I check my OXI before trying to speak again.
[OXI: 327 / 2,500]
The number climbed and stalled. It isn't rising any further.
Oliver shoved something into my mouth—maybe Scales, maybe Candies, maybe both—but the effect doesn't pass that point. The system seems to be holding my life on a thin rope, stabilizing me just enough to stay conscious, but not enough to drag me back into the world of the living. The damage is vital. I don't need a medical readout to understand that. The support items are only buying seconds.
"What… are you… hiding?" I ask.
The question comes out crooked, broken by my own breathing. Every word pulls something wrong inside my abdomen, and the right side of my chest answers with the dry pain of fractured ribs.
Veric is the first to speak.
"You… won, Sands. You won the fight."
The information doesn't fit anywhere.
