154. Zenith Online Chapter 1 - Login

Though we were ready for Zenith Online our destination was still, in fact, Phoenyx. Neither Cove nor I truly expected to end up there, though. As such, I was entirely unsurprised when a flame–the flame–sparked along the worldlines once more, changing our path.

What did surprise me was Ani. He squirmed in my arms, his claws hooking and catching in my skin.

"Wha–Ani!"

He used his new footholds to climb out of my arm and onto my shoulder. His rear wiggled, and his eyes focused on some distant point. He was going to jump. As his front feet left my shoulder, I used both hands to desperately catch Ani before he ended up stuck, or worse. With both hands-free, I was able to wrangle him back into submission.

That was a mistake.

Horrified, I tried to call out to Cove, but he vanished, fading like dust in the wind. Ani and I were left stranded. Ani's ears pressed down onto his head as he cataloged my irritation. He went limp in my hands and softly bumped his head against my chest. I pulled him away.

"What on earth are we supposed to do now? You dumb cat."

My second mistake was looking down into Ani's pathetic, shining eyes. My weak heart softened. He looked so miserable. I cradled him back against my chest, showcasing my forgiveness by letting him nuzzle my face.

"Why did you go and do that? If you'd jumped, I might never have been able to find you." I scolded.

His head twisted to the side, and his nose jerked slightly.

"You saw something?"

His ears fell flatter against his skull. I sighed. Squinting, I strained my eyes, trying to discover what Ani had seen, but outside of the webbing threads. Ahead lay deep darkness only seen in the deepest underground caves.

"Whatever it was is gone now," I told him. Ani slipped out a paw and pressed it lightly against the back of my hand. "Fine." I mentally reached out, touching his mind. He shoved a memory toward me of tiny, shimmering, golden lights drifting in the far distance.

"Fragments?" I wondered. "Here?"

I felt as if I should have been surprised, but I wasn't. Indecisiveness glued my feet to the ground. On the one hand, I wasn't entirely sure how to reach my destination from here. On the other, fragments. It was the last thought that propelled me forward. Hesitantly and still clutching Ani in an inescapable vice-grip, I tread forward in the direction Ani had indicated.

With eyes wide open, I strained my neck, and I twisted around, searching for wherever they might have gone. Time passed differently in the space between worlds, and I was unsure of how long I walked. Finally, I stopped. "I'm unsure we're going to find them."

Ani let loose a pitiful, cracking meow.

Wherever we were, we were far from where I'd dropped Cove's arm. Ani had lost the fragments in seconds, and I doubted Cove would be able to find me again easily. It would be up to me to get us safely to our destination. My stomach felt hollow. I shoved my fear and uncertainty into the deep recesses of my mind and focused, pulling on the dormant firepower beneath my skin.

Finding the threads once more, I flicked through them, searching for the one connecting to the world I wanted. My eyes were pulled to one shining brighter than the rest, and before I could doubt myself, I let my magic crawl along the thread, tugging us with it.

Gritty sand burned against Sinbad's face. The sun beat against the back of his head. His suit protected him from the rest of the heat. He tilted his head to the side and took a deep breath of the salty ocean air as his eyes fluttered open. Wreckage stared back at him. Sinbad slid his arms beneath himself and pushed up onto his knees.

What happened?

His suit-covered fingers brushed against something hard. His crushed communicator. Inches from it was his helmet, which Sinbad lifted with shaking fingers, assessing the damage. A huge dent was in the side. He slid his fingers through his sun-warmed hair, searching for head trauma. It was a common ailment in these types of accidents. No pain struck him, but experience told him that didn't mean he was uninsured. His fingers came back clean.

Sinbad swallowed and tasted blood. The motion was followed by intense pain. He licked his lips, tasking blood and feeling sand. His head pounded. Dehydration. He stood on shaky legs, wavering in the ocean breeze. Scattered thoughts organized as blood flowed into his brain.

He and his crewmates had been exploring an uncharted island. Even after months of exploring uncharted areas in space, the promise of exploring an unknown island so close to home had called them like a siren, and they'd willingly answered the call. If the area was livable, it was a particular joy and ritual of theirs to stay at least one night in the areas they explored, and his crew had jumped to it with their usual joy. They'd divided into experienced teams, leaving some crewmates behind to set up camp. The earth had shaken beneath their feet, and one of the crewmates had come sprinting out of the forest, his face pale as snow and his heart beating so fast his health monitor was going haywire. The ground shook again.

"We need to evacuate!"

A painful, loud rumble echoed through the area, sending all local wildlife into a frenzy. Sinbad didn't question the orders and relayed them to the crew. They sprinted back to their dinghies, each group waiting to exit until the dingy was full, as they'd been trained to do. Sinbad stayed on the beach, directing his crew to the different dinghies. He would be the last to leave.

As the second to last ship took off, taking with it the last of his crewmates, Sinbad jumped into his dinghy. The hatch hadn't sealed yet as the earth lifted beneath him, heaving his ship up into the air. A large dark shadow passed between him and the moon, and he'd been knocked far back into the ocean. His helmet had protected Sinbad from harm, but his ship wasn't so lucky.

Huge waves sprung up around the island as it dipped beneath the ocean, crashing into the other dinghies, scattering them in all directions amidst the sea. By the time they died down, the dinghies were too far to see.

Sinbad had been shipwrecked, reaching out of the cockpit to paddle aimlessly until he spotted an island ahead.

[LOGIN] Flashed briefly before my eyes, flickering to [ERROR]

The darkness around me brightened to a sky blue, and my stomach dropped.

So did I. Salty air rushed into my nose, and wind gushed by my ears. I was falling. I whipped my head down, watching as the ocean below drew closer. My brain chose the opportune moment to remind me that at this height, hitting the water wrong would be worse than falling to solid ground. Panic shut my overworking mind down after that thought, silencing my thoughts. Instinct guided me as I teleported down to the ocean surface, drastically shortening the height of the fall from a skyscraper to mere feet. My shoes split the waves, and I sank beneath the surface.

I was never a particularly good swimmer, but, as a child, my father enrolled Ember and me in swimming lessons, ensuring that in times like this, neither we nor he would be embarrassed over our swimming abilities. I hadn't enjoyed them then, but I was grateful for them know, kicking back up to the surface of the waves on instinct, Ani yowling like a drowning cat in my arms. He broke free from my grip, climbing atop my shoulders and standing hesitantly on my neck, glaring disdainfully at the ocean. A wave licked at him, and Ani growled.

A see-through blue screen popped up before my eyes. [Converting Data] it said. [Time remaining: ???]

A great weight lifted from my shoulders, and I kicked powerfully to reach back and pat along the backpack, making sure it was still there. It was, and felt as full as ever. Ani swiped at my hand as I began to sink back beneath the waves. I dropped the hand back down, beginning the treading anew.

I blinked, and it vanished. Ignoring it and focusing on the much larger problem, I glanced around, searching for a beach, boat, or someplace I could teleport to.

Nothing drew my eye.

Ani's tail brushed up against the back of my head, tickling it. I reached up to brush the hair from my face. The bright side of all this, I thought, was that this was almost definitely the world I'd expected to arrive in.