Chapter 37
K lari saw her first as a flash of pale pink drifting like debris in the current.
His heart seized.
She was floating limply near the torn hull of the wreck, body turning slowly in the gentle swirl of silt and blood.
The explosion had thrown her clear, but she wasn’t moving. Her tail — still partially formed — hung motionless. Her gills were barely fluttering.
Please don’t be dead.
The thought hit him harder than any claw or tentacle ever had.
We haven’t reset, he reminded himself. The game was still running.
She can’t be dead.
He surged forward, tail lashing with the last reserves of strength he possessed. Every wound screamed. Blood streamed from his chest, his thigh, his back. But none of it mattered.
He reached her in seconds and pulled her against his chest, one arm banding around her waist, the other cradling the back of her head. Her body was limp, skin no longer the vivid rose-pink it had been.
The scales were fading fast, turning translucent, then soft and pale — human hues bleeding through. She was caught in the painful middle of reversion, half-aquatic, half-human, fragile in a way that terrified him.
“Greta,” he rasped, voice cracking. “Greta, open your eyes.”
She didn’t respond at first.
He pressed his forehead to hers, gills flaring as he tried to share what little strength he had left. His tail wrapped tightly around what remained of hers, holding her close.
“Please,” he whispered against her skin. “Don’t leave me.”
Her eyelids fluttered.
A tiny, broken sound escaped her lips. “Klari…”
Relief crashed through him so hard his vision blurred. She was alive. Injured, fading, but alive.
“I’ve got you,” he said, already moving. “I’ve got you. Stay with me.”
He didn’t wait. He spun and powered toward the surface with everything he had left.
His strokes were ragged, tail burning, lungs — gills — screaming with every desperate pull of water.
Blood clouded the sea behind him in long, dark trails. But he didn’t slow. Wouldn’t slow.
The water grew lighter. Brighter. The pressure eased.
He burst through the surface in a violent explosion of white spray, holding her tight against his chest.
Cool night air hit his face. Twin moons hung low in the alien sky, casting silver light across the black waves.
He didn’t stop swimming.
He headed for the nearest island — a jagged silhouette rising from the sea, black sand beach glowing faintly under the moonlight.
Every stroke was agony. His wounds reopened wider with the effort. But Greta was breathing — shallow, wet, but breathing — and that was all the fuel he needed.
He reached the shallows and staggered onto the beach, legs forming as the aquatic form gave way under the air. He carried her the last few meters on shaking human legs and collapsed to his knees in the cool sand, still cradling her against him.
She wasn’t breathing properly.
Her chest rose once… stuttered… then fell still.
Klari’s heart stopped.
For one horrifying second, the entire world narrowed to that single, terrible silence — the absence of her breath.
“Greta?”
His voice cracked. He shook her gently, claws trembling against her shoulders.
“Greta—breathe!”
Nothing.
Her lips were pale. Her skin, still caught between pink scales and soft human flesh, was too cool. Her chest didn’t move. The only sound was the gentle lap of waves against the sand and the frantic thud of his own heart slamming against his ribs.
Terror, pure and ice-cold, flooded him.
No. Not her. Not after everything. Not when we had finally made it this far.
“Greta, please?—”
His hands moved on instinct. He tilted her head back, one palm supporting her neck, the other brushing wet strands of hair from her face with shaking fingers.
He leaned down, pressed his mouth to hers, and breathed for her — a deep, steady push of air straight into her lungs.
Once.
Twice.
Nothing happened.
Panic clawed up his throat. His markings flickered erratically, silver threads stuttering like a failing star.
“Come on,” he whispered against her lips, voice breaking. “Please, my love. Breathe for me. Please. I can’t lose you now. Not after I just got you back.”
He breathed into her again — harder this time, more desperate — his own chest burning with fear. He could feel the coolness of her lips, the terrifying stillness of her body against his.
A third breath.
A fourth.
Still nothing.
Klari’s vision blurred. His hands tightened on her, cradling her closer as if he could force life back into her by sheer will alone.
“Greta… don’t do this to me,” he rasped, forehead pressed to hers, voice raw with terror. “You fought so hard. We both did. You can’t leave me here alone on this beach. I need you. I need you breathing. I need you here with me. Please… just breathe.”
He kissed her again — not gentle this time, but desperate, pouring every ounce of love and fear and stubborn refusal into the act of breathing life back into her.
Once more.
And then?—
She jerked violently in his arms.
Water exploded from her mouth in a violent cough. Her body convulsed as she choked and gasped, lungs desperately pulling in air.
Her eyes flew open, wide and terrified for a split second, before they found his face and softened with recognition.
Klari let out a broken sound — half sob, half prayer — and crushed her against his chest, holding her so tightly it hurt them both.
She was breathing.
She was alive.
“Klari…” she croaked, voice raw.
He didn’t speak. He just pulled her into his arms and hugged her so tightly it hurt them both. His face buried in her wet hair, shoulders shaking with relief so profound it felt like pain.
She was alive.
She was here.
She was breathing on her own.
Greta clung to him just as fiercely, fingers digging into his scaled shoulders, face pressed to his neck.
Her body was still caught in the painful shift — patches of fading pink scales mixed with soft human skin, legs half-formed, tail dissolving.
She trembled against him, but she was solid. Real. Alive.
After a long moment she pulled back just enough to look at him. Her voice was small, cracked, but steady.
“Is it over?” she whispered. “Did we beat them?”
Klari cupped her face with both hands, thumbs brushing sand and tears from her cheeks. His golden eyes were bright with exhaustion and something that looked a lot like forever.
“Yes,” he said, voice rough but certain. “We beat them.”
She let out a shaky laugh that turned into a sob and hugged him again, weak arms wrapping around his neck, face buried in his shoulder. He held her just as tight, her tail — what remained of it — still loosely entwined with his even as she continued to shift back to human form.
The black sand beach was cool beneath them. The twin moons watched silently overhead. The distant sound of waves lapped at the shore.
For the first time since the platform had taken them, the game felt truly broken.
They had won.
Not by the rules.
Not by the Malquarans’ design.
But by choosing each other, over and over, until the system itself couldn’t hold them.
Klari pressed a kiss to the top of her head, then to her temple, then to her salt-stained lips — slow, reverent, full of everything he couldn’t put into words.
She kissed him back just as softly, fingers threading through his hair.
They stayed like that for a long time — two battered, bleeding, exhausted survivors wrapped around each other on a black-sand beach under alien moons.
Alive.
Together.
Free.
…Almost.