My hands. I hold them up to the gray light from the window.
They're... smoother.
The map of scars from ten years of fighting is gone. I blink, trying to clear the memory fog from the Aion Sanctuary, the sight of my arms being torn apart, and the memory of Lili's blood on the living room tile.
My throat feels scraped raw.
"Dryden! Breakfast! I already called you twice!"
The voice is real. It's not an echo. It's her.
My heart stutters. I throw the thin blanket off and run.
I burst into the living room and stop, my feet glued to the floor in disbelief.
My mother, Ingrid. She's sitting on the old couch, the one with the torn arm that she loved.
She's alive, smiling and she's not alone.
I watch her holding a baby, nursing with all the love in the world.
I just stare. My mind can't connect the images I'm processing. The blood... and this. This impossible peace.
Lili. Baby Lili.
The memory of her small body, broken on the floor, clashes with the sight of her tiny hand clutching my mother's shirt. My vision doubles, superimposing one image over the other—a living ghost.
My mother laughs. It's the single most beautiful sound I've heard ever since I can remember.
"What's wrong with you? You look like you've seen a ghost."
I have. Two of them. The thought is sharp, acid.
"Mom…" My voice is rough, unfamiliar. "What... what day is it?"
She shifts Lili, amused.
"It's Thursday, hon."
Her answer already turns my stomach cold, but I need more.
"No, Mom. I mean the date."
"It's April 20th, honey. 2049. Did you fall out of bed?"
The date hit me like a shock to the spine. Not a dream. Not the afterlife.
I didn't die.
It's… a regression.
The Codex... it sent me back. Ten years.
My thoughts spin, trying to catch up, but the thirst surges, a spike of hot gravel down my throat. It interrupts everything.
"Mom, I need water. I'm... I'm dying of thirst."
Her smile tightens. She always hated that phrase. "Dryden, don't talk like that." She nods to the kitchen, reluctant. "There's water in the fridge. Don't drink it all, money's tight."
I'm already moving. I rip the fridge door open.
It's almost empty.
A two-liter bottle of water, half full. A carton with a handful of eggs. The poverty of this moment hits me, a memory I'd buried.
I grab the bottle and drink, swallowing fast. The water is cold, but it does nothing. The thirst isn't in my mouth. It's in my cells, a fire in the marrow.
It doesn't pass.
Of course it doesn't.
April 20, 2049. My eighteenth birthday.
The day the Black Thirst started.
I stare at the water bottle with trembling hands.
Last time, I drank all of it. I remember the guilt when Mom came home from work to an empty bottle.
I screw the cap back on, hard, and put it back.
I hurry to the bathroom, flip the squealing light switch.
The mirror shows me a stranger.
A kid. Eighteen years old. No Thirstfall lines under the eyes. No shoulder scar from the Trench. Just a lanky teenager with a bad haircut and scared, haunted eyes.
It's me.
It's real.
I have another chance to protect them, give them a better life and… seek my revenge.
The Deepwarden needs to pay for everything. In this life or any other.
I walk back to the living room, slower this time. Numb. Trying to focus on the most important gift that the Codex gave me back—my family.
I sit on the floor, just watching them. Lili's eyes are barely open. I reach out, trace one finger over her tiny, perfect fist.
"He's home," Mom whispers to her.
She looks at me, her face softer than I remember, but mapped with a weariness I had forgotten. Her eyes are green—the exact color of the water we lacked—but framed by deep lines that don't belong on a woman her age. The skin of her hand, now stroking the baby, looks parched and thin like old parchment, weathered by the silent sacrifice of keeping us alive in this dry world.
"It's 245 days without rain, Dry. We have to be strong. Momma will figure it out." She gestures to the kitchen. "Go eat your scrambled egg."
We have to be strong.
The words sting.
She said that every day after Dad... after he sank into Thirstfall and never came back, leaving her pregnant, broke, and alone.
She has no idea what's coming.
At least now I have a hint of my dad's whereabouts. I can give my Mom this gift soon.
A spasm in my throat snaps me back to reality. It's burning. My heart feels like lead.
I have to do this. I have to break her heart now to save her life later.
I look up, my voice flat, holding back ten years of failure.
"Mom... I have it."
"Have what, honey? Just eat."
"It's the Black Thirst. It's... it's inside me."
Her face just... falls. It collapses, all the light draining out of it.
She lost her husband to Thirstfall. Now her son is using the same words.
"No." She shakes her head, denial flashing in her eyes.
"Don't be stupid. You're just thirsty. We'll... we'll go to the doctor."
"It's not a doctor I need."
I stand up, forcing myself to be the adult in the room, even in this 18-year-old body.
"It's okay. I'll go to the Clinical Submersion Center. I'll get tested. Today."
I turn and walk toward the door before she can see my hands shaking.
"Dryden, wait!" she calls out, panic rising in her voice.
"I'll be back, Mom. I promise."
I had said those words a thousand times over the last decade. Every time the 96-hour clock ran out, I promised I'd return. But this time...
I step out and close the door, cutting off her voice. I lean against the peeling paint of the hallway, clutching my chest.
I can hardly breathe, choked by the burning in my throat and the weight of leaving my family yet again.
But then I realize it: the burning in my marrow isn't just a symptom anymore. It's an accelerant.
In the first timeline, the Thirst crept in slowly over weeks. It was a dry throat, a mild fever. But this? This is different. It feels like I swallowed a star. The regression didn't just bring my memories back; it brought the trauma of the Void with it.
My clock isn't ticking down in days. It feels like it's ticking down in minutes.
I push myself off the wall. I have to run.