Chapter 1 — It All Keeps Coming Back. (26,773)

  The cover of darkness blankets the swamp. Alien creatures call into the night.

  Then an explosion—

  the violent crash of a spacecraft.

  Metal tears like paper. Parts rip free and tumble. Fire rolls across the sky. Moments later, thrusters ignite; a ship screams through the atmosphere and vanishes into the dark.

  The muck bubbles and steams.

  Suddenly, a hand bursts through.

  Arthur drags himself out of the mire, crawling forward. Blisters rise across his hands and face, already healing as he spits, hacks, and vomits swamp water from his lungs.

  A memory yanks him away.

  Arthur sits on a bed, half reading, half watching Sarah get dressed.

  He nudges her with his foot.

  “I’m the luckiest man in the universe,” he says, smiling.

  “I get to spend eternity with you.”

  Sarah turns. Crawls across the bed. Kisses him.

  “I love you.”

  She pulls away—

  her shirt suddenly soaked in blood.

  Arthur looks down—

  A jagged piece of steel juts from his chest.

  Memory and reality collapse together.

  Arthur screams as the pain hurls him back into the swamp.

  The steel shard pierces his chest, glowing faintly in the alien night.

  He winces, dragging it out inch by inch—every millimeter pure agony.

  Gasping, he collapses.

  The hole in his chest closes.

  Breath steadies. Pain ebbs.

  He shuts his eyes—

  Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

  —and opens them in the White Void.

  The Void is still. Every drop of rain hits like a drumbeat.

  Above him, the massive suspended orb of water sloshes uneasily.

  He sits beneath the canopy and calls into the white.

  “Can anyone hear me?”

  He tries again, louder.

  “Is anyone able to hear this?!”

  Silence.

  Arthur lowers his head to the table. Rain taps. Cold. Merciless.

  Nothing.

  Then—

  Arthur vanishes.

  In the real world, he rolls over and pushes himself upright.

  He talks to himself. No one else is listening.

  This is the first time he’s been truly alone in ten thousand years.

  “They would’ve survived the crash. I made it.”

  He runs through it in his mind.

  “Maybe they’re unconscious.”

  He shakes his head. “No… if I’m up, they should be too.”

  He scans the swamp.

  “Could be out of range. The crash could’ve scattered us miles apart.”

  He steadies himself.

  “The coin’s are functional—or I wouldn’t have reached the Void.”

  A faint smile. “At least they aren't broken. But finding them will be hell if they’re out of the box.”

  He exhales slowly.

  “I’ll have to come back with sensors and locate them. Their power sources will scream out here in a bog.”

  Arthur leans against a tree, doing quick mental math, orienting himself by the moons.

  Memory grips him again.

  A far-away forest. A far-off time.

  Arthur flips between a map and a compass.

  Sarah whispers from the Void, warm in his ear.

  “Are you lost again?”

  Arthur grins—this joke never dies.

  “Nooo…”

  A tone that absolutely means yes.

  “Good,” she teases. “Because that would be embarrassing.”

  She laughs—light, warm, loving.

  The sound echoes, pulling him back to the swamp.

  “What I wouldn’t give for a compass right now.”

  He presses a hand to the tree. The memory fades cleanly.

  “I wish you were here to keep me company, Sarah.”

  He studies the moons.

  “Liges Three. Adragu City should be two weeks that way.”

  He points into the darkness.

  Arthur hacks through brush with a makeshift machete—

  forged from the very metal that pierced him.

  He leans against a dead tree as insects swarm him, tearing flesh from his arms. Skin knits back instantly, only to be ripped again.

  Above, the moons watch silently.

  Another memory seizes him.

  A plain of smoldering cinders.

  Arthur trudges naked across it. Every step sears nerves raw. Each nerve heals, only to burn again.

  Sarah’s voice enters gently.

  “I’m sorry I’m not there with you.”

  “Don’t be. If you were here, you’d be gone too.”

  He uses the words to pull his mind off the pain.

  “At least you’re not still walking on cinders,” she says.

  Arthur grimaces.

  “The cinders are still here. I think my brain’s tired of reacting. I feel it—it hurts—but it’s like my body… expects it now.”

  “How much farther?” she asks.

  “I don’t know. I just want to stop without the pain catching up.”

  “I’m sure it’s just a little farther.”

  Arthur blinks.

  The cinder world dissolves. The swamp returns.

  WREEKROO. WREEKROO.

  Closer this time.

  The water bubbles.

  Arthur lifts the machete and rises slowly.

  WREEKROO. WREEKROO.

  He braces.

  Whoosh—

  a frog-like beast erupts from the muck.

  Its barbed tongue shoots out and slams into Arthur’s chest.

  He staggers—slashes—slicing the tongue clean off.

  The beast screeches and charges, smashing him against a tree. The trunk cracks, splinters—then collapses onto the creature.

  Stunned, it writhes.

  Arthur drives the machete into its skull.

  The creature goes limp.

  Arthur drops into the bog, chest heaving.

  He grins through the exhaustion.

  “Damn. I hope the others aren’t having as much fun as me.”

  Days pass.

  The swamp never changes.

  It tries to kill Arthur.

  He just refuses to die.

  He stops where the water rises to his waist. The swamp stretches darker ahead.

  “If one of those damn frog things hits me here, I’m done.”

  He shakes his head. “Not in this depth.”

  He scans the distance—spots a cluster of dead trees.

  One falls. Then another. Then another.

  He lashes the trunks together with razor-grass rope.

  Climbs onto the makeshift raft.

  “It’s holding together well.”

  He rows.

  Memory drifts in again—easier without Sarah’s voice anchoring him.

  Arthur sits in a circle with children, weaving baskets.

  “Don’t be a baby. Making a basket will be fun.”

  Arthur smiles.

  “Sure. But when will I ever need to know how to do this?”

  She laughs, bright.

  “Oh, you can show them how to build a carburetor tomorrow. Really blow their minds.”

  Something nudges the raft.

  The smile fades.

  “I wish you were here to gloat about the basket weaving,” he murmurs.

  “I miss you.”

  The raft is small—too small for everything he carries.

  Another nudge.

  His hand slips into the water.

  A sharp, tearing pain.

  Arthur screams—yanks his arm out.

  His hand is gone. Torn clean off.

  He watches silently as the regenerating nub sprouts, reshaping into a hand.

  Arthur looks at the water.

  Then toward the distant shore.

  Please consider following, commenting, or leaving a review.

  Thank you for reading.