Static crawls up my arms; every hair lifts like iron filings near a magnet. My skin prickles as though a million tiny needles are being pushed in and pulled out in waves. Gravity is a rumor—sometimes left, sometimes right, never down for more than a heartbeat. I try to scream, but the sound folds back into my mouth, playing in reverse.
My muscles seize and release in spasms, alternating between rigidity like rigor mortis and complete limpness. My inner ear short-circuits—up becomes sideways becomes inside-out. It feels like being disassembled cell by cell, each component examined and hastily reassembled with imperfect precision.
In the churning chaos, a strange intuition grips me—a sense that I'm being guided, not just falling. Each time I'm about to crash into a fragment of reality, my trajectory shifts slightly, as if an invisible hand were nudging me away from disaster. It happens too many times to be coincidence, but there's no time to question it.
The sigil is everywhere: three white-hot rings, orbiting glyphs like molten circuitry. One ring—the fractured one that split back in the kitchen—jitters without rhythm, duplicating and despawning shards of itself in a fevered loop. Instinct whispers the break is about me, but comprehension shatters under the sensory overload.
Lights flash in lunatic sequence: crimson fractals, viridian lattices, gold spirals that turn themselves inside out. They bleed into each other, morph, reset—like a cosmic slideshow caught between slides. The algorithms reshaping reality around me seem to stutter and recompile, like code executing with corrupted parameters. With every rotation I glimpse silhouettes—other falling bodies?—but they dissolve into data storms before I can focus.
A thunder-pulse—my heartbeat?—slams through the void. Each seismic thrum yanks me forward, faster, toward a blinding singularity of white. The heatless glare expands until it eclipses every color, every sound, every half-remembered vista. The fractured ring stutters one last time, then explodes into a ribbon of code that streams past my cheek like a comet's tail.
I reach for anything—solid ground, a railing, sanity—but the only thing in reach is light. It devours me.
The fall goes on too long. Minutes that feel like hours that feel like days. In the stretches between realities, mathematical equations form and dissolve around me—complex functions choreographing my descent. I see variables being calculated, trajectories plotted, probability matrices reshuffling.
Something is solving for x, and x is me.
Then, a voice not made of sound:
The voice fades. Pain replaces it—the first real sensation since the fall began. Pain means something solid. Something real. I cling to it like a drowning man to driftwood.
Impact.
Black.
Then violently green—an alien swamp rushing up to slap the breath from my lungs.
***
I come to facedown in cold muck, a copper taste flooding my mouth. Rain lashes my back; wind hisses through silver leaves overhead. My brain registers dozens of wrongness signals at once—the air itself feels too dense, too metallic. Gravity pushes with unfamiliar pressure. Even the raindrops seem heavier, falling with unnatural slowness.
I push up on trembling arms—and shriek.
The wound isn't a cut; it's a hole in my upper thigh. Flesh puffed up around the ragged puncture like overcooked sausage, angry red lattice where fabric and muscle fused under pressure. Blood pours freely, not in the bright arterial spurts of a severed vessel, but in a steady dark flow that means muscle damage. Deep.
Panic grips my throat. I claw off my sleeve, twist a tourniquet high on my thigh, crank until fire lances up my hip. Bleeding slows to an ooze. Vision tunnels at the edges—black coronas threatening to swallow the world.
I'm freezing. Soaked. Bleeding. Definitely concussed. Shock, my brain suggests. Next comes hypothermia, then unconsciousness, then death. Standard progression.
"This is a dream," I whisper, but my voice doesn't echo right. The sound travels too slowly, hanging in the air like fog before dissipating. And my breath puffs in the chill like smoke, but denser than it should be, almost luminous in the strange light.
I grip the mud beneath me. It's real. Cold sludge fills the cracks under my nails. I slap my cheek—hard. Once. Twice. Nothing changes.
A dream wouldn't have that smell—that dense metallic tang of blood and ozone and swamp rot. Or the rain that somehow feels slightly too heavy, too slow, each drop landing with more weight than water should possess.
I push up to a seated position, pulse hammering in my ears. Everything aches. The pain in my thigh pulses with each heartbeat—a hot metal spike being driven deeper with every throb. Each movement sends jagged lightning bolts from hip to knee, the intensity stealing my breath in ragged gasps. I squint through the downpour and spot two crescent moons overhead, hanging in a copper sky like predator eyes.
Okay. Not Earth. Not Idaho. That narrows it down.
Drugged? I think. But there was no injection. No dizziness before the drop. VR? Too visceral. Too wet. Too painful.
Maybe I'm dying. Maybe the bell burst, I hit my head, and this is a last-gasp neuron fire. Except neurons don't invent sky physics and alien botany. And I've never hallucinated this coherently.
I scan the tree line. Silver-leafed giants rise around me, trunks slick with some sort of bioluminescent lichen that pulses in patterns just irregular enough to feel wrong. Their canopy flickers with green light—not from fireflies, but from orb-like insects the size of golf balls that move with impossible synchronization, as if following invisible grid lines. A sound—not quite birdsong, not quite mechanical—chirps through the branches, echoing longer than it should in air that feels too dense in my lungs.
Even gravity feels subtly wrong—not enough to float, but enough that my movements feel sluggish, like walking through water. When I shift my weight, the ground responds with a delay, as if considering whether to support me.
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My stomach turns. Not from fear. From awe.
Whatever this is... it's not faking it. Either I'm in another world, or I've lost my mind completely.
"Okay," I rasp. "Awake. Hurt. Not home. Figure it out."
I catalog immediate priorities:
- Control bleeding (partial success)
- Find shelter from rain
- Locate clean water
- Figure out what the hell happened
My pizza kitchen seems impossibly distant now, like something from another life. Alex's voice message about buying my restaurants feels like a dream within a dream. Impossible to believe I was worrying about inventory spreadsheets mere minutes ago.
I try to stand. The world tilts violently. I crash back into the mud, damaged leg buckling beneath me. The pain flares white-hot through my entire body, a supernova of agony that momentarily blinds me. It feels like someone has replaced my blood with molten lead, each heartbeat pushing burning metal through the wound. I curl into myself, gritting my teeth against a scream.
"Bad idea," I gasp to nobody.
I need to examine the wound more carefully. I loosen the tourniquet slightly—enough to allow some circulation while still controlling bleeding. The puncture is deep, at least three inches, with jagged edges. Something impaled me during transit or landing. Not a clean cut. Infection risk: extreme. Treatment options: none.
My mind flashes to wilderness medicine training from a college mountaineering class. Clean the wound. Keep pressure. Prevent infection. Find help.
I tear my other sleeve into strips, using the rain to rinse away the worst of the mud before binding the leg more carefully. The makeshift bandage soaks through almost immediately, but the pressure helps.
Just as I'm about to try standing again, my boot scrapes against something half-buried in the mud. Without thinking, I dig it out—a strange coin-like object with unfamiliar markings. The moment I touch it, it seems to warm slightly in my palm before disappearing into my pocket with a strange shimmer. I reach for it, confused, but my attention is suddenly diverted by movement in the underbrush. The coin is forgotten as quickly as it appeared, my focus shifting entirely to the approaching sound.
A chittering noise rises from the darkness between trees—something moving through the brush. Multiple somethings. The sound comes from all directions at once, a coordinated approach. My skin prickles with animal instinct: I'm being hunted.
I cast around desperately for anything resembling a weapon. A fallen branch, a rock, anything. My hand closes around a length of waterlogged wood—not ideal, but better than nothing. I drag myself backward, leaving a smeared trail in the mud, until my back presses against a tree trunk.
The chittering grows louder. I can see movement now—segmented limbs shifting between silver leaves, reflecting the bioluminescent glow. The creatures move with unsettling precision, their approach methodical.
One breaks the tree line, and my breath catches.
It's unnervingly large for an arthropod—a nightmare fusion of spider and crab, with a body the size of a dinner plate and a leg span that could easily stretch across a car tire. Six articulated limbs extend from a gleaming obsidian carapace, each ending in serrated chitin edges that look designed for both climbing and tearing flesh. Its head houses compound eyes that reflect the bioluminescent light in hexagonal patterns, focused entirely on me. Dual-hinged mandibles click with hungry anticipation, revealing rows of needle-like teeth inside a complex maw.
More emerge behind it—five, six, seven of them. A hunting pack. Together they weigh at least a hundred fifty pounds of armored, coordinated predator. Even at full strength, I'd be outmatched. Injured and alone, I'm just meat.
They advance in perfect concert, forming a semi-circle that cuts off any escape route. I raise my pathetic stick, heart hammering against my ribs.
"Back off," I growl, trying to sound more threatening than terrified.
The lead creature pauses, head tilting as if analyzing my voice. Then something impossible happens—a faint shimmer appears above it, hovering like a heat mirage:
The text hangs in the air for a split second, then vanishes. I blink, certain I've hallucinated it. But the creature responds, mandibles spreading wider to reveal rows of needle-like teeth.
I have just enough time to think, This is how I die. Not from a heart attack at fifty behind my pizza counter. Not peacefully in my sleep when I'm ninety. But here, in alien mud, eaten by space crabs on a world with two moons.
The lead crawler launches itself at my face.
I swing the branch with desperate strength, connecting with a satisfying crack. The creature flies sideways, landing in a heap of thrashing limbs. The others hesitate, just for a moment.
In that frozen second, brush rustles to my right. The crawlers turn in unison.
A woman stumbles into the clearing. Soaked hair clings to her cheeks; one lens of her glasses is cracked. She's about my age—mid-thirties—with a lean build and practical clothing now plastered to her frame by the alien rain. A canvas messenger bag hangs at her hip, darker patches showing where it's soaked through. She freezes when she sees me, palms lifted like she's coaxing a cornered dog.
"Are you real?" she asks, voice frayed by cold and panic.
"Bleeding says yes." I wobble upright, bracing on my good leg, wincing as pain flares through my thigh. "Will."
"Elle... Swann." The name sounds tentative, as though she's not entirely sure it still belongs to her. Her gaze shifts to the creatures, which have refocused their attention on her. Fear flashes across her face, quickly replaced by determination.
"Don't move," she whispers, both to me and to the crawlers. "I saw these things earlier. They respond to motion."
One of the crawlers chatters, legs shuffling in place. The same shimmering text appears briefly above it, confirming I hadn't imagined it before.
Elle's eyes widen. "You see that too? The... labels?"
Before I can answer, the lead crawler lunges at her. She sidesteps with surprising agility, grabbing a fallen branch of her own. The creature skids in the mud, reorienting for another attack.
"Running's not an option," I call, gesturing to my blood-soaked leg.
Elle nods grimly, positioning herself between me and three of the crawlers. "Then we fight."
The crawlers advance in perfect concert, as if controlled by a single mind. I brace myself, weapon raised, as the first one leaps.
Metal flashes in Elle's hand—a small pocketknife that seems laughably inadequate. But she moves with purpose, slashing at the nearest crawler's eyes. It recoils, green ichor spattering the mud.
"The eyes!" she shouts. "Go for the eyes!"
I swing my branch like a baseball bat as another crawler launches at me. It connects with a crunch, but the creature merely tumbles and rights itself, barely damaged. These things have serious armor.
Elle backs toward me, knife ready. "We need a plan better than 'hit them until they stop moving.'"
"Open to suggestions," I grunt, fending off another attack. My injured leg threatens to buckle, blood seeping through the makeshift bandage with every movement.
Elle's gaze darts around the clearing, landing on the bioluminescent lichen covering nearby trees. "The light patterns—they avoid the bright patches. Maybe..."
She doesn't finish the thought. Instead, she raises a trembling hand. A translucent glyph—three rings surrounding a cross—blooms above her palm, bathing her face in icy light. Tiny runes orbit the outer ring like fireflies trapped in glass.
"What the...?" I whisper, my heartbeat accelerating. Magic. Actual, functioning magic—or at least some technology so advanced it might as well be. My engineer's brain tries to catalog the phenomenon even as my survival instinct screams this is impossible.
"Words popped into my head," she says, voice tight with controlled panic. "Minor Light. I think it's mine. I can feel other spells too—faint impressions of light and force. Like memories I've never made."
The symbol flares brighter; static prickles my skin. For a heartbeat I feel hope—then the light gutters and dies, like a candle in a gale. Elle flinches and grips her wrist.
Something strange happens as her spell fizzles—a faint ping echoes in my mind, like data being received. For a split second, I see cascading numbers behind my eyes, complex equations resolving and dissolving too fast to comprehend. Then it's gone, leaving only the ghost of information. What just happened? Did my system somehow... record her failed attempt?
"Did it work?" I ask, still processing the strange sensation.
She shakes her head. "No. A message flashed—'Insufficient Mana.' I don't know how I know that, but I do."
The crawlers, momentarily startled by the light, resume their advance. We're running out of options.
I look up at the tree above us—the lichen covers its trunk in pulsing blue stripes. "If they avoid the light... can we use that?"
Elle follows my gaze. "Maybe. If we could spread it somehow—"
"Or bring it down," I finish, already reaching for a low-hanging branch heavy with the glowing growth. My injured leg protests with each movement, the pain a hot iron rod twisting through muscle and bone. I grit my teeth and push through it, knowing the alternative is death.
The branch comes away with a wet tear, dripping luminescent sap. I thrust it toward the nearest crawler, which immediately backs away, mandibles clicking in agitation.
"It works!" Elle grabs another branch, mimicking my action. The crawlers retreat from the light, but keep pace with us, waiting for an opening.
"We need a distraction," I say, scanning the clearing. "Something to—"
A howl rolls through the trees—deep, wet, nothing like a wolf. It vibrates the hollow of my chest. The crawlers freeze, then scatter in all directions, chittering in what can only be fear.
Elle snatches up a fallen branch, brandishing it like a spear, knuckles white.
"If this is a dream," I mutter, "it's the most committed one I've ever had." I flick my chin toward the slope rising behind us. "Higher ground buys minutes."
She hesitates, then nods. Side by side—two half-broken strangers in an impossible swamp—we start the climb. Each step is agony, like someone's driving a serrated blade deeper into my thigh with every movement. My teeth clench so hard my jaw aches, sweat mingling with rain despite the chill air. My movements are reduced to a hobbling limp, each step careful and measured to minimize the torment.
Whatever made that howl is still out there. And based on the crawlers' reaction, it's something even they don't want to meet.
As we ascend, I glance back at the clearing where I landed. For just a moment, I think I see a faint afterimage of the three-ring sigil burned into the mud. But between one blink and the next, it's gone—washed away by the alien rain.