Swallowing hard, I stood.
I rose easily and painlessly, almost as if my body had remade itself in my sleep.
W-Who am I?
Running faintly glowing hands down my body, I tried to remember.
Where are my clothes?
I stepped toward the light beckoning at the mouth of the cave.
Barefoot, I crossed loose pebbles and water tracks, but it didn’t hurt.
Stopping on the edge of the cavern, I frowned at the view.
Snatches of memories said a glacier ought to be here: a frozen field of ice as far as the eye could see, yet...now a vast landscape of raw black stone and vibrant green moss twinkled in the sun. A wide valley vanished into the distance, braided with rivers glittering like blue threads. Tussock and bushes grew inpatches while wildflowers scattered across the rock like colourful graffiti.
My heart skipped a beat as I tried to understand.
Where the hell am I?
Tracing my fingertips over my bare chest, I searched my mind for what might’ve happened. I tried to remember yesterday or last month—
I froze.
Wait.
My eyes dropped to my body.
Something was wrong...
Pressing my fingers harder against my chest, I struggled to understand. Something was different. No scars. No wounds. No—
Vitalsync core.
I struggled to recall what exactly that was but...it seemed important. Hazy memories tried to tell me that someone had inserted the device into my flesh, and I’d wanted it gone for a very long time.
And now it was gone...somehow.
None of this makes any sense.
Biting back a curse, I turned to head back into the cave only...something caught my eye.
A black smudge just outside the cave glimmered in the morning brightness, almost as if the sun shone a spotlight on it, making sure I wouldn’t miss it.
The urge to go to it made my legs move without conscious command. Scrambling down the rocks, I traversed the small landslide.
The black smudge was larger than I first thought, half-entombed in a chunk of ice.
A creature of some kind—half-frozen in the last shard of a glacier that’d been melting for millennia.
I stepped closer—
I stiffened as my bare feet stepped on bone.
My heart kicked as I backed up, studying the long-forgotten remnants of what looked like a person. A skeleton and skull were perfectly preserved as if someone had died beside this creature. Unlike the animal, he hadn’t been entombed in ice, left to rot and decay.
Gingerly picking my way around the bones—not wanting to disturb the person’s rest—urgency filled me to see more of the beast. My entire body ached with the need to touch it.
