The lake didn't move. Not like water should. It sat there, thick and patient, red and black swirling in patterns that never repeated but never changed.
I'd been staring at it long enough that the distinction stopped mattering.
Peko rubbed his jaw where I'd hit him.
"You didn't ask," he said finally.
"Didn't need to." I picked up another piece of scrap from the shore, turned it over. Some kind of circuit board, half-melted. "You were going to tell me anyway."
He looked at the lake, sighing."Yeah, you didn't talk much during important moments much even back then."He sulked further "Doraemon talked enough for both of you, I guess."
The name landed between us like a stone in that dead water.
I just kept turning the circuit board in my fingers.
"He went back," I said. "To the future. His job was done."
Peko looked at me. I felt his gaze but didn't meet it.
"Why? " he said carefully.
"He was always supposed to. He came here to help me not grow up to be pathetic,and....he probably changed me quite a bit, I guess?"
"I thought he stayed because he was your friend." He glanced over. "Not a job."
The circuit board snapped in my hand. Just a small crack, but it was loud in the stillness.
I let the pieces fall. "What did you see? When you first got here."
Peko accepted the subject change.
"Sky tore open," he said. "Not like a storm. Like someone cut reality with a knife and peeled it back. I was standing in the palace courtyard. Then I was falling. Then I was here."
He gestured at the swamp, the dead trees, the lake that drank stones without thirst. "Took me three days to find anyone else."
"And the others?"
"Different. Some fell through walls. Some woke up already here. One boy said he was running from something and just... kept running until the ground changed under his feet."
Peko's jaw tightened. "The girl who traveled....the one who
I mentioned earlier..she said the sky never changes. No sun. No stars. Just this."
He pointed up at the roiling gray-green, the color of a rotten world.
I lay back on the shore, arms behind my head. The ground was foul but I was past caring.
"Anything else?"
Peko hesitated.
"What?" I spoke.
"There's something in the trees," he said quietly. "Not the ones near camp. Deeper in. We sent people to scout, three days out. They didn't come back..."
"How many?"
"Three men. They were strong."
I processed that. Added it to the map I was building in my head.
Was there a chance that's what I heard when I was getting chased, too?
"Your hand," Peko said suddenly.
I looked at it. Raised it. "What about it?"
"When you hit me. It should have hurt you more. You're human. I'm..." He gestured at himself.
"But your knuckles aren't even bruised." He completed.
I looked at my hand. He was right. The skin was smooth, unmarked. I'd put real force into that uppercut.
"Dragon," I said.
Peko blinked. "What?"
"Before I got stuck here,I got a old Acquintce who gave me something,alongside a big responsibility. I thought when I full filled my responsibility, that 'something' was gone too."
I flexed my fingers. "But it's still there. Keeps me going."
"Keeps you going how?"
"Heals fast. Doesn't let me die easy. Sometimes makes stuff out of something I don't know that I need" I thought about the loop, the regression, the moments I should have broken completely and didn't.
"Doesn't stop the other stuff, though."
Peko was quiet for a long moment."You're different, Nobita."
"I know."
"No, I mean..." He struggled for words. "The boy I knew. The friend I had.... He was different... Somehow."
"I changed. Because people change." I stared at the sky.
I raised my hand to the sky, then closed my fist. "In fact, that's a great thing. People need to change."
Peko didn't answer.
The lake sat there, red and black, patient as a held breath.
"This place," I said slowly, "isn't just a prison. It's a digestive system."
Peko looked at me.
"It's breaking us down," I said. "Figuring out what we're made of. The ones who leave, the ones who go deep..they're testing different parts of the trap. Seeing what happens."
"And the ones who don't come back?"
I didn't answer.
Peko's hand went to his locket again. The green emerald caught what little light there was.
Then he stood up.
"Nobita." Peko spoke, his voice stern.
I got up, looking at him.
My joints complained but the dragon-spark smoothed them over before the pain could settle.
"I want to get these people out." His first shook at the locket.
Peko stared at me.
"I thought you'd say something like I'm tired, and will say something which will require me to motivate you to fight again. But.."
I looked behind, a little girl with half shaved head stood with a half torn cat plushie.
I turned back to Peko.
"This is worse. Now I'll be the one who needs to be motivated."
Peko looked at me for a moment. Confusion. Then, a little smile crept up on his face.
I sighed, then turned away fron the lake.
"We need to fight. Even if it means against everything here." I spoke.
Peko followed closely behind, his eyes now focused. But unsure.
"The others won't follow you into that," he said quietly. "They're too scared."
"Then we'll convince them."