The sound of running water grew louder as Harold stumbled through the fungal forest, each step a battle against the ache in his legs and the fire in his throat.
His tongue felt like leather, swollen against the roof of his mouth.
He leaned on one of the pale, trunk-like mushrooms for balance and whispered to himself, "Almost there… almost…"
At last, the ground dipped into a shallow gully, and he saw it.
A stream, narrow but steady, cut through the earth like a ribbon of black glass.
Bioluminescent algae clung to the stones beneath its surface, lighting the water from below in shifting hues of blue and green.
It wasn't the clear, clean brook of a storybook—strange weeds writhed in its depths as though alive—but to Harold's parched throat, it was salvation.
He dropped to his knees, scooping the water into his hands.
The taste was metallic, tinged with something earthy and unfamiliar, but it slid down his throat like a blessing.
He drank again and again until his stomach cramped, and only then did he slump back on his heels, trembling with relief.
His sigh was cut short.
There was something else here.
A shape lay partly submerged at the water's edge, tangled among the glowing reeds.
For a heartbeat Harold thought it was another corpse, another monster that had lost its fight.
But then he froze.
It wasn't a beast.
It was a woman.
Her skin, faintly luminescent, shimmered like the algae in the stream.
It was the color of twilight—deep blue, almost violet.
What he had mistaken for hair was a crown of tentacle-like strands that flowed from her scalp and trailed down her shoulders like serpents.
Their tips twitched faintly, betraying life where he had expected stillness.
Harold's breath caught.
She was young.
Her features sharp, alien yet hauntingly human in their arrangement—high cheekbones, a small mouth, and eyelids that fluttered weakly as if even unconsciousness fought to hold her.
Her chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven breaths.
"She's alive," Harold whispered, voice hoarse.
He lurched closer, splashing into the shallows beside her.
Training—half-remembered scraps from decades of watching doctors and nurses—snapped into place.
Triage.
Always triage first.
He scanned her quickly.
The pale glow of her skin revealed injuries plain enough for any set of eyes:
A deep gash along her side, still weeping dark blood into the water.
Bruises mottling her limbs—contusions from blunt trauma.
One arm bent wrong, swollen, suggesting a fracture.
Her breathing shallow, her pulse weak when he pressed trembling fingers against her throat.
But moreover a faint glow across her whole body, possible hypothermia from being submerged to long?
Life-threatening.
Immediate danger.
She couldn't stay in the water.
Hypothermia, blood loss, infection—too many risks.
"I need to move you," Harold muttered, half to her, half to himself.
His voice steadied as he fell back into familiar rhythm, the cadence of work that had always been denied to him.
"Airway—clear. Breathing—shallow, but stable enough. Pulse—weak, losing blood. That's the priority. You're bleeding out."
The system's quiet chime rewarded him.
Ding.
Diagnosis +0.2
Another.
Ding.
Diagnosis +0.1
Harold ignored the flickers of the window.
This wasn't about points.
Not now.
He slid his arms beneath her, grunting as he lifted.
She was lighter than she looked, her frame wiry and lean, but his own strength was nearly spent.
He carried her a few steps from the stream and laid her gently on a patch of spongy moss.
The tentacles on her head twitched again, one brushing his wrist.
Instinct screamed at him to recoil, but he held steady.
"Easy now… you're safe. I've got you."
Her lips parted, a whisper escaping in a tongue he didn't know—soft, melodic, but broken by pain.
"Shh," Harold soothed, like he had to frightened patients back at St. Mary's when they woke disoriented in the night.
"Don't waste your strength. Just breathe."
He pressed his hands to her side, trying to staunch the bleeding.
The wound was deep, but not clean.
Ragged edges—something had torn into her.
A beast?
A fall?
He couldn't know.
What mattered was stopping the blood.
His phantom tools shimmered into being at his thought: rough bandages, a needle and thread still better than the rusted ones he had first received.
They weren't enough for surgery, not yet.
But maybe enough to stabilize her.
As he worked, Harold's mind split in two.
One part focused on her body, cataloging injuries as he went.
"Laceration, lower left abdomen, depth… deep. Significant blood loss, arterial bleed possible."
Ding.
"Compound fracture, right forearm. Splint required."
Ding.
"Multiple contusions, possible internal bleeding. Monitor closely."
Ding.
The other part of him trembled.
Not from fear of failure, but from the weight of what this meant.
This was no beast.
No practice subject.
No nameless monster.
This was a person.
An alien, yes, but undeniably sentient.
Intelligent eyes had surely looked out from that face before she collapsed here.
A voice, however strange, had spoken words he didn't understand.
She was someone.
And she was in his care.
Harold pressed bandages into her wound, binding as tightly as he dared.
His fingers shook, not from weakness now but from awe.
For decades, he had dreamed of this moment.
Of kneeling at a patient's side, of working not as a janitor cleaning up after doctors but as the one doing the work.
All those years sweeping floors, hauling trash, scrubbing blood from tiles.
Watching, always watching.
Memorizing techniques he would never be allowed to use.
And now, at last, the world had given him a patient of his own.
He swallowed hard, forcing the thought aside.
No time for sentiment.
Lives weren't saved by nostalgia.
Her breathing hitched, and he leaned closer, checking her pulse again.
Still weak, but steady enough for now.
"You're not dying today," Harold said, voice rough with resolve. "Not if I have anything to say about it."
The tentacles shifted once more, brushing against his wrist like a shiver of acknowledgment.
And for the first time since waking in this strange, merciless world, Harold felt like he was exactly where he was meant to be.