air hits my skin. Sensors are slapped onto my chest—one, two, three. A mask is shoved over my face, forcing pressurized oxygen into my lungs.
I try to focus on the technician. He's looking at his watch, terror in his eyes.
00:00:05.
"Countdown is irrelevant!" he screams at the nurses. "We're losing his vitals!"
"We aren't going to make it!" the nurse screams.
My vision fades to black.
I don't feel the cold gel. I don't feel the mask. I only feel the regret of not hugging my mom and Lili one last time before the dive.
I feel my heart stop.
For a second, I am just a body drifting in the dark.
Then, the Anchor snaps.
It feels like a fishhook ripping out of my navel. The sensation of the bunker, the guards, the floor—it all vanishes instantly.
I am not asleep. I am not awake.
I am drifting.
[System Warning: Synchronization Error.]
[Host Body Status: CRITICAL.]
[Forcing connection...]
The void around me isn't black. It's the absence of color. A static nothingness that stretches for infinity. There is no up, no down. Just the raw hum of consciousness being transferred across dimensions.
Then, a light pierces the nothingness.
A symbol manifests in the dark, floating right in front of my eyes. It's not digital. It looks like it was forged from molten gold and ancient starlight.
The Aion Codex.
It pulses with a rhythm that matches my own heartbeat.
I reach out, my hand a translucent ghost in this space, trying to grasp it. To claim it.
But as my fingers brush the light, the symbol shatters.
It doesn't break; it disassembles into a stream of golden sparks that swirl around my arm. They coil like a snake, tightening, burning.
I try to scream, but I have no mouth.
The sparks bite into my right shoulder, searing the flesh that isn't quite real yet. They settle, burning into a permanent black ink.
I look at the mark.
I expect a weapon. A sword for my vengeance. A shield for my protection. Maybe even a skull for my death wish.
I blink.
It's a long, sleek oval with a fin. A plank riding a stylized curl of water.
A surfboard.
I stare at it, dumbfounded in the void.
Then, the System text burns into my eyes, explaining the cosmic joke.
[Class Assigned: Drifter]
[Rank: Unique]
[Rank: ???]
[Iconography: "The Wave Rider"]
Drifter?
I've studied the Archives for ten years. I've memorized every Combat and Support class recorded in history. I have never heard of a "Drifter."
But the System took the word literally.
A Drifter... someone who floats. Someone who rides the current.
In a world where water is death and the ocean crushes everything, the System looked at my soul—a soul traveling through time to surf the chaos of the apocalypse—and gave me a surfboard.
If I had a mouth, I would laugh. It's not a warrior's mark. It's a punchline.
"Fine," I think, my cynicism bubbling up even in the space between worlds. "If the world is going to hell, I might as well ride the wave."
And then, the world begins to load.
It doesn't pop into existence like a video game texture. It forms like a watercolor painting on wet canvas.
First, the smell. The stench of wet rot and old iron hits me before I can see.
Then, the ground.
My knees slam into something soft and damp. Mud.
Finally, the colors bleed in from the edges of my vision.
Sickly greens. Bruised purples. Gray shadows.
I gasp, sucking in air that is too humid, too heavy.
I look at myself.
I'm on my knees in the mud. My clothes are the standard-issue gray rags of a Level 1 Diver.
I pull the collar of my shirt to look at my shoulder.
The ink is there. Fresh, black, and utterly ridiculous. The surfboard stands out against my pale skin like a graffiti tag on a tombstone.
"At least I won't drown in irony," I mutter.
I look up.
I am not in a safe zone. There is no tutorial in Thirstfall.
And… I am not alone.
All around me, rising from the sludge like confused zombies, are other people. Dozens of them. Men in suits, women in pajamas, teenagers in school uniforms.
If you are over fourteen, the Black Thirst doesn't discriminate. It just pulls. And here we are.
Coughs and moans fill the air.
"Everyone stay calm!" a booming voice cuts through the confusion.
A large man, built like a linebacker, is standing a dozen feet away. He's waving a makeshift club—a broken branch. "Form a perimeter! Back to back! We need to organize!"
Idiot.
I ignore him and look up. My blood runs cold.
We aren't in a clearing. We are in a gullet.
Surrounding us is a dense forest of nightmares. The trees don't have bark; they have skin. Grey, twisted trunks that look like cured meat, stretched tight over knotty muscles. They pulse rhythmically, like a slow, hungry heartbeat.
A milky, knee-deep mist covers the ground, hiding whatever roots lie beneath.
But it's the trees themselves that tell the story.
Bulging from the fleshy wood are many faces. Human faces. They are fused into the trunks, their mouths frozen in silent screams, their eyes rolling blindly.
I know this place. The Archives called it a myth. A Dead Zone where no one survives Day One.
The Forest of Wails.
I check my HUD.
[Zone Danger Level: Deadly]
[OXI: 1,200/1,200]
[Current Status: Prey]
My heart hammers against my ribs, but I force a breath.
Thirstfall never gives you a puzzle without a solution. Even here. Even now.
"Listen to me!" the big man yells again, rallying the terrified crowd. "My name is Marcus! Follow my lead! We move together!"
The vibration of his voice makes the gray trees shiver. The faces on the bark seem to twitch.
I look at the crowd gathering around the "hero," seeking safety in numbers. Then I look at the pulsating trees waiting for a meal.
A cold realization settles in my chest. The technician was right. I needed a miracle.
I look at the dozens of confused, loud people preparing to march blindly into the mist.
I found my miracle, I think, stepping silently away from the group.
They aren't teammates.
They are my ticket out.