Helianna woke to the bright sunlight in her face, already sweating despite it being early dawn. Her lips were drying out, and combined with the pounding headache, it was truly a terrible start to the day. She looked around, quickly seeing the other three asleep. Ruusaan had eventually fallen asleep during her desperate rowing, while Sylas had eventually stopped rowing as well. Ruusaan looked like she was about to fall off the raft, curled over with her good arm hanging in the water.

Helianna groaned and sat up, pulling Ruusaan into a better position. Despite her arm being disturbingly pruny, she seemed fine. Helianna had no clue what was in the waters in these areas, but she didn’t want to risk what she didn’t have to. They weren’t particularly close to The Broken Ocean, which had all sorts of dangerous fauna, but they were still close enough that a stray creature may come by.Besides, If she left her hand in the water too long, she knew it could cause serious skin issues, an issue she didn’t want to add to their unending list.

She looked around, and relief instantly flooded her features. They weren’t quite at land, but they were drastically closer than they were yesterday. At this point, she figured she might actually have a chance of swimming there. The second she had the thought, her mind instantly started spiraling.

Lesin was a complete liability at this point, and Ruusaan likely was as well. Sylas was probably doing the best of the four of them, but she couldn’t trust his sensibilities. He didn’t seem to understand that you can’t help anyone else if you’re already dead. If she was less injured, she was confident her best bet would be to swim to the shore right now and try to survive on her own. Her injuries were the problem. Her shoulder ached and when she shifted, she had a solid guess as to how bad the injury was. She had probably fractured her upper arm, likely also spraining it at the same time. Her back, while no longer bleeding, was far from fully functional and she was sure exertion like swimming would open it back up again.

After thinking about it more thoroughly, even if she managed to swim to shore, she would likely be in just as bad of a position. While they couldn’t get any water now, finding it on shore wouldn’t be much easier. As far as she could tell, it went from ocean to beach and then almost straight to desert. Considering they were on the coast of the wastelands of Prakanai, that seemed apt and a likely deathtrap. No better than the ocean. At least in the ocean, they could possibly fish? She knew how to fish, but it’s not like they had any equipment with them. And she had no idea how to jerry-rig anything for that.

She had no idea if Sylas had any ideas and figured it would be best to wait to see if he had any knowledge. Maybe Ruusaan did as she had more experience on the ocean. Not wanting to waste energy that she knew would likely become precious, she elected to remain laying there until at least one of the others woke up.

But before long, it became an exercise in self-control. She wanted to do something, but she had woken up with the dawn and the two of them had stayed up late paddling fruitlessly. While they were closer to land, she was certain it wasn’t their doing. They were likely trying to go in the direction of a voice and hand-paddling in the ocean was useless. She was surprised to catch her mind wandering. She wasn’t sure if it was because of how hungry and thirsty she was, if it was blood loss from her stabbing yesterday, or a combination of both. Or maybe she had taken a hit to the head along with her shoulder when the shrapnel hit them.

By the time the others started to wake up, Helianna had almost managed to fall back to sleep. Fortunately for her, it was Sylas, but the second the thought crossed her mind, she reeled in horror. She preferred interacting with Sylas over this random girl simply because the girl was being overly emotional? She clearly had gotten a concussion from the shrapnel.

He groaned and they locked eyes before he shifted to a more comfortable position. The movement and sound woke up the lightly sleeping Ruusaan. She looked around confused, her tired mind struggling to make sense of where she was. When she did, it all rushed back at once, waking her up in moments. She bolted upright, scanning the waters for signs of other people. She tried to stand up, but the raft was too unstable and she immediately fell, almost tumbling into the ocean. She tried a couple more times, each time only making the raft wobble more, drenching Helianna who had remained laying down.

“Calm down! You’re going to flip us!” Sylas commanded.

“But I can’t see them!”

“There’s too much wind. You won’t be able to see anything until the swells lower more.”

“No, no, no, no!” Ruusaan yelled, each ‘no’ getting progressively louder. “You fucking lied! I can’t see them! I have no clue if they’re out there! You should’ve helped!”

“Ruusaan-”

“No! I don’t give a damn! This is all your fault! We’ve never had any issues! Ever! Even on the dangerous missions, we never had a problem! We’ve only ever lost one! And now you show up and they’re gone! They’re fucking gone! I heard them and what did you tell me to do? You told me to ignore them! I’m alone with you fucking psychos and now everyone is gone!”

She collapsed down on the raft, sobbing uncontrollably. Sylas reached forward, giving her an awkward pat on the back.

“Don’t fucking touch me!”

Sylas pulled away and looked at her helplessly. Neither Sylas nor Helianna spoke, the sloshing of the water against the raft only broken up by sobs from Ruusaan. Unsure what to say, they remained in silence. Helianna knew she had wanted to ask something when she woke up, but couldn’t remember for the life of her. By the time Ruusaan quieted, the sun was beating down on them from high in the sky.

“We should try to paddle to land,” Sylas quietly said.

“It won’t help,” Helianna refuted. “Our hands aren’t big enough to make a difference.”

“Better than sitting here doing nothing.”

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“You’re wasting energy. You need to save everything.”

“Fuck off.” Sylas started paddling as Helianna went silent, not dignifying his insult with a response. Ruusaan started paddling shortly after, not looking at either of them. With none of them wanting to speak to each other, the time passed quietly, Sylas taking occasional breaks while Ruusaan paddled endlessly. Lesin even groaned and shifted at one point, but never roused from consciousness. By the time the sun fell below the horizon, they were noticeably closer to the shore, but with how thirsty they all were, it couldn’t seem farther away. They all went to sleep with their mouths feeling dry. Helianna was doing the best while Ruusaan struggled from all the exertion making her sweat. By the time she stopped for the night only due to her exhaustion, she was swaying near constantly.

There was an audible slap as she collapsed back onto the raft. Despite knowing that Ruusaan was exhausting herself and could be first to die if they couldn’t find water, she didn’t say anything. She knew any attempts to dissuade Ruusaan from her actions wouldn’t help.

The second day on the raft began with a pounding headache from all of them. However, the first to groan as they slowly woke up was Lesin, rising from consciousness for the first time in over a day. Sylas was the first to notice him waking up, instantly scrambling towards him.

“Lesin?” Sylas asked, a hint of desperation audible in his voice.

“Who? Oh… I remember now,” Lesin said weakly and smiled. “You two are insane, you know that?”

Sylas lightly slapped Helianna’s shoulder, trying to get her to pay attention.

“Lesin, how are you feeling?”

“Like hell. My head hurts. Skin feels like it’s on fire. Mouth… it’s a little hard to breathe. My tongue feels funny. How long have I been out?”

“A little over a day.”

“It’s… hard to think.”

“You took a pretty bad hit to the head.”

“Oh… I guess that makes sense.”

Helianna interrupted, “Who do you work for?” Lesin narrowed his eyes.

“Why?”

“We’re looking for allies. And clearly we are both fighting against The Academy.”

“Not… fighting.”

“Regardless, you’re not exactly in good relations with them.”

“Helianna, stop. He’s clearly more lucid.” Sylas requested. “We can have this conversation when he’s not just woken up properly for the first time.”

“No. Head injuries like this are unpredictable. We have to ask while we can.”

“Do I get a say?” Lesin asked weakly. Both Sylas and Helianna took a deep breath as they scowled at each other, prompting Lesin to push himself up slightly. “Look for a broken chain. We all wear them.”

“A broken chain?” Helianna asked, realization clear on her face. He felt around his belt, but couldn’t find it.

“It’s a chain with seven links. The last one is broken.”

“I’ve seen it before,” Helianna said quietly.

“Yeah?” Helianna didn’t respond, her mind racing as she tried to place every time she’d seen it.

“The execution! The tijatan that was going to kill you, Sylas!” He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “We have to go there once we survive this.”

“Yeah, yeah. I got it,” he begrudgingly agreed.

“What?” Lesin asked, confused.

“They wanted to fight against The Academy and captured his team. They had these insane weapons,” Sylas explained.

Lesin hummed as he thought, laying back down.

“You alright, Lesin?”

“Yeah, just tired. Sleeping’s good for the brain, right?”

“I guess?” Sylas responded, perplexed.

“Wait, before you fall asleep again, I still have questions,” Helianna requested.

“W…what?” Lesin asked, clearly struggling to keep his eyes open.

“What’s the organization called?”

“Organization?” he asked groggily. He was clearly losing consciousness quickly, far too quickly to be healthy.

“The one that has to do with the broken chain?” Sylas prompted.

“Just…. it’s just….”

Lesin’s head drooped and he stopped responding. After a couple attempts to wake him up, they fell into silence once more and Sylas and Ruusaan went back to paddling. The day remained uneventful, but they were all starting to run ragged. Between the spray of the see and the insane heat of the sun, their skin was burnt and peeling. Their lips were split in multiple places and their headaches and dizziness came more often. Sylas was doing the best of the three by a significant margin, but he was certainly not free from the effects. Ruusaan thought she may have seen a turtle in the ocean. Knowing that killing one and drinking its blood in place of water could save them, she splashed into the water as soon as she saw it. Unfortunately, it was too far below the surface and when she splashed in, she lost track of it, assuming it was even there to begin with.

Ruusaan passed out later in the day, but neither Helianna nor Sylas were certain whether it was from dehydration or exhausted. With Sylas having long stopped paddling, neither of them had the energy to check. Even with all the burns on her skin, Helianna could feel the wound on her back burning intensively and she was sure it was getting infected. Between her body trying to fight it off and dealing with dehydration, the only thing that could convince her to move would be the raft beaching.

When Helianna slept that night, it was one of the most uniquely awful things she’d ever experienced. Sylas was still managing due to his species being more compatible to the heat, but Helianna was on her last legs. While awake, pain burned across her body and she felt feverish. Her bouts of wakefulness never lasted long however, her exhausted and dehydrated body forcing her back into unconsciousness. The bliss of unconsciousness never remained long however, her feverish body unable to decide whether it was better to be awake or asleep.

Between trying to sleep and rest, she felt herself slipping into dreams as she slept. When she woke however, her mind was unprepared and her dreams followed her into the waking world, manifesting as hallucinations. She knew she was slipping in and out of consciousness, but she could never tell what state she was in, a red haze clouding her vision throughout both states.

Her dreams were of someone performing surgery on her in a futuristic world. There was runetech far beyond anything available, completely replacing any surgeon that should have been there. There was no anesthesia and it felt as if they were operating on her whole body, constant pain throughout it. The abomination of runetech that was operating on her had countless eyes looking down on her, reminiscent of stars in the sky, observing her in countless detail. Behind the abomination were dark, drab walls that she could never see the details of, but was constantly there. She felt a massive shudder as the abomination shifted the table she was laying on to get better access to her wounds and she couldn’t hold back a groan. She wasn’t sure if she groaned in real life or if she was still asleep. Regardless, the operation continued throughout the night.

The hallucination faded shortly before the sun rose, leaving her to stare up into the sky in a pained daze. Nobody had noticed her wound glowing brightly throughout the night and slowly fading with the daylight. As she lay there, she failed to notice that the raft was no longer in constant motion or that the sound of the ocean had changed to the sound of crashing waves.