Time on the island stopped being measured in office hours and began to be measured in scars.
By the time Caelum reached his tenth month of solitude, the man who once cared about the shine of his leather shoes no longer existed.
His feet were now as tough as rubber.
His hands were covered in a layer of calluses that protected him from thorns and stone.
And his beard, thick and salted, reached halfway down his chest.
He no longer tried to perform feats with the energy inside his body.
He had learned, the hard way, that the unstable condition he carried was an expensive resource.
Every time his body turned into mist, he felt an exhaustion that lasted for days.
So he used it the way an accountant would use money:
with absolute precision.
The bare minimum to cook fish.
Just enough to evaporate saltwater over a stone and obtain drinkable water.
The exact amount of heat needed to survive stormy nights.
—Day three hundred and sixty-five…
he carved one final mark into the stone he used as a calendar.
He stared at it.
According to his calculations, today he turned twenty-seven.
There was no celebration.
No messages.
No screen.
Nothing.
Just the sea.
And the weight of a decision he could no longer postpone.
The world outside still existed.
And he could no longer stay still.
The construction of his transport was not naval engineering.
It was organized desperation.
Caelum didn't know how to build a ship.
But he knew how to tie things together.
For weeks, he gathered palm trunks as straight as he could find.
He bound them with thick jungle vines.
He reinforced the joints with strips of cloth salvaged from the galleon that had survived the salt and time.
It wasn't a ship.
It was a floating platform, three meters long and two wide.
At the center, he improvised a crooked mast from a sturdy branch.
The sail was the old canvas from the wreck, stitched together with plant fibers.
He observed it in silence.
—It's not aesthetic… —he muttered—. But it floats. In theory.
Before leaving, he returned to his shelter.
Partially buried in the sand, he found his employee ID.
The photo had faded.
The man wearing a tie looked like someone he no longer had any connection to.
He sparked a small flame at the tip of his finger.
No emotion.
No fear.
Just function.
He threw the card into the fire.
The plastic twisted.
His name warped.
And disappeared.
—Contract terminated.
He pushed the raft into the water.
The physical effort was immense.
But the real problem came next.
When the sea touched his skin.
The effect was immediate.
The energy inside Caelum shut off.
Not gradually.
As if something had cut it completely.
His legs turned heavy.
His vision blurred.
Cold sweat ran down his back.
The sea didn't harm him.
It nullified him.
—Damn it…
he gasped, dragging himself toward the raft clumsily.
As if his body had forgotten how to move.
Once he climbed onto the logs, away from direct contact with the water, the energy slowly returned.
Unstable.
Irritated.
As if his own body "remembered" the restriction.
Caelum grabbed an improvised oar and began pushing himself away from the shore.
The currents of the East Blue were unpredictable.
The raft creaked with every wave.
And water kept seeping between the logs, splashing his legs and keeping him in a constant state of partial weakness.
Three days passed.
The sun burned relentlessly.
Hunger weighed on him.
The sea offered no direction.
The raft was slow.
Unstable.
Almost a floating miscalculation.
On the third day, the wind died.
The ocean became still.
Caelum stared at the empty horizon.
His hands trembled.
—Analyze… find a solution…
his voice was dry, exhausted.
—If there's no wind… I have to create it.
He closed his eyes.
Focused the energy in his core.
He didn't release it toward the water.
He compressed it.
Then expelled it as hot vapor toward the sail.
The canvas inflated suddenly.
The raft jerked forward.
A pull.
Weak.
But real.
His body reacted violently to the effort.
His internal temperature rose dangerously.
He felt like he was going to collapse.
But he didn't stop.
—One step… at a time…
he whispered.
The instability within his body flickered faintly, like a faulty signal.
Caelum collapsed onto the logs.
Exhausted.
The sky turned red.
He didn't know where he was.
He didn't know if he would survive the night.
But he was no longer a man waiting to be rescued.
He was moving by his own will.
And then he saw it.
On the horizon.
A silhouette.
Larger.
More solid.
A ship.
With lights.
Movement.
Life.
And something worse…
Humans.
For the first time in a long time, Caelum felt something that wasn't just fear.
It was real uncertainty.
The sea kept moving.
And the "error" was about to collide with something far more dangerous than solitude.