Comfort was not what the dawn brought.
It came not as Leo remembered from a hundred hurried mornings—that gentle, gold-washed warmth that promised another day. No, this light crept in thin and diluted, a grey stain seeping at the edges of the sky. He'd spent the night braced against a rock, its roughness biting through the tatters of his clothes. Cold lingered in his bones. And his mind—it wouldn't quiet. Again and again, it replayed those last frantic seconds in the balloon basket: the shriek of the wind, the stomach-plummeting fall, then the shocking, salt-filled clutch of the sea.
Sleep had been a broken thing. Each time he'd neared unconsciousness, fragments of his old life flickered behind his lids—the sterile glow of the monitor, the hum of servers, those final words blazing angry red:Reality Version Incompatible. Layer Transfer Initiated.
Now he opened his eyes fully. The memories ebbed, leaving him stranded on this raw shore. Around him, the others stirred. Hardin—the military man—was already upright, his posture rigid even in exhaustion, eyes scanning the coastline with a tactical chill. Smith, the journalist, fumbled with a waterlogged pocket watch, tapping its face with a soft, persistent click. Young Isaac shivered, knees drawn tight to his chest. And Thomas the sailor stood by the water's edge, staring out as if waiting for a ship that wouldn't come.Alive. That was the staggering truth that had carried them through the night.
Alive, but stranded on an alien stretch of coast under a sky that felt…off.
"Right." Hardin's voice cut the morning air, sharp as a blade. "We're not dying of exposure on this godforsaken rock. Smith, Thomas—scout duty. Fifty paces inland, fifty along the shore each way. Look for water, shelter, anything. Isaac, stay. Sort what's left of the supplies."
A beat of silence hung heavy. Then Smith spoke, calm but firm. "A sound plan, Captain. But perhaps we keep together—for now. There's safety in numbers."
Hardin's jaw tightened. "This isn't a debating society. We need intel. Now."
"It's also how you get separated," Leo said, pushing stiffly to his feet. Every muscle ached in protest. He held Hardin's glare. "We've no idea what's out there. Sending people off alone—it's a risk we can't take yet."
The challenge hung between them, unspoken: the soldier's need for order against the architect's hunger for data. Hardin saw a unit to command. Leo saw variables, loose and uncontained.
After a tense pause, Hardin gave a curt nod. "Fine. We move together. But we move now."
They advanced in a grim, silent line. The beach was a narrow curve of dark sand, edged by a sea too blue, too still, and beyond it, a wall of twisted vegetation that seemed to watch them pass. No gulls cried. No crabs scuttled over wet stone. Only their own breathing, and the crush of sand underfoot. The silence felt heavy, a weight upon them all.
It was Thomas who noticed first. He paused, squinting toward the water. "Tide's wrong," he murmured, almost to himself.
Smith glanced up. "Wrong?"
"Thirty years at sea. I know the pull of a tide." Thomas's voice was low, uneasy. "This one…it doesn't feel right. The rhythm's off. Like it's…hesitating."
A coldness seeped into Leo then—deeper than the morning chill. He looked up. The sun climbed too quickly, tracing a mechanical arc across the sky. No slow celestial drift. Just straight, intent, unnatural.
It's not just the tide, he thought. Everything is wrong.
Then—a flicker at the edge of his sight. That faint, half-transparent overlay he'd almost dismissed as delirium shivered back into view:
[System Initializing…] [Environmental Scan Running…] [Warning: Celestial Motion Data Anomalous. Pattern Match Failed.] [Error: Local Chronometric Data Incompatible with Stellar Navigation Algorithms.]
The text glitched, stuttered, vanished. But the message seared behind his eyes. His own internal system—this ghost in his machine—was just as lost as he was. The rules here were not the rules he knew.
Hardin grunted, dismissive. "Superstition. We need fresh water. That's the priority." He led the way toward a cluster of smooth, wave-worn rocks farther down the beach.
But Leo lingered, his mind racing. Pattern Match Failed. This wasn't just an unknown coast. It was a place that was fundamentally incorrect. A flawed construct.
His boot struck something half-buried in the damp sand. Not rock. Something metallic. He knelt, brushing grit away.
It was a flat palm-sized slab, cool and unnaturally smooth. No rust, no erosion—as if the sea had refused to touch it. Etched into its surface was a series of sharp, geometric markings: angles and loops in a language unlike any he'd seen. Clean. Precise. Alien.
[System Notification: Unidentified Artefact Detected. Composition: High-Grade Titanium Alloy. Origin: Unknown. Data Incomplete.]
The notification glowed clearer now, steadier, as though the artifact itself strengthened the signal. Leo's blood went cold. High-grade titanium? Here? In what was supposed to be 1865? This was no accident. This was placed.
A message. A key.
He slipped the fragment into his pocket. It sat heavy against his leg, a secret weight. When he looked up, he saw the others scattered along the shore—Hardin barking orders, Smith studying the strange plants with a journalist's eye, Thomas still watching the dishonest tide, Isaac looking small and scared.
They were searching for water, food, shelter from the elements.Leo was now searching for something else entirely:the source of the error.