I found out I'd won before the machine even took my armour off. But I didn't get the chance to savour the moment. One of the medics injected something into my neck — and the world went dark.

My next awakening felt like the very first one I could remember.

Cold air rushed into my lungs — sharp as a needle. My eyelids were heavy, but I forced them open as if a battle awaited me. As if keeping them shut would mean surrendering to pain.

But pain didn't come.

Above me, a familiar curved surface glowed dimly. Matte, like a thin layer of ice, concealing a world beyond it. I was enclosed in the tight shell of a medical pod. The walls around me were smooth and cold, and beneath my back, my rear, and my legs was that strange springy material, gel-like to the touch. Just like last time, I was naked.

One memory tugged the rest behind it, and I remembered how I'd ended up here. There wasn't much room inside the pod, but I managed to place a hand on my abdomen — the one Dubois had turned into a pincushion.

There were no holes. But my pod reacted to the movement. It trembled slightly and began lifting me, shifting my position from horizontal to upright. It didn't go fully vertical, keeping a slight incline, but now the weight of my body pressed down on my feet.

The matte panel in front of my eyes slid aside and rose. The lower half of the frame split in two and opened like a set of doors. A breeze brushed my face and lower parts with refreshing coolness. At least my head wasn't pounding this time.

Unlike last time, I wasn't alone. This time, there were two people waiting to greet me.

Instinctively, I covered myself with my hands — not particularly eager to put everything on display for Doc Bulsara and Zola.

"Aren't we modest today!" Zola teased cheerfully.

"Between the two of us, I've never been the exhibitionist," I reminded her.

Bulsara gave Zola a sidelong glance. If her skin weren't so dark, she might've blushed.

"He's talking about our first meeting after the interface installation," she said. "I was disoriented after the procedure! And he was staring!"

"Well, yeah. I'd never seen anyone with that many tattoos," I added.

"You said…" She glanced at Bulsara and fell silent. "Never mind."

The doctor nodded and stepped towards me with a scanner. Not aiming for my head — he went straight for the abdomen.

"Arms down," he ordered.

"Could you maybe give me some underwear first?" I asked.

Bulsara didn't turn it into a scene — though judging by Zola's sly grin, she was rather hoping he would.

"Get him some clothes," he instructed her.

Once I'd pulled on the underwear, I could finally examine the marks on my abdomen. There weren't really any scars — just two pink diamond-shaped impressions left by the stilettos, and something that looked like an elongated feline pupil from the rapier. It was much longer than the width of the blade itself, but then again, I'd been leaping and spinning like a madman — it must've been me who tore the muscle wider with the shard.

Doctor Bulsara seemed pleased with the examination.

"You have two hours. Then it's back in the pod."

"Two hours for what?" I asked.

"Officially? Toilet break, meal. Unofficially — it's just a sanctioned excuse to get you and Zola acquainted. Pulling you out of the pod wasn't even necessary. Have fun, kids," he said, and left the room.

That left just me and Zola. She handed me a loose hospital jumpsuit, and only now did I notice she was wearing a white coat over a standard suit.

"That official?" I asked, pointing at it.

"Bulsara's personal assistant," she nodded. "Ten points a day just for the role, free access to supplies. The cadets who were eyeing this post are already spreading rumours that I'm sleeping with him. Some bitch from third period even shaved her head to look more like me."

"Sounds intense over there."

"You've no idea," Zola sighed.

"Hair's not bothering you anymore?" I asked.

Zola was no longer bald. A dense, dark fuzz of a few centimetres now covered her head.

"I'm getting used to it," she said. "Doesn't take that much effort if you do it on autopilot. Though I do miss my old hair." She gave her hands a wistful look and sighed heavily. "I miss my old body. And my tattoos."

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"Think of it this way — you've got a whole new canvas to work with," I joked.

Zola didn't appreciate the humour.

"Dark canvas. Most of the tattoos won't even show. Are you mocking me?"

"Trying to be supportive," I said.

"So I'm the ungrateful one now?!" she snapped, planting her hands on her hips.

"Do you not have anyone else to argue with?" I asked, genuinely puzzled.

Her tightly pressed lips quivered, tears welled up in her eyes, and instead of replying, she simply started crying. No sobbing, no gasps — just a silent stream of tears.

She abruptly turned her back to me.

And now what was I supposed to do? Did I say something wrong? Time for a helpful déjà vu.

Déjà vu remained stubbornly silent. I had to improvise.

"Hey…" I called out softly and gently touched her shoulder.

That's when déjà vu finally stirred — only to confirm that this wasn't the first time I'd felt this uncomfortable with physical closeness.

Hitting someone is a lot easier than comforting them. Fighting doesn't care about boundaries — no one bothers with them in a fight. But this? This required treading some invisible, razor-thin line between proper sympathy, personal space, and something dangerously close to intimacy.

Cross it the wrong way, and you'd be misunderstood.

Déjà vu chimed in again — reminding me that I'd rarely ever been understood the way I'd meant to be.

Zola recoiled from my touch like I'd shocked her with a live wire. Like a cornered cat, she hissed:

"Don't!"

Don't what?

Hell if I knew.

"Don't what?"

"Don't do what you're doing!" she barked, spinning around to face me, wiping her tears on the sleeve of her coat.

"Do you even know what I'm doing? Because I don't."

"You mocking me again?" she snapped, this time turning fully towards me.

"This reminds me of our first meeting," I said. "You made the same kind of assumptions back then."

"You were staring at my tits!"

I filled my lungs, ready to argue her version of that memory — when a message flashed before my eyes.

Incoming message: F. Bulsara

Subject: Calm her down

Content: Don't argue. Let her yell if she needs to. She's been unstable lately. If you can, help her calm down.

Zola noticed the change in my expression.

"What?"

"Nothing," I said.

"I knew it!" she snapped. "The good doctor wrote to tell you I'm losing my mind, didn't he?!"

"No…" Our eyes met. "Yes," I admitted. "He said you might need to scream."

"Fuck you, fuck him, fuck you both!" she shouted.

"Right," I nodded. "Fuck us."

"Are you mocking me again?" she demanded.

"No," I waved it off.

How was I supposed to explain what I was doing? Letting her scream at me? Letting her throw f-bombs in my face? It'd be easier if I understood it myself.

If Zola really had serious issues, they should've prescribed her a psychiatrist — not pulled me out of a capsule to play therapist. I had no idea how to help her.

We stood in silence for a while. Then she pointed to a plastic fold-out table in the corner of the room. A food tray sat on it.

Oh, metallic rice!

"Eat," she said.

I sat down without a word and picked up the spoon. Injuries and the capsule took a lot out of you, so I devoured half the tray in moments. Only after that did a flicker of shame creep in, and I remembered Zola.

She was standing there, looking at me like she was trying to see something beneath the surface.

"What?" I asked. Just in case, I grabbed a napkin and wiped my face.

She shook her head.

But I could see she had a question.

"Go on, just ask."

"Did it hurt?"

"Not at all. I had good painkillers. Didn't feel a thing — right up until the medics shut me down," I replied. "My turn. What's with all the crazy?"

Zola narrowed her eyes, clearly debating whether to start another scene, but changed her mind. Instead, she finally sat across from me.

"Identity crisis. Depressive phase of existential searching."

"Wow, what a fancy words! You sound like a real doctor."

"What's my name, Jake?"

"Right now your name's Zola," I said.

She didn't like that answer. She pushed herself away from the table, lips drawn tight — then leaned in closer instead.

"I'm Nur Amira Rahman. Nur! Amira! Rahman!"

"I know. But it's better if no one else does. Especially those so-called colleagues of your former hitchhiker." I tapped my temple. "The fight isn't over, Nur."

"Turns out," she said quietly, "I'm not a fighter. I'm just not."

Oof… those fancy words weren't just fancy. That sounded like an actual diagnosis. Apparently Bulsara had already tried the psychologist route.

"You're underestimating yourself," I said. "You endured a demon. Thanks to you, we have a prisoner."

"Thanks to me?" she laughed. "And what exactly did I do? I was a good girl. I did what kind Doctor Bulsara told me to do — but none of it mattered. No one told me the real plans. Not then, not now. I had no control over anything. Not even my own life.

"Now I've got a schedule… drawn up by the Doc. When I wake, when I sleep, when I train, when I cultivate…

"And for what?"

"To grow stronger. Get strong enough, and no one tells you when to wake up or when to sleep," I said, hearing the hollowness in my own words.

I felt like a father lying to his child — "Grow up and you can play as much as you want!" — only for that child to find adulthood was nothing but toil and cruelty.

"When I'm strong enough, like that girl who spoke to my demon when I wasn't even in control of my own body, they'll point me at a target and say, 'Attack.' That's why they're making me strong."

"And you're against that?" I asked.

"Yes!"

"Why?"

"What?" she blinked. "What do you mean, why? I want to live my life! I want to decide for myself what I do!"

That feeling, that hopelessness — I knew it too well.

She just needed to understand one thing.

"In forty years, an enemy horde's going to arrive and butcher half the planet," I reminded her. "So while you're searching for life's purpose, make sure you figure out whose side you're on. There are only two: ours and theirs."

"I'm not looking for life's purpose!" she snapped. "How can something have purpose when it was given without asking and will be taken just as easily? Life is meaningless."

That was skirting dangerously close to suicidal ideation. But thankfully, she kept going:

"The only thing that matters is what we want. And right now, I'd trade Verdis for Earth in a heartbeat. I'd trade this cultivator's life for a simple mortal one. I want to see my parents. But... not in this body."

We sat in silence for a moment.

She was seriously homesick. And I didn't know what to say. My situation was different. It was like someone had deliberately cut off every possible distraction from my past — as if there was some hidden logic in how I ended up here.

"Things can still change," I told her. "A new day means new chances."

"Sounds lame, Jake."

"But it's true," I shrugged. "There's still so much I haven't done, so much I haven't seen.

"Earth! I haven't even seen Earth!" I tapped my temple again to remind her about the amnesia.

"There's an easy way to get there. Just fail the selection," she said.

"And greet the invasion as cannon fodder? No, thanks! That's when I really wouldn't have a choice at all."

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