I don’t know how long I was out. Could’ve been seconds or hours. But when my brain started rebooting, I wasn’t in the real world anymore.

  It was like a dream—but sharp. Digital. Symbols hovered in front of my eyes, like blocky Chinese characters drawn by a toddler in Minecraft. They flickered, rearranged, shifted. I couldn’t read shit.

  Then came the voice. Flat. Robotic. Uncaring.

  “Human language: English acquired. Transblot active. Language model translation unoptimized. More Gronk needed.”

  What the fuck is a Gronk?

  “You are Leafly. Synthetically human. Designed to kill and absorb. Cruise question. You have successfully uploaded with fate increase. You have immunity: half-cycle. Power integration pending.”

  This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

  None of it made sense. But the tone said one thing loud and clear: this wasn’t human. And I wasn’t entirely me anymore.

  My eyes blinked open.

  The light was wrong—too bright, like early afternoon. Not the morning light from earlier. Time had passed.

  I blinked away the sand and crap. Vision cleared slowly.

  Three shark-men stood around me, pacing in a slow, perfect circle. Not attacking. Not growling. Just... circling. Their massive footprints carved a deep groove in the wet sand like some tribal ritual.

  They looked at me—but not like prey.

  More like they were waiting.

  For what?

  The orb was still in my hand, warm and buzzing now. Not like tech. Not like a weapon. Something deeper. It felt aware.

  I raised my Sig, pointed it at the nearest shark-man. “Back the fuck off.”

  Nothing. It kept pacing.

  Then they stopped. All at once. Dead still.