Story Reader / Main Story / 33 Wither to Shine / Story
The world turns into a dark red spider web.
Liquid, liquid, liquid. Strangely, your lungs don't resist.
You open your eyes, and the spider web clings to your eyeballs.
A sharp pain shoots through your head, like an arthropod rampaging inside, desperately trying to break free.
This empty space is chaotic; you need something to hold onto.
But your skin's just coated in some thick goo, so you can't tell where your flesh and bones end and the world begins.
Like... you've completely melted.
What you see might just be nothing more than your last thoughts.
Then, something weird happens in your head.
It's coming from your tongue...
The juice bursts in your mouth, all tangy and fresh.
The tang hits your tongue, and suddenly you feel gravity again. Your drifting thoughts come crashing back down to the support beneath you—
Is this... the medical room?
Hey.
Vanessa pulls the dripping fruit away from your lips, then flicks her military knife in the air.
I thought I'd have to bury you. Too bad.
You try to force your eyes open to get rid of the web.
But it still stings, like tiny needles digging into your skin.
Of course your head hurts.
Passing out miles from the designated location and face-planting in a snowdrift—even if there was a sudden Mutated Red Tide attack...
But after all this time, you still faint around Mutated Red Tide...
Vanessa's knife moves smoothly as she peels another fruit, making a perfect spiral of skin.
It was a rare polar apple.
Open your mouth.
A slice of fruit, on a dagger, is held to your lips.
Psst.
The tang hits your mouth again, and the cold fruit wakes you up a bit.
Feeling better?
Seeing your face, Vanessa stops talking and offers another slice of fruit.
Just tell me what's going on.
The tide surges in with ferocious hunger—the touch of death presses against your skin with surreal intensity.
Scenes from the dream, and the depths you'd sunk into during unconsciousness...
Fragments of half-real memories swirl and shift in your mind, refusing to settle.
The bottom of the sea...
She stops peeling the fruit, looking confused.
You mean that Ascendant...
You both remember the same thing.
Torrential rain and waves crash against the coastal rocks, enveloping the fully armed squad in a thick blanket of mist.
Red laser dots focus on the target, but the glowing object in their arms makes everyone hesitate to pull the trigger.
Gray Raven Commandant... do you remember that number?
You told me... another version of you.
That person said, "I was the one left behind..."
The one at the bottom of the ocean, "Gray Raven Commandant".
Then, in a place where sunlight cannot reach, beside the mermaid, death comes.
If it was back then...
Before she finishes, urgent knocking tears through the heavy atmosphere.
Commandant... the Mutated Red Tide's moving in a new way!
