John blinked, his foot skidding against something wet and rubbery. He barely caught himself before he fell, glancing down to see a misshapen organ, slick and glistening in the streetlights. A lung? A stomach? He didn’t know. Didn’t want to. His grip on the revolver tightened instinctively, then slackened. The metal was soaked in blood, so slick it nearly slipped from his fingers as he fumbled it back into its holster. His hands were shaking. He flexed them, trying to stop the tremors. It didn’t help.

  “So— It’s over?”

  The words felt hollow as they left his mouth, barely louder than the wind whistling through the ravaged parking lot. John raised a hand to his temple, massaging away the dull, throbbing ache settling behind his eyes. His gaze swept across the carnage. Chunks of flesh littered the pavement. Blood pooled in fractured asphalt. His car lay in ruins, one half caved in like it had been hit by a wrecking ball.

  “I… I did that?”

  His own voice sounded distant. Disbelieving. The moment he spoke, reality crashed down on him in full force. He rushed to his dropped P50, gripping it tightly, as if having a weapon in hand would anchor him back to something real. He forced himself to look at the aftermath—really look—but the more he saw, the less it felt like something he had actually done.

  Too close.

  Way too close.

  He let out a long, shuddering breath, pulling a cigarette from his pocket. The flare of his lighter cast fleeting, shaky shadows across his blood-streaked face. He took a drag, letting the acrid smoke fill his lungs, but it did nothing to steady him. His fingers still trembled. His gaze flickered to the Spell Glove on his wrist. The spell inside was still waiting, unspent.

  John swallowed as a cold shiver crawled down his spine. He tore his eyes away before the thoughts could take root and turned toward the keypad by the apartment entrance instead. The familiar beeping of the door unlocking greeted him.

  He hesitated.

  The air felt thicker somehow, pressing in around him as he stepped inside the dull, lifeless hallway. The off-white wallpaper was still peeling at the corners, just as it always had. The cracked light above the stairwell still buzzed faintly.

  It was all so normal.

  And yet…

  John forced a dry chuckle as he took another drag. “Feels wrong,” he muttered to himself. “Like I don’t belong here anymore.” His eyes flickered to the corner of his vision.

  His stomach churned.

  “Always here,” he whispered, exhaling a curl of smoke. “Always watching.”

  The weight of the revolver on his hip suddenly felt unbearable. His boots thudded against the concrete stairs, his heartbeat pounding in sync with each step. When he finally reached his apartment door, he hesitated again, hand resting against the wood. His keys jingled in his grip, but he didn’t move. A sick, crawling sensation twisted in his gut, telling him that once he stepped inside, something would be different. That if he emptied his apartment—if he packed his bags—then there would be no coming back. “Escape is always an option. But…”

  The image of the Ship flashed behind his eyes. The fishmen. The blood. The way their bodies crumpled under his gunfire, like puppets with cut strings. John inhaled sharply, eyes screwing shut. “Do I even want to leave?” The thought should have repulsed him. He was standing in his apartment hallway, barely ten feet from the life he had before all this. He should be running, should be doing everything in his power to claw his way back to normalcy.

  But was that even an option anymore?

  His first death flickered through his mind, sharp and unforgiving. “Can I leave?”

  If Chase was right, then he’d be a fugitive for the rest of his life. Always looking over his shoulder. Always running.

  And the checkpoint.

  The word Permanence loomed at the edges of his thoughts, dark and suffocating.

  John clenched his jaw, exhaling slowly. He still had no idea how the checkpoint worked. If the Authority shifted it, he could end up in a completely impossible situation without even realizing it. What then? Would he keep fighting until he lost his mind? Until he was whittled down to nothing but a desperate, blood-soaked survivor?

  Or…

  John’s gaze dropped to the revolver on his hip.

  Or would he end it on his own terms?

  A thick, suffocating silence stretched between him and the question, lingering in the space between his ribs. His mind turned the thought over, again and again, but no satisfactory answer came. He clicked his tongue and slammed the door open. The moment he stepped inside, the air shifted. It was his apartment. He knew that. The same shitty little studio he had lived in for three years. His shoes by the door. The half-drunk bottle of soda on the counter. The unmade bed in the corner.

  And yet…

  Something felt wrong. Like he had wandered into someone else’s home.

  John swallowed hard, forcing himself to move. His hands worked on autopilot, grabbing an empty backpack and shoving his laptop inside, followed by some clothes and a handful of snacks.

  “What else?” he muttered, scanning the space. His eyes landed on a small figurine by his desk—something from a show he used to love. He stared at it. It meant nothing now. Just dust-collecting clutter. A useless thing that had no place in the world he was heading toward. A hollow laugh bubbled up in his throat. “Is this really the life I want?”

  No answer.

  The ceiling above him stretched endless and white as he dropped onto the floor, staring blankly at the tiny imperfections in the paint. His fingers curled into fists as his mind raced. “Helping Chase was one thing. But this?” His voice cracked as he punched the air in frustration. “I never signed up for this Hidden World bullshit! I just wanted to help my friend!”

  His breath hitched. “…Can I go back?” His hand inched toward one of his guns. A quiet, sickening thought twisted in his mind.

  What if the checkpoint hadn’t moved?

  What if, the second he died, he found himself right back in the parking lot?

  What if he reset to fifteen seconds ago?

  The weight of uncertainty pressed against his chest. John sat up slowly, gripping the strap of his bag. His gaze swept across his tiny, unremarkable studio, taking in every last detail. He knew, with bone-deep certainty, that he would never see this apartment again. John stood in the dimly lit hallway, his hand resting on the doorknob for just a second longer than necessary. The air inside his apartment still carried the faint scent of coffee—traces of a life that felt like it belonged to someone else. He exhaled sharply, turning the key with a final click before pulling it free. For a moment, he stared at the keys in his palm, their edges warm from his grip. Something in him wanted to keep them, as if they could tether him to the version of himself that had lived here, but he knew better. With a long sigh, he shoved them into the mailbox slot and let them fall with a dull clink.

  “Goodbye,” he murmured, offering the building one last half-hearted wave before stepping away. He didn’t look back.

  The moment he entered the Ship, an artificial warmth pressed into his skull, wrapping around his thoughts like velvet shackles. A manufactured flood of reassurance surged through him—calm, pleasant, utterly invasive. It was like stepping into a dream that wanted to smother him in soft lies. John gritted his teeth, pushing back against the intrusive haze. His doubts, his anger, his exhaustion—he forced himself to hold onto them, to remember that they were real. The pressure receded, but the lingering weight in his chest remained.

  “Why won’t you stop doing that?” His voice was raw, scraping against the silence of the Ship. “You know it doesn’t work.”

  The machine, as always, gave no answer.

  A sharp buzz from his HiddenNet Terminal cut through his thoughts. He blinked and pulled it from his pocket, his eyes narrowing as he read the message.

  Chase: Are you alright? Did you do that? It was you, right?

  John felt a flicker of something—annoyance, guilt, maybe both—as his fingers hesitated over the screen.

  Thomas: Did what?

  The fake name stared back at him. Thomas Greenheart. A stranger’s identity, one that Chase had lying in a drawer somewhere, now strapped to John’s life like a mask he couldn’t remove.

  Chase: You know exactly what I’m talking about! That mess in front of your apartment.

  Thomas: And what if I did?

  A pause. Then, another message.

  Chase: Glad you’re okay. Glamour was already set up by Ninth Street, so that won’t cause too many issues. Cleanup’s gonna be a pain, but I’ll pull some strings to get assigned to the case.

  Chase: Be careful. The Ninth Street is going to connect the dots eventually. They don’t know your name, but they’ll have a description. If they find you, they’ll hunt you down like a dog. Lay low.

  John let out a quiet snort.

  Thomas: A werewolf making dog metaphors?

  Chase: Fuck off.

  A middle finger emoji popped up on the screen, and despite everything, John found himself smirking. He exhaled through his nose, tapping through the confusing UI until he finally found the emoji menu. “Now I know how Grandpa felt when I taught him how to open a PDF,” he muttered, sending Chase a dog emoji in return.

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  The moment of levity passed too quickly, leaving behind only the hum of the Ship and the weight pressing down on his shoulders. He leaned back, staring at the controls. "What now?" he whispered. His fingers twitched toward the cigarette already between them, but after a moment, he sighed and tucked it away. Maybe he should focus on magic. The Bazaar was an option. But even thinking about it made his head ache. The last time he had let a Spell Component be forced into his mind, the sensation had nearly shattered him. His hands curled into fists at the memory. Instead, he turned to the screen, typing with practiced ease, guided by a knowledge that felt both foreign and familiar. The map flickered, lines of code shifting before his eyes until the screen displayed something new—an amorphous, floating bubble pulsing with deep violet light.

  “The Bubble Chase mentioned,” John murmured. “How creative.”

  His eyes traced the web of white tendrils stretching out from it, snaking toward an impossibly bright dot in the center of the screen. The sheer number of connections made the dot resemble a glowing, tangled octopus. “That must be the Bazaar. Just how many of these connections are there?” he muttered. His eyed followed one tendril in particular—a path leading directly to that shining core.

  He hesitated, then selected it.

  A new message blinked onto the screen.

  "Layered dimension? What’s that nonsense again?" John muttered, his fingers hesitating over the glowing blue text. His pulse throbbed in his ears as he read it again.

  The words felt off, somehow. Like they didn’t belong.

  Still, he accepted. The moment he did, the Ship screamed. The lights overhead flickered wildly, shadows convulsing across the walls. A sudden pressure clamped around his chest like a fist crushing his ribs. He gasped, his heartbeat a stuttering, erratic mess as if something had reached inside his body and rewritten the way it was supposed to function. Metal ground against metal in a deafening screech, the whole vessel convulsing under an unseen force. The acrid stench of burnt plastic filled his nose as sparks exploded from the console, cascading over his hands.

  Then, the system spoke through a blue window that snapped in front of his eyes.

  The words barely registered before another wave of agony slammed into him as the blue windows cracked, only leaving behind an empty white outline. John barely had time to choke out a curse before his body betrayed him. His limbs seized, locking up in violent spasms as he crumpled out of his chair. His muscles twisted against themselves, his lungs forgetting how to breathe.

  Somewhere, the Ship’s console burst apart. A shockwave threw him across the room, his back slamming into a wall with a sickening crack. The moment he hit the ground, searing pain lanced through his chest.

  Something was inside him.

  John’s vision blurred as he tried to move—tried to scream—but all that came out was a wet, gurgling sound. Blood gushed from his mouth, dripping down his chin in thick, crimson ropes. His hands clawed at his chest, but he could already feel it. A jagged piece of metal had pierced straight through his lung. His vision wavered as he felt his body failing. Every heartbeat forced more blood into his mouth, his breaths coming in desperate, ragged gasps. His eyes rolled up toward the ceiling—toward the walls that were caving in.

  The Ship was losing.

  It was being crushed.

  Some vast, unseen force was folding the hull inwards, as if the entire vessel was caught in a massive, invisible fist.

  And then, from the shattered remnants of the blue window—

  Something emerged.

  A black tendril shot forward, latching onto his forehead like a brand.

  John’s entire soul shattered.

  His mind broke apart into fractals, reality collapsing in on itself as a single word filled the void of his being—

  “P-Permanence.”

  His voice was barely human.

  The world vanished.

  John floated.

  Drifting through nothing.

  He couldn’t feel his body. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.

  For a moment, there was only silence. A silence so absolute it was as if existence itself had ceased.

  Then—

  Movement.

  A force pulled him, dragging him at impossible speeds through the nothingness. He felt it inside him—something stirring, something changing.

  A smile curled onto his lips, unbidden.

  Not his smile.

  His hand twitched.

  He looked down.

  It wasn’t his hand anymore.

  It was wrong.

  Black carapace replaced his skin, sleek and unnatural, smooth yet twisted. His fingers had elongated into long, curved claws, too sharp, too alien. His mind told him it was still his hand, but his eyes—

  His eyes knew better.

  The void pulsed around him, dark tendrils writhing just beyond the edges of perception. And for a single, suffocating moment—

  He wondered if he even was human anymore.

  A sudden whirring sound broke the silence.

  The void shattered.

  Kaleidoscopic cubes spun around him, twisting space itself as a bright, blinding light forced his eyes shut. A blue window snapped into place in front of him, text flashing in rapid succession—

  John gasped. Air rushed back into his lungs. The sweat on his skin felt too real. The cold steel of the Ship’s floor beneath him, the tremors wracking his body—he was back. He collapsed off his chair, shaking, his breath ragged. His trembling hands reached for his face, for his body. He could still feel the warmth of his own skin. Still feel the rapid thump of his pulse. But in his mind— The clawed hand still existed. Superimposed over his real one, lingering like an afterimage. A part of him whispered that it had been his all along.

  He shuddered. His body convulsed violently, too drained to contain the raw trauma of what had just happened. His stomach lurched. He barely managed to hold himself together. With great effort, he pulled himself up—only to freeze as his eyes locked onto the screen above the console.

  The map of the Bubble. The selector was already set on the Bazaar.

  All it would take was one press of the Enter key to go through the same agony again. Something in him clicked. A blue window flickered to life—

  John’s breath hitched. His hands shook as he fumbled for a cigarette, barely managing to light it with his unsteady fingers. The smoke curled from his lips, acrid and dry. But even as he inhaled, he couldn’t escape it. The pull, the clawed hand reaching for the void. It was similar to the Ship’s influence—the way it forced emotion, forced compliance—but this was different. It was primal. Unrestrained.

  He swallowed hard. “N-Not using the Ship to go to the Bazaar. Got it.” A weak chuckle left him, but there was no real humor in it. He turned to face the Ship, his gaze flickering between the darkened screen and his still-trembling fingers. “This was—” His voice wavered. “What are you?” His eyes drifted back down to his hand. “...And what am I?”

  The chair felt like a lifeline as he collapsed into it. For once, he didn’t resist the Ship’s influence. He let the forced calm wash over him, let it dull the edges of the fear still twisting inside him. It felt warm. Comforting. Too comforting. Then, like a snapping tether, something inside him jerked. John gasped. His whole body screamed at him—something inside him recoiling as if being torn away. His vision blurred. His fingers dug into the armrests. "A-Almost lost myself there,” he whispered. His pulse was erratic, his breathing unsteady.

  Something had tried to detach from him and every fiber of his being knew he couldn’t afford to let that happen. His grip on the cigarette tightened. The smoke did nothing to ease the weight pressing down on his chest.

  He exhaled slowly. "What did I get myself into?" A ghost of a smirk twitched at his lips. “Fucking Chase.” His voice was hoarse, exhausted. “That’ll teach me to talk to people.” He said with an half-hearted smile as a realization dawned on him.

  The checkpoint had moved.

  John slumped back in his chair, staring at the enormous screen before him, the words sinking in like lead. There was no going back. No way to undo what had happened in the Hidden World. A small part of him had clung to the hope that the checkpoint had remained, that some loophole might let him escape—but the Authority of Permanence had sealed his fate. His fingers hovered over the controls, cold with hesitation. “What now?” The screen cast a dull glow across his face as he risked a glance at the map. A vast, sprawling Bubble of interconnected worlds, seven in total, each one distinct, each one an enigma. His eyes flicked to the one closest to his own universe. “What if it happens again?”

  The question gnawed at the back of his mind like a parasite. The void. The pain. The thing that had reached into him. But hesitation meant nothing now. Gritting his teeth, he slammed the Enter key.

  The screen flickered. John barely breathed.

  Then, the map shifted. The emptiness was replaced by a top-down display of a new world. At first, his brain struggled to process what he was seeing. The terrain looked familiar—plains, forests, mountains—but everything was wrong. The grass shimmered in deep ocean blue, stretching across the land like an undulating sea. The trees stood tall and crooked, their pulsing branches covered in unnatural, triangular pink leaves that fluttered despite the absence of wind. Their trunks weren’t just bark—they seemed to breathe, expanding and contracting rhythmically, as though something inside them was alive. John slowly exhaled, eyes darting across the landscape as he moved the map. The impossible details stacked up—a river of magma carving through an arctic wasteland, jagged mountains piercing the sky at unnatural angles, vast patches of pitch-black void where the land simply ceased to exist. His fingers tightened around the edge of the console. "This place doesn't make any damn sense."

  His gaze landed on the name in the corner of the screen:

  A shudder crawled down his spine. "Faerie?" he muttered, the word leaving a strange taste in his mouth. "So that’s what it’s called." His hand moved on instinct, selecting a random area in the blue fields. A deep, familiar pull took hold of him, as if something implanted in his mind recognized the controls better than he did. His fingers moved with eerie precision, flipping switches, turning dials, adjusting parameters—actions he barely understood, yet executed flawlessly.

  The screen flashed.

  John scowled. “That’s… a lot.” A round trip would cost two hundred, almost half of his reserves. If something went wrong, if he burned through too much Improbability Factor—he could be stranded in a foreign world for hours. Maybe days. And if that happened, he’d be forced to— “No. Don’t think about it.” John closed his eyes for a moment, forcing his mind away from the sickening memories clawing at the edges of his thoughts. He needed to be smart. Efficient. Wasting resources wasn’t an option. He drummed his fingers against the console. "Should I go back to the Bazaar?"

  The thought lingered for a second before he shook his head. “No Credits left. No point.” That only left one question. “What’s next?” His eyes landed on his Spell Glove, and a familiar weight settled in his chest. The image of the sickly green fireball flared in his mind, its glow unnatural, its power undeniable. His fingers twitched, phantom heat lingering from the last time he’d used it. "I'm sure these… ‘improved’ spells are going to stand out," he murmured, clenching his fist, "but what other choice do I have?" His attention drifted to the Emulator Station. His mind felt strained, worn thin from everything he had learned today. Learning new Spell Components was an option—but if he pushed himself too hard, the Ship would force them into his mind, and he knew what that felt like.

  Pain. Agony. The sensation of something carving knowledge directly into his brain.

  A shiver ran through him. John leaned back, rubbing his face. “What about Authorities?” The thought sent a ripple of unease through his gut. Authorities were dangerous. A niche subject that someone like him had no right to know even existed. Mentioning them to Chase could raise suspicions, and the last thing he wanted was to lose the only friend he had in the Hidden World. He exhaled sharply. “No. Not yet. I’ll bother him later, once this mess is over.” That left only two viable paths: spell crafting and refining his magic. He needed to optimize. Find ways to cut down on the resource drain. If he could modify his spells to be more efficient, he could get more out of every encounter. His gaze fell on his P50. “Could I upgrade this?”

  John exhaled, a smirk twitching at the corner of his lips as he pulled out a cigarette. He had a day and a half to prepare. Not much time. But it would have to be enough. The lighter clicked, and acrid smoke curled into the air. He took a long, slow drag, eyes drifting back to the alien world displayed on the screen. Something about it called to him. His fingers flexed. The ghost of the clawed hand from before superimposed itself over his own, dark and sleek, something both foreign and familiar.

  He shivered. Not human.

  His gaze shifted to the Ship’s controls. His mind buzzed with calculations, strategies, plans. Despite everything—the exhaustion, the fear, the uncertainty—he felt the thrill of the unknown creeping in.

  "Suddenly," he murmured, smirking as he took another drag, "a day and a half doesn’t seem like a lot of time."