There are still questions I need to ask Boris. Dozens. About the tower, about the field around it, about what happened to the teams that never came back. But those questions can sit in the queue.
The urgency he just dropped on me rewrites the priority list.
The second wave of the Red Tide is coming. If we're still stranded on this rock when it hits, Lost Ark loses its ammunition supply and we lose our shelter. Everything else—the tower, the erosion, the clock—is irrelevant if we die tonight.
Survive first. Solve later.
I look at Boris. He hasn't moved from the rock. Axe still on the ground. Shoulders still curved.
"I'm not planning to stay here forever the way you have," I tell him. No cruelty in it. Just fact. "So I need to move. And I'd rather move with you than without."
I extend my hand.
