The sun barely peeked over the horizon as Alonso laid upon the carcass of a dead panther, his bare chest heaving as he caught his breath. The panther's neck had a clean cut, blood still dripping down its skull as if something had been taken from its brain.

His body was covered in blood and dirt—it had been a long night. He was shirtless, wearing nothing but tattered pants that had turned into shorts, along with boxers of questionable condition.

Alonso glanced at the rising sun, its soft light washing over the beach, and then back at the dead panther beneath him. His body ached everywhere, but the satisfaction of making it this far dulled the pain. He had killed his 38th panther. Only 11 more to go if the cap was indeed 49, but he already felt the strain of each encounter taking its toll. He needed rest, and as he saw the sun creep up, it was clear he wouldn’t finish the hunt in one night.

“Well, if you hadn’t taken that break for dinner, we would have finished today.”

“We would have, or we would have been dead, who knows. And mom used to say one needed an hour's break after dinner, right?”

He smiled, keeping his gaze on the sky as a worm darted straight for his face, skewered effortlessly by his sword.

Early bird gets the worm, he thought, laughing at the sudden thought. He picked up the orb, feeling its smooth surface in his hand.

“It seems the zone does indeed transition from panthers at night to worms in the day,” he thought as he remained relaxed. He wasn’t far from the beach, barely 2 km into the jungle, so there was no need to hurry. Single worm assaults here were easily manageable.

“So it’s technically possible to overcome the zone facing either.”

“But facing four worms seems a lot more manageable than having four panthers come at you at once. That’s probably more than a ton of muscle mass, and with very little body fat at that.”

He then stood up, stretched his tired body, and started leisurely walking back to the beach, playing with the orb in his hand. His sword moved casually, cutting down the occasional kamikaze worm brave enough to go after him. He’d thought about it—there wasn’t much point in collecting too many orbs. Maybe just one of each kind to see if there was any difference, but beyond that? Seemed pointless.

“I mean, seriously, why did you and Abhijit collect orbs in the first place?”

“Houston, you’re a voice inside my head. You know that, right? You’re the dark side of my pure thoughts, the sulfur to my clean air, the caffeine to my sleepless nights, the entropy to my neatly ordered chaos.”

“You’re really going for it, huh?”

“Oh, absolutely. You’re the gravity pulling me down when I want to fly. The static that messes with my perfectly clear signal. The bloody friction to my smooth sail.”

“Well, somebody’s poetic today. Still, I’d say I’m more like… the poison in your veins. The thing that keeps you fighting just long enough to realize you’re dying slowly.”

Alonso smirked. “See? You always get me, Houston. It’s like—”

“Like I know each and every one of your thoughts before you even have them, right?”

“Exactly!”

He flicked the orb up and caught it as he strolled down the beach, his sword instinctively slicing through another worm, which barely registered in his mind.

“You’re also the salt in my wound. The rust on my otherwise flawless blade. The damn password I can’t remember when I’m trying to log in.”

“And you’re the idiot who forgot to write it down.”

Alonso chuckled, enjoying the back-and-forth, even as the exhaustion from the night’s hunt weighed heavily on his body. His strides were slower, the sun warm on his back as he finally reached the shoreline.

“You know,” Alonso said, twirling the orb in his hand. “Maybe you’re also the taxes I have to pay after winning the lottery.”

“I’m flattered. Truly.”

Alonso continued walking, the sun now fully rising over the horizon. The beach stretched out before him, quiet and peaceful in stark contrast to the night he had just survived. His bare feet left faint prints in the sand as he absentmindedly played with the orb in his hand.

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“It’s beautiful, don’t you think?”

“Still doesn’t change the fact that this whole island’s out to kill you.”

Alonso smiled, his lips curving upward almost reflexively. “Yeah, but you know... I’m still standing.”

The phrase lingered, and suddenly, a familiar tune hit him. Every note, every word. He remembered it perfectly. Without thinking, he tossed the orb into the sky. The sunlight caught its smooth surface, making it gleam. Alonso spun on his heel, turning in a fluid motion, catching the orb with practiced ease.

“Please… just… no.”

Alonso started to hum, the beat coming naturally. He tossed the orb higher, his feet moving to the rhythm. A smile stretched across his face as he started singing aloud, the lyrics perfectly matching the melody in his mind. He felt the sand shift under his feet as he twirled, his body loosening up.

“You’ve completely lost it.”

Alonso swayed his hips, shuffling his feet in an exaggerated rhythm, the sand beneath him soft but refusing to cooperate with the slickness of the moves he imagined in his head. He couldn’t help it—the rhythm had him now. His body felt lighter, and for a moment, the weight of survival was gone. He tossed the orb in a lazy arc again, spinning once, then attempting a backward glide—his best approximation of a moonwalk.

"Who even told you you could dance?"

Alonso chuckled, catching himself as his heels sank awkwardly into the sand, the "moonwalk" more of a shuffle and a stumble. He tried again, dragging his feet across the beach, leaving uneven streaks as the sand clung stubbornly to his soles.

"Please, for the love of—just stop."

"Hey, I’m feeling it," Alonso muttered, his feet sliding across the sand in a series of exaggerated steps, mimicking a spin. "This was much easier on hardwood floors."

He tossed the orb over his shoulder, doing a quick pirouette, only to catch it with a quick snatch behind his back. It almost slipped, but he recovered, grinning to himself.

"Are you actually enjoying this? You look like you're battling an invisible army of ants."

Ignoring Houston’s constant commentary, Alonso decided to go for one last dramatic move. He spun hard, trying to twist his body with a burst of newfound energy. But halfway through the second turn, he miscalculated. His momentum—combined with the slippery sand and his newfound strength—sent him off-balance. His legs buckled, and with a laugh of pure surprise, he toppled backward.

He landed flat on his back, arms sprawled out, eyes wide open as he stared up at the bright sky.

"Are you sure you are still standing?"

Alonso burst out laughing, lying in the sand, the first rays of the sun warming his face.

“I hate to interrupt your dissociative episode where you're engaging in avoidant behavior to cope with the mounting psychological and physical stress of your current environment, but you’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Alonso grinned and then closed his eyes. Nothing seemed to be happening, minutes passing by quietly.

“I guess I still got it in me,” Alonso chuckled as he sensed the words in the EM space in front of him, forming a stationary modal structure reading: I LOVE U 2 HOUSTON.

The message hung there, flickering ever so slightly, like a digital afterimage only he could see. He let out a small laugh, feeling a strange comfort in the absurdity of it all—writing messages to a voice in his head, using EM waves also controlled by the same mind.

"Very cute. A textbook case of anthropomorphizing your own survival instinct."

Alonso shrugged. “If I’m going to hallucinate, I might as well have some fun with it, right?”

"Sure, because nothing says fun like prolonged isolation, hypervigilance, and cognitive dissonance. Your coping mechanisms are adorable."

“Don’t worry, Houston, you’ll always be my number one.”

Alonso took a deep breath and stood up, his back straight as he surveyed the assortment of hides, tendons, fangs and bones he had foraged from the night hunt. “So what first? Designing clothes, fashioning a weapon from the metallic fangs, or should we work on my private status screen?”

"Do you even know how to make leather from that unbendable hide? Good luck with that—I’m sure you’ve got all the tools and expertise you need just lying around. And a weapon with the fangs? What’s the big plan there? Shove them in a pouch and throw them? Or are we going for the slingshot method now? Because, you know, you’re so well-equipped for that too."

Alonso laughed at the thought. “You’re not wrong, but I could at least try something simple. A shirt maybe… can’t be too hard.”

"You mean a shirt that’ll fit like a medieval torture device? Sure, sounds promising."

Alonso shrugged off Houston's mockery and ran a hand over the hide. "You know, Houston, it's not like I'm trying to make designer fashion here. I just need something that’ll last longer than this ragged excuse for shorts."

"Yeah, because patching together a shirt from animal hide using... what, vines and hope? That’s going to end well."

He picked up a smooth stone and spent the next half hour pounding the hide with considerable strength, hoping to soften it up. His arms ached from the repetitive motion, but it seemed like he was making some headway. The hide became slightly more pliable, and for a brief moment, he thought he was onto something. But when he tried folding it, the material still resisted, as stiff and unyielding as ever.

"Okay, maybe I’m not quite the survivalist I thought I was."

"Surprise, surprise. Who knew making medieval garments wasn’t as easy as just smashing things with rocks?"