I check the timer the moment I open my eyes.

[36:08:21]

Less than two days left. The Thirst is starting to settle into the back of my throat—a faint dryness no glass of water on Earth fully kills.

My first Dive was turbulent.

Chaos Theory tossed every plan I had into the air and watched where the pieces fell. I never got to focus on the basics, on the people who actually mattered. This time around, the Earth phase is going to be tighter.

Last night, while Mom and Lili slept, I burned a few hours of my own time stress-testing [Memory of Lightwaves]. I needed to know what the skill could and couldn’t do up here.

[Link] worked exactly the way it did in Thirstfall. No HUD. But the moment I focused on an object, the answer arrived inside my skull on its own—if it was authentic, what it was made of, what was hidden inside, even how old it was. The information just installed itself.

[Rescue] was the surprise. I learned I can pull memory off objects I’ve selected. Not entire scenes—flashes. Affective imprint. I tested with my father’s old ID card and saw his first attempt at the photo. He didn’t know what to do with his face. He held a half-smile too long and the camera caught the awkward middle of it.

To be sure it wasn’t a fluke, I tried it on my first toy. A small figure of the protagonist from the anime I used to watch on loop. The flash hit me like a punch. I saw my parents at the kitchen table counting GNC coins one by one, smiling at each other because they’d finally scraped enough together. I felt the love that put that toy in my hands. I had to put the figure down for a minute after.

[Consume] did nothing. The button was there in my mind. I pressed it. Nothing happened. Maybe because I haven’t successfully used it in Thirstfall yet. The skill didn’t even cost me time. The Thirstfall clock didn’t tick.

The bigger surprise came when I focused the primary skill—Memory of Lightwaves itself—on a person.

I tried it on Mom.

I expected to see yesterday from her side. Instead, I saw my mom from another timeline. The first one. The one who waited six Earth months for her son to come home from his first Dive—because last time around, that’s how long it took me.

The skill doesn’t read the present. It reads the past I lived. Memory across the timeline I came from, not this one.

Useful but limited.

I used the rest of the night to write down names. People who, in the next two years, lose almost everything to the Deepwarden and the DvsD guilds. Cornered people. Future allies.

Mom is on the couch when I walk into the living room. Lili is in the small bouncer beside her, playing with her own hands.

The TV is on. The morning news Mom likes. The anchor is reading off body counts—District 31, heavy losses to a combination of Thirst, famine, and the climate. Not even saying Divers.

I sit down with her.

"Mom. What was Earth like? Before the redistribution?"

I already know the answer. I just want her to feel like the keeper of it.

"It was blue, sweetheart." Her eyes don’t leave the screen. "From space, they used to call it the planet of life."

"It’s amazing how we managed to wreck all of that," I say.

"After all the wars and the consumption..." She shrugs. Small shrug. "There was no other ending."

I get up. Walk to the kitchen.

She used the GNC. The pantry is stocked. The fridge has actual food in it for the first time in—I don’t want to do the math.

"Mom. I’m going to make popcorn. Want some?"

"Sure, son. Just a little."

I work the kernels into the pan. Keep talking through the open doorway.

"How did you and Dad meet?"

"Den. I’ve told you so many times."

"I just like hearing it. I miss him."

A pause.

"Me too..."

The silence sits between us for a few seconds before she picks the thread back up.

"I met your father when District 4 was still part of the United States of America."

"When Earth was still divided into countries?" I shake the pan. "That’s older than I thought."

She laughs. Small but real one.

"Yes. We were children when we met. Good friends, before anything else. We got married after the global unification."

When the Thirst started killing the planet, every country on the map agreed there wasn’t time left to argue about borders and more wars. They folded into a single multicultural government. Sectors. Districts. A grid laid over the corpses of nations.

"Was it hard? Adjusting?"

"Of course it was. One day I was living in Tampa, Florida. The next, I was a citizen of Sector 7, District 4. The whole world had to relearn where it belonged. Major cities everywhere just... emptied. Nobody could live in them anymore."

The popcorn is done. I split it into two bowls and bring hers over.

We eat in front of the news.

She doesn’t mention the number, probably to spare me. Forty percent of the human population didn’t make it through the redistribution. Some areas that already lived on the edge of survivable simply went silent. They perished.

The anchor moves on. New segment. Same tone.

"Thanks for the talk, Mom. I have to go."

"Where are you going, Den?"

"The clinic. To register. My first Dive went through the emergency tank, so I’m not officially on file."

Her eyes widen.

"You didn’t tell me you almost died."

"Mom. You know Thirstfall and the Black Thirst aren’t gracious hosts."

She looks at me for a long second. Then she breaks the look on purpose. Lili is fussing in the bouncer—Mom uses it as an exit.

"I’ll leave dinner in the oven if you’re late. Be careful."

"I will."

I dress better than my daily outfits. A clean shirt, my best jeans, a leather jacket, and the same shoes, but I polished them a second time today. Closer to a young professional.

I’m not just registering at the clinic.

Today is phase two.