The sharp scent of alcohol and antiseptic coaxed Dana's eyes open, if only barely. This slight flutter of consciousness sent a ripple of excitement through her attendants. The aide—who had spent the entire morning pressing Dana's head with herb-soaked cloths and tonics that would have earned the household doctor's and nurse's disapproval—let out a joyful yelp at seeing movement from the girl she'd nursed since childhood, a girl they'd believed lost to death just days ago.
Her eyes blinked, and the aide was back, this time the Doctor with her. The doctor's voice rippled like words heard underwater as he scolded the aide, gesturing at the herbs and tonics. The aide remained defiant, pointing to Dana. When the doctor looked at her, the hardness in his face faltered.
Another blink transported her to Rotterdam. The Engineer—similar yet different—stared down at her, his words harsh. "Look at the state of you. You want to kill yourself?" he demanded. "How long will this go on?" He paced the room, shaking his head. Dana felt oddly accustomed to this.
He stopped abruptly. "I should have stopped this a long time ago. I should have. When you got those piercings—those stupid piercings—you were only seven. God, I should have stopped you then!" His shouting made his wife flinch as she gripped his shoulders, but his finger remained pointed at Dana. "Instead, I did nothing. 'It's fun, she's just a child.' Then you dyed your hair black at nine—I should have made you wash it out..."
He paused, his head slumping as if fighting something rising within him. When he spoke again, his words were strained, barely escaping through his anger. "But by then, you'd learned to lie. 'I'm tired of Mom's blonde hair that I inherited,' you said. 'I want to look like you.' Part of me doubted you, but you were nine, my only child then... and I wanted to believe you... so I did. Then came the loud music and attitude, but you were fourteen, and everyone's distasteful at fourteen... then the drugs and alcohol... what then... what then..."
He turned away, only to spin back as she blinked again. "See how you hurt your mother! See the pain you've caused her!" Now it was the Doctor speaking, pointing at his sobbing wife. The aide looked away in silence. Though he gestured toward his wife, the Doctor's perfect face bore its own deep, tired sadness.
Dana's vision blurred, the Doctor and Engineer merging into one wavering figure. Another blink took her to Rotterdam, where the Engineer—her father—stood by her bed. Yet somehow her waking self felt a parallel presence beside her.
The Engineer pulled out his wallet, placing several notes on the bedside stand. "For food and water," he said quietly. "When you're discharged, I'll arrange a ride home... if you want. Your mother and I have taken time off work. We'll make dinner. Be there... if you want."
He stepped back three paces, as if seeking a better view of what his daughter had become—this disfigured apparition of his little girl. His face had been hard for so long that memories of his smiles and playfulness felt distant, possibly mere distortions of cocaine-induced psychosis. They might never have been real at all.
Two tears tracked down his face—the Engineer's, the Doctor's—as if the last well of love he held for her had cracked from yet another angle, leaving almost nothing behind. The tiny pool that remained, she thought, could perhaps be salvaged, mended. It could never be what it was, but what remained might be enough if she worked hard enough.
Her hand stretched out, reaching for that ideal of change, but the tragedy of her character was that such hopes were too heavy to bear. Their circumstances had made them ill-matched. That outstretched hand—which in another light might have been a little girl reaching for her father—instead grabbed the notes he'd left for her care.
She took care of herself that night. She never made it home for dinner.
She blinked—the Engineer left the room, his wife trailing behind. Another blink, and it was the Doctor again. In that moment, she understood: the flaw in their perfection had been her.
Then darkness took her.
Her eyes were pried open once more by that same antiseptic smell but this time something else, something light and fresh made her fully awake. Drawing on the strength of a long sleep, she pushed herself up to sitting. Sage burned nearby, its smoke curling past bouquets of flowers that crowned a long, flat woven basket on the windowsill. Above, stainless steel pendants dangled, catching the morning light and scattering colored rays across the room.
She drew a deep breath. A green screen flashed before her—another Axis message—but she swiped it away before it could play. She'd already grasped the mission statement: deploy to a world on the brink, save it, return, try not to die in the process. Got it. Though the Axis system urged her to review information about her borrowed body, she dismissed that too. Something told her this girl had lived a life too familiar to her own.
The aide returned—a plump woman, fair-skinned and surprisingly youthful in appearance. But Dana could tell, aided by the screen that materialized beside the woman, that she was middle-aged—thirty, ancient by this world's standards. The display revealed more: she'd never consumed ash, whatever that was, and had always cared for the girl in this bed.
Dana smiled at her. It seemed the polite thing to do.
The aide apologized for the overwhelming array of flowers, herbs, and smoky incense. As she opened the window, a fresh breeze rushed in with unexpected force, carrying the scent of grass and last night's dew, mixing with the existing fragrances.
"Don't apologize," Dana told her. The alcohol and antiseptic might have stirred her, but it was the sweetness of the flowers that truly brought her back to life. The scene was perfect. She smiled again. It seemed the polite thing to do.
Now, where the hell are those guys, she wondered.
//////////////////////////////////
The six of them—Hayazaki, Surya, Alexander, Shen, Angela, and Riley—made an odd group in the hospital. Odder still was their newfound fame; according to the Doctor, they had accumulated scores of admirers and earned an audience request from both the Chief Doctor and the city's health council. So much for laying low.
They'd been placed in quarantine, ostensibly to protect them from their sudden popularity. The healer had presented it as a kindness, and perhaps it partly was, but his frequent check-ins revealed another truth: he was as much a fan as anyone, merely keeping them to himself.
"We need to find a way out of here," Kayode muttered.
Shen, crouched in the corner, studied their Axis terminals. "Some features are locked," he reported. "Apparently we need to level up to access them."
The door swung open as Alexander hurried in, clutching a bag of food. He dumped it on the tray beside Angela's bed, the noise barely disturbing her sleep. Since Hayazaki's disappearance, Alexander—now known as Srevan—had become their de facto leader and chief morale officer. They might have turned to Shen, but the group needed encouragement more than sarcasm, and while Hayazaki had excelled at lifting spirits, Alexander was a close second. Yet even he seemed stressed.
"There's a crowd everywhere I turn in this damn place. What's the big deal?" he lamented.
"Not dying is apparently a religious thing," Surya explained, studying his Axis screen. "Surviving a deadly raid that killed hundreds of thousands and—" He turned to Shen as they all realized they'd been somewhat ignoring him.
Shen, frustrated but accustomed to being overlooked, rose and made a swiping gesture. Suddenly, his Axis screen materialized in their field of vision alongside their own terminals.
Angela squeezed her eyes tighter, irritated by the sudden flash of light interrupting her attempt at sleep.
They watched in amazement as Shen manipulated his terminal, his actions instantly mirrored on their own screens. None of them had realized he'd already mastered so much of the system's capabilities.
Shen navigated through the system, opening a pathway that displayed their information in neat, holographic panels. The data appeared like official identification cards floating before them: name, race, height, weight, and other vital statistics arranged in crisp, glowing text.
Riley's panel identified her as a Zelion, standing nearly seven feet tall with crimson skin. Hayazaki's showed him as a Malara, slight of build with that characteristic purple tinge. Dana's marked her as a Pathos, her noble lineage evident in her stats. The rest—Shen as Ardon, Kayode as Listik, Surya as Njord, Alexander as Srevan, and Angela as Freya—were classified as unridden.
"Most of the population here are unridden," Shen explained, gesturing at their data.
"You sure about that?" Surya quipped. "Because from what I've seen, this world seems pretty ridden to me."
The unexpected wordplay drew a surprised laugh from Kayode, breaking the tension.
Shen acknowledged the irony, though he didn't laugh. The ridden—Zelions, Malaras, and Pathos—who had either been engineered or evolved cancerous growths and biological abnormalities to cope with this world's constant sickness, were paradoxically its healthiest inhabitants.
"Zelions developed their red skin from enhanced blood circulation," he explained, "necessary in a world where most diseases shut down blood flow. Their strength compensates for the weakness these illnesses bring." Riley unconsciously flexed her crimson fingers.
"And the Malara?" Alexander asked, slowly lowering the fruit he'd been eating. Surya had already set his aside.
"The food, water, even the air in most of the city is contaminated," Shen continued. "Malaras evolved immunity to these poisons. That's why you'll find them concentrated in the poorest, most polluted districts."
The room fell into solemn silence. They finally had a clue to Hayazaki's whereabouts, but the knowledge brought them no comfort.
Kayode pushed himself off the wall. "We have to find him," he voiced what they were all thinking.
"Relax," Shen assured him. "We're all on the same page. But before we do anything, we need to understand what we're dealing with."
Kayode's face remained tense, but he conceded. For all his brashness, he knew when to acknowledge reason. He resumed his position against the wall.
"Now, the Pathos," Shen continued, "are different from the other subgroups. While the others evolved through desperate adaptation to this world's extremes, the Pathos were deliberately crafted—the result of a thousand-year genetic experiment selecting and passing down the healthiest traits as dominant features."
He began ticking off their advantages: "Their antibodies neutralize both old and new viruses on contact—they rarely get sick. Their digestive systems run like precision machines. Their brains operate at peak efficiency. Strong bones, strong muscles. They live to ninety."
"That might not sound impressive to us," he added, "coming from a world where developing nations average seventy to eighty years. But here, where most die by thirty—and reaching thirty means surviving countless diseases—a healthy sixty-year-old is practically mythical."
"So naturally," he concluded, "they're this world's elite. Which means we know exactly where to look for Dana."
"So what's the catch?" Kayode asked. "There's always a catch with this kind of stuff."
"You're right," Shen nodded. "The Axis system has features that could help us save our friends and complete our mission, but they're locked behind levels." He swiped through various greyed-out icons in their display.
"Look at what we're missing: detailed maps of the city and dungeons, a weapon identification system that analyzes and provides specifications for any armament we encounter, and most importantly—" he paused for emphasis, "—character profiles that would let us read people's goals, ambitions, and personalities before we even meet them. Imagine navigating this world's social hierarchy with that kind of insight."
Shen continued to scroll through the locked features. "There's more—mission goal tracking, a subspace storage system for our equipment, and even the ability to enhance our ash-burning powers. But right now, everything's severely restricted."
"Figures," Kayode sighed. "Show us all these amazing tools, then don't let us actually use them."
"Not exactly," Shen corrected. "We can unlock full access—by completing missions and leveling up." He highlighted the experience metrics in their displays. "More tasks completed means more features unlocked, bringing us closer to our ultimate goal. We just have to earn it."
Shen looked around at the group before launching into what some might call a half-baked speech, his natural lack of charisma showing through. "We died," he began, "but we got a second chance. And somehow, in that second chance, we found each other. We can't lose anyone—not even one. That's too many." He paused, struggling with the words. "Yes, we have a job to do, but more importantly, we have to find each other. And if we get through this hell only to land in another one, we still have to find each other. No matter what."
When he finished, Surya braced for the cringe. Riley looked away. Kayode muttered something about barely knowing each other and melodrama. Shen felt his face burning with embarrassment.
But they all knew his clumsy words had struck something true within them. They needed to find their friends. Save the world, yes, but do it together. In this world, and every world after.
That was the promise.
That was the promise.