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 movement 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 me, her eyes red-rimmed with worry, her fingers cold against the back of my neck.
"Welcome home," 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 time 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.
[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.
Great. So I had a brand-new hangover mechanic. 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 me who I was—synchronize everything into a perfect moment of power—and the System would shut me 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 time periods, all sharing one thing: they had a version of the System, something more primitive.
How was that possible?
"Rey," Alexis said softly, snapping me out of my spiral.
She was crouched beside me still, checking over my bandages. Most of them were freshly applied, her hands still faintly stained from whatever field medicine 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 me. "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."
"It’s temporarily disabled my skills," I repeated, softer this time. "Some type of limiter of sorts."
She didn’t answer. Just pressed a hand against my shoulder and helped me to my feet.
It wasn’t just the soreness—it was like someone had dialed me down. My limbs were sluggish. My thoughts foggy. Even my usual subconscious read on my surroundings—positions, threats, exits—was dimmed like someone 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 emergency supplies that had drifted in with the tide.
Down by the shoreline, Evelyn was crouched, methodically organizing what she’d collected. Pieces of wood, torn cloth, some emergency 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 me faster than I expected. Then, abruptly, she wrapped her arms around me—not too tightly, but enough. Just enough.
I blinked in surprise.
"Don’t do that again," she muttered into my shoulder. "Not without warning."
She let go almost immediately 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, someone 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."
I took another slow step forward, letting the breeze roll over me. 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.
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 immediately, the pain in my thighs seizing like a vice. I collapsed hard onto the sand, face scraping against the coarse granules.
"Camille!" I called out, heart thudding. "Sienna!"
Footsteps approached.
I looked up, and there they were.
Sienna was carrying a basket woven from fronds, filled with fruit and bark and something that smelled like citrus and copper. Camille held up a bundle of leafy plants with a triumphant smile.
"These," Camille announced dramatically, "are some of the rarest jungle threads I’ve ever seen. They make silk feel like sandpaper."
Sienna looked at me, 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 immediately. 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. "Come on. Let’s get you off the ground."
As they pulled me up—carefully—I couldn’t help but smile faintly.