Coop felt a dull ache behind his eyes. He squeezed them tight, hissing as he inhaled, every heartbeat making the pain thump all the way to his temples. It was the kind of torment that made him want to stay completely still, but he was also experiencing the anxiety that only hit when he had forgotten to do something important. To make matters worse, he was desperately thirsty. It was like his body and mind were in direct conflict, with cravings, pain, and responsibility competing for priority.

He groaned as he exhaled, slowly forcing himself to recapture his consciousness before it slipped away again, trying to remember what deadline he had missed as his sense of obligation won out. All he needed was a few minutes longer, then he’d get up and grab a glass of water while he figured out what was what. It was always important to take things step by step. He could do that much.

When he heard the distant call of seagulls drowning out his internal complaints, his eyes fluttered open in surprise, only for his vision to be assaulted by a blinding light. The brightness forced him to squeeze his eyelids shut as he winced in pain, feeling confused while his eyes continued to ache. For some reason it felt like it had been a long, long time since he felt the sun on his bare skin. He hadn’t been expecting it.

It was crazy that he hadn’t recognized the sun. Even with his eyes closed, he could detect the radiance. It might have been unpleasant under normal circumstances, but in contrast to the pounding of his head, the insistent heat was more of a relief, like a warm blanket that protected him from harm.

“Is that really the sun?” He sighed, suddenly feeling confused that it was already out. Something deep within his still partially slumbering consciousness told him that it shouldn’t be.

He eased his eyes open, more carefully this time, and watched a palm frond as it danced in a faint, salty breeze. It was in front of a bright blue sky with a handful of small wispy clouds lazily drifting across the background. The tips reflected the sunlight so that they sparkled like jewels.

Coop smelled the brine of the ocean with a hint of drying seaweed that was only nostalgic for those people who had grown used to it. As his eyes opened a bit wider, the inkling of a smile was impossible to keep from appearing on his lips. For him, this was paradise, but he couldn’t explain why it felt so unexpected.

As he woke, he finally became more aware of the texture against his skin. Instead of blankets and sheets, it was the fine, warm sand of Ghost Reef, molding to his body to make a temporary bed where he had probably collapsed. He shifted his head slightly to the side, wincing again as the pressure behind his eyes changed with the motion.

Still, he moved enough to witness the rhythmic patterns of waves breaking on the shore. He calmed his breath to listen more intently. The sound of the waves was so unbelievably soothing he thought he might cry, but he couldn’t understand why he felt such an extreme reaction. Something strange had come over him. The call of another seagull and the rustling of palm fronds in the wind was utterly moving, as if his soul needed to experience the tropical ambience. It was heavenly.

“So why does it feel so confusing?” Coop mumbled with a raspy intonation, cheek pressed into the sand, still on the verge of slumber.

The impossibly turquoise water, stretching out to a blurry horizon, shimmered under the sun. The soft white sand stretched across the beach and a few large seashells glimmered in the light, waiting to be collected by hermit crabs after gentle waves washed them ashore. The leaves of dark green palm trees dotted the fringes with their fronds above piles of coconuts, calmly swaying back and forth, casting flickering shadows on sandpipers as they chased the waves before being chased in turn.

Coop was in the middle of a picturesque image of perfect tranquility. What could he possibly have to worry about? The lighthouse was behind him, the old stone fort in front. The aging seawall sat empty, waiting for their periodic ferry to bring supplies from the mainland. His carefully maintained trail ran across the dunes, and the rest of the island soaked in the brilliance of the day. Yet he still felt like he had things he needed to do. Something was clearly missing, and it was easy to see it was his friends, though it was strange for a loner like him to think such a thing.

When he flexed to sit up and dig his elbows in the sand, a wave of nausea rolled through his body that made him immediately give up, clamping his eyes shut and swallowing hard in an effort to settle his stomach. His memories were so incredibly hazy, he had no idea what had happened. Had he celebrated with Jones and had too much to drink? Was this a hangover? There was no way he actually got blackout drunk with his boss. The thought that maybe he had brought shame and regret, and he hoped he hadn’t ruined the start of his relationship with his new supervisor. The old man would certainly judge him harshly after going out of his way to give him a chance.

As he pressed his temples with the bottom of his palms, he tried to remember what he was doing and why he was halfway down the beach with a splitting headache. It was like he had been concussed. While he did his best to organize his thoughts, his stomach growled, and immediately jumped to the top of his list of priorities. It felt like he would be late for lunch.

If that was the case, he needed to get up before he further tarnished his reputation. He was pretty sure Jones was making fish tacos today, though he wasn’t sure how he knew. He licked his dry lips, realizing exactly how hungry he was, on top of the thirst. Somehow, it felt like it had been more than a year since he last had any refreshments, but also like he was reliving some recurring event.

When he slowly tried to sit up for a second time, a weight pressed on his chest that kept him down. When he looked past his nose, he recognized that the weight was Jett, the feline roommate he had joined in the lighthouse when he moved in. She was staring at him while preventing him from moving with firmly planted paws, invoking the unbreakable rule that disallowed comfortable cats from being disturbed, no matter where they were.

Coop smiled at her and let his head gently fall back to the sand and closed his eyes, realizing how out of it he was to not have noticed her in the first place. He could relax for a few more minutes if she insisted. Jones would understand that Coop was just adjusting to island time, especially if the black cat had something to do with it.

“Jett…” He mumbled, more to himself than the cat. “I think I just had the craziest dream… Mana and aliens…” He drifted off, bits and pieces coming back to him that were all too real.

It was like he had lived through a strange fever dream. He opened his eyes, suddenly feeling more awake, and watched the sky as he turned his thoughts over and over. He was thinking about all the places and animals he had somehow vividly imagined while he was asleep. Maybe he had watched some nature documentary that stuck with him, but it seemed like a lot. It felt like he had really been everywhere and he had grown out of being such an unconfident kid.

He raised his hand to shade his face and ended up staring at his calloused palm. It looked a bit too much like he had actually wielded swords and spears against monsters rather than what he expected from casually lifting weights, gripping dock lines, and using simple tools to maintain the island. He scoffed at the idea, but the sense that his observation wasn’t wrong lingered.

He kept his eyes open after putting his hand back onto the sand, a tiny bit of dread growing in his chest as he awaited meteors of solidified mana. The timing seemed right to restart the whole dream. They should be hurtling across the sky at any second. His breathing grew a bit heavier. They wouldn’t make him start over, would they?

He gulped out of nervousness, suddenly being confronted with the idea that the dream he was recalling with more and more clarity hadn’t ended or that it had more meaning than he wished. Maybe mana was coming back, or perhaps it had all been a massive premonition. Was he about to experience another iteration of the system? Should he pick a different class this time? Could he level even faster? What if some minor details were altered that changed the whole scenario? Would they even survive without a civilization shard landing on their beach? Was he the only one that knew?

He could feel his heart beating faster. The confusion was building, making him worried that he might have to leave the island again. He was being confronted with such extreme drive and purpose that had him anticipating a fight that it actually scared him, but he still didn’t want to go. As he exhaled, he could feel the resolution settling in his body, like he was prepared to do whatever had to be done if it meant Ghost Reef would have a chance to survive. What kind of monster did he have to become?

When he lifted his head and looked into Jett’s face and asked her what was going on directly, she responded by giving him a chirping, alien sounding ‘Mwop.’ It wasn’t feline at all.

Coop impulsively lurched like he was falling out of bed, trying to catch himself, truly waking up this time. The false meow had been like a trigger word for his mind. When he blinked, his back was on the cold hexagonal tiles made of the same alien material throughout the interior of the Ark. Palisteon was completing the process of healing him from what must have been some grievous wounds that placed him on the brink of death.

Coop raised his hands again, somehow surprised to find them to be flesh and bone, though they were the calloused fingers he had just observed in his dream. He sighed, wishing life was simple enough for him to go back while rubbing his eyes. He was in disbelief toward the layers of consciousness he had fallen through. Was he really alright?

Finally fully awake in the aftermath of his fight with an Icon of Mana, he slowly observed his surroundings. First, he noticed the destruction that had transformed the upper chamber to ruins.

The hexagonal floor was marred and disfigured. Individual tiles were crumpled and misshapen, while others were dislodged and broken from the interlocking surface. They clearly showed signs that enormous waves of energy had swept throughout the chamber from where most of the fighting had taken place. Even though the surface had mostly survived, Coop wouldn’t trust the floor to hold his own weight in specific sections near the epicenter of destruction and it didn’t seem like the Ark could easily put it back together.

A chilly breeze struck him, making it seem like they really were at the peak of a forbidden mountain. When he looked ahead, a crimson sky swallowed the horizon where there had only been shadows before. It lacked the warmth of the sun, but it was painted with a gradient of light emerging from the top down as if the density of the corrupting fog was thinner the higher it went. When he looked up, he could almost see stars through the haze, obscured by an approaching dawn. They really were at quite a high altitude after climbing the entirety of the tower.

The top of the Ark had been partially blown off by the Icon, leaving the solidified mana that was layered on the outside of the ship in ruins. In place of what had previously been a glowing dull red mountain peak that was barely visible from Ghost Reef, there was now a crater that revealed the empty space within the upper chamber from the outside.

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The columns that had held the shadowed ceiling were in disarray, most of the nearest ones completely gone, but others simply toppled over like they had recently been excavated from ancient ruins. About three quarters of the ceiling was completely evaporated, exposing them to the peak elevation of the massive spaceship.

He really had returned to the harshness of reality, but he clearly remembered the island he was struggling to protect. He’d be back soon.

Palisteon bleated at Coop to draw his attention, worried about the bewildered expression that had been on his face before he got his bearings.

“I’m good.” Coop stated, assuming the healer was asking how he was feeling. “How the hell did you survive all that anyway?”

“We had taken shelter behind the mana shield as you both got out of control.” Lyriel answered on Palisteon’s behalf.

Coop turned to find her looking only a bit disheveled, though whatever incomprehensible radiance that normally decorated her skin had been reduced to a sort of pallor that made her seem weak. She was focused on the Ark podium in front of her, attempting to interface with it, though judging by her expression she wasn’t having much luck.

The evidence of an explosion was clearly marked on the floor, with the massive tube of mana providing an impenetrable obstacle and leaving the opposite hexagons intact. He could see how they would have avoided the eruption of mana from the Icon if they had been positioned properly.

“What exactly happened?” He finally asked, still vividly remembering the beach on Ghost Reef.

“You punched a fully realized Icon of Mana to death.” Lyriel stated, shaking her head at the absurdity without bothering to face him. Perhaps she was thanking her lucky stars that Coop had been so fresh when they first met. Her fate may have been drastically different otherwise.

Coop huffed at the insanity of his victory, remembering the desperate gamble that had him trading damage for damage with the ultimate tank-like enemy. “I did punch it, didn’t I?” He confirmed with a bit of pride in his laughter, though the fight might have ended a bit too close to mutual destruction than he would have liked.

He climbed up to his feet, groaning as his joints popped and muscles protested. “Sheesh.” He muttered. “How long was I out?”

“It’s been more than 60 system hours.” Lyriel responded as she fiddled with the podium.

“60 hours?!” Coop exclaimed, all the joviality of his victory already crumbling and the concern for Ghost Reef jumping right back to the forefront of his mind.

Lyriel finally stopped what she was doing to face him and scan him from top to bottom. “You should be dead, but you’re incredibly resilient and Palisteon is a genius. Is everything in the right place?”

Coop ran his hands down his torso, patting himself to double check, then just shrugged. “Seems like it. What are you doing?” He quickly asked.

“I am attempting to decrypt the Ark.” She stated before turning back to the podium. “The key was destroyed along with your limbs, but that is not a problem unto itself.”

As Coop raised his hand in shock at the casual dismissal of losing his limbs, he was happy to count all of his fingers. “Wait. We don’t have administrative access anymore?” He asked, suddenly feeling dread.

Lyriel was way too calm for the situation, considering her personal investment in their mission, so her words hadn’t registered properly. “It should be an acceptable setback.” She stated. “The Ark appears to be a blind spot for the Eradication Protocol. By reaching this chamber we have secured all the time necessary to figure out how to trigger the self-destruction of mana.” She concluded.

Coop shook off her inexplicable composure and focused on his barely contained frustration at her constant dismissals of the rest of humanity. “I just wasted three days recovering while my friends are fighting those forces. We don’t have time at all.”

She paused for a moment before carefully choosing what to say first, pursing her lips, then frowning before deciding what to say. “I am so sorry.” Was what she landed on. She sounded entirely genuine, almost ready to cry as she personally related to the situation.

Coop just looked at her suspiciously. “Sorry? For what?” It couldn’t have been for being inconsiderate toward Ghost Reef. She was too serious for that.

She frowned before finding the courage to explain. “The rest of your people are gone at this point. All those targeted by the forces of mana certainly perished long ago.” She dropped her shoulders and bowed her head, not taking any pleasure in being the bearer of bad news. “They only had to struggle for a short time. No one has survived an Eradication Protocol much longer than that 30 days. I am really sorry, Coop. I felt I couldn’t warn you without compromising our mission.”

“No one has survived? What about me? What about you?” He objected with obvious examples toward her incorrect statement.

“Us exiles are an exception.” She answered.

“Nah, that’s nonsense.” Coop dismissed her whole explanation with a flick of his hand. “They’re still fighting, I know it, but it’s about time we came through on our end.”

She shook her head, understanding where he was coming from, and doing her best to assuage the inevitable feelings that she was so familiar with. “Coop, it’s been a thousand days.” She declared as if that was that, lowering her voice out of solemn respect without needing to expand.

“Doesn’t matter.” He declared. “Could be 100,000 and someone would still be fighting.”

She sighed, previously anticipating that this would be a difficult conversation, so she tried a different tack. “We have more than a hundred years before the Ark might permanently return to its dormant state, but if we stay on the planet, branded as we are, it’s possible the Eradication Protocol will continue indefinitely. We can remain here forever, until we find the way to destroy mana itself.” She continued, ignoring his refusal to accept her entire premise. “We can make sure no other planets will have to experience the same calamity in the future. We can eliminate the root cause of all this suffering.”

“And what happens to everything else if mana is destroyed?” Coop asked, already shaking his head.

“A fresh start for life itself.” Lyriel declared. “This is our purpose, Coop. We can make the ultimate sacrifice for the greater good.” She elaborated.

He had more or less known what she was going for, but that didn’t mean he could ignore his own thoughts. Coop didn’t like the idea of him or any of his companions becoming a sacrifice, nor did he relish the idea of making such a decision on behalf of anyone else, let alone everyone else.

To voluntarily erase all that he had fought for instead of continuing to fight contradicted everything he and his allies stood for. All the suffering and struggle would be wasted. Instead, it was like giving up. It would be an absolute surrender to the system that controlled the galaxy when the human defiance that had gotten them to this point was based on rebellion against the impossible. People had sacrificed themselves, but for hope rather than surrender. He couldn’t let that effort be abandoned. It really went against everything they had built.

“There’s no way I would go along with erasing everything in existence.” Coop clearly stated, not on board at all.

“It wouldn’t be a complete erasure of everything in existence.” Lyriel flatly rejected his statement. “Yes, mana is bound to all matter, and its destruction would have severe consequences, but it wouldn’t eliminate the long term cosmic forces that make up the universe at large. Mana is clearly still subject to that much, at least. Eventually, the conditions for life to spring forth will be recreated, this time free from the shackles of mana.” She concluded, making some grand assumptions that were beyond Coop’s pay grade.

It was precisely the ubiquity of mana that drove her to seek a way to completely cleanse the galaxy, including what Coop protected, but he wasn’t so altruistic as to look beyond the consequences to his companions and Ghost Reef. That’s why he would never voluntarily take the step she saw as necessary. There was no guarantee that they could even accomplish what she wished.

He scowled and sighed, trying to articulate what he saw as her surrender for an unsure result, but it was difficult to argue from Coop’s position, since he and all of humanity were basically newcomers to a reality able to be manipulated by mana. To him she just seemed disillusioned and impatient, but was he really in a position to admonish her?

She had good reason to feel cynical toward the chances of overcoming the system without such drastic measures. She had long observed life’s struggles and repeated failures. Before Earth, they had made no progress toward changing the dynamic at all. But no matter what, Coop wouldn’t concur with a grand sacrifice.

“We don’t have to give up. We can start the revolution against the system ourselves.” He tried, but because she saw him as nothing more than a new individual Exile, she couldn’t envision a possible future where they made any difference at all.

“We can’t win.” She was saying, gesticulating enthusiastically at Coop while describing the stranglehold the galactic community was under. Those who were properly integrated had no reason or desire to leave in the first place and people like him and her were barely a speck of dust in the fabric of the community.

“We can prevent the system from integrating new species.” Coop continued to offer ideas. “Or find a way to give them a choice.”

“Impossible…” Lyriel wouldn’t be convinced by anything he had to say.

As she expressed how unfeasible it would be to oppose innumerable species who considered the system an act of god, Coop really got the picture that Lyriel was done fighting. The Ark on Earth had been her last effort. He thought that was fine. He wouldn’t hold it against her. But he wasn’t done until Ghost Reef was safe and he wouldn’t allow her to compromise that goal. Not after everything else they had been through.

He walked up to the podium himself as she ranted about the incomprehensible dangers of mana, feeling like she was going to keep going in circles and neither of them would be able to convince the other of the righteousness of their conviction given their completely different perspectives. She saw his vehemence as naivety that had long been extinguished in herself. He saw her lust for revenge as misdirected and unfocused, and her wish to preemptively dismantle everything to prevent future tragedies as an act of pure trauma. If anything, she was crying for help so that she could be released from the responsibility she felt for simply surviving.

“I’m sorry, Lyriel.” He declared as he stepped up. “I think it’s time for you to step aside.”

With his pure aura wielded in his palm and while she continued trying to persuade him, he envisioned a giant button right in the center of the podium, like an emergency ‘off’ switch for the whole Eradication Protocol. When he slammed his hand down on the imaginary button, she expected him to be emphatically making a point, but the response from the Ark was immediate. His aura and the machine connected, responding to the sense that he couldn’t waste any more time.

“And that’s why…” She cut herself off, staring through the window in the center of the upper chamber floor and pulled her blindfold off, revealing her widened eyes. “What?!” Lyriel shouted, interrupting herself in surprise.

Then, as the mana in the tube reversed its flow and started to completely dissipate, leaving the space a vacuum, her jaw dropped. “Wait! No!”

She grabbed Coop’s shoulder and nudged him out of the way, leaning over the featureless podium as the lights in the Ark flickered off. The warehouse of hexagonal cells in the main chamber below closed up and drifted away as the Ark returned to a dormant state.