Chapter 371: The First Shock of a New Life

Rhayne keeps looking at her own feet after Zhang asks whether she can walk.

Her hand stays locked in the healer’s, but her expression says the problem isn’t strength anymore. It’s trust. For the last several minutes her body failed to answer simple commands, and now someone expects her to simply accept that everything works again.

"Do you want to try?" Zhang asks.

Rhayne takes a breath.

"I do."

She starts pushing the blanket aside to swing her legs off the gurney, and I see the problem before she finishes the movement. I catch both ends of the fabric and close it around her again.

"Easy. Learn to walk first. Then you can decide whether you want to traumatize the entire hospital, yourself included."

Rhayne freezes.

Red climbs up her neck.

"Den..."

"I’m preserving your dignity."

"You could have said it quieter."

Zhang hides a smile.

I help Rhayne sit on the edge of the gurney while keeping the blanket held around her. Her feet hang a few inches above the floor because of the bed’s height. She looks at them again, moves her toes, and then slides forward.

The sole touches the floor.

Nothing happens.

She puts the other foot down.

I hold her forearm while Zhang stays close on the other side, ready to step in if her legs give.

Rhayne shifts part of her weight onto the right.

Then the left.

"Any pain?" Zhang asks.

"No."

"Weakness?"

She thinks about it.

"Strange."

"Strange how?"

Rhayne moves one foot against the floor.

"Like when you sit on your own legs for too long."

"Numbness?" the doctor asks.

"A little. Pins and needles."

Zhang nods.

"Expected. Try a step."

Rhayne looks at me.

"I’ve got you," I say.

She moves her right leg forward.

The movement comes out cautious and short, as if she’s waiting for the knee to fold without warning. The second step comes almost the same way. On the third, her posture shifts a little.

On the fourth, I start easing the pressure of my hand on her arm.

Rhayne doesn’t notice.

We keep going to the middle of the room.

She stops.

"Wait."

My body reacts immediately.

"What?"

She moves her left foot. Then the right.

She bends one knee.

"It isn’t weak."

I let go a little more.

Rhayne stays standing.

"I know..."

She looks at me.

"Did you let go?"

"Completely."

The reaction comes slowly.

First in her eyes.

Then in her mouth.

Rhayne takes another step on her own.

Another.

She turns carefully, waiting for a delay that doesn’t come, and walks back toward us without help. There’s still stiffness, and the movement doesn’t have the lightness she has in Thirstfall, but her legs hold her weight normally.

An enormous smile breaks across her face.

"I can walk."

"Looks like it."

She tests two more steps.

"I can walk!"

This time her voice comes out loud enough to make one of the nurses smile along with her.

Rhayne laughs and picks up speed, almost trying to turn the walk into a small hop before the doctor raises a hand.

"No testing your running in the Diving room, please."

She stops, but keeps smiling.

There’s something very simple about that happiness. In Thirstfall I’ve watched her cross battlefields, face creatures stronger than she is, and turn a piece of flexible metal into an extension of her own body. None of that seems to matter right now.

She’s happy because her legs work.

Then the smile disappears.

Rhayne looks down.

The thermal blanket is still wrapped around her, but now it’s almost falling. Underneath it there’s only the underwear she went into the tank in.

Her head comes up slowly.

She looks at me.

"Den."

"Yes?"

"I’m practically naked."

"Technically you’re practically gift-wrapped. Or close enough."

"Den..."

I lift the bag I left near the wall.

"Already handled."

The irritation gives way to surprise.

"What?"

"Clothes."

I hand the bag to Zhang.

"Can you help her?"

Zhang opens it and checks the pieces.

"I can."

Rhayne grabs the strap immediately.

"Let’s go."

The speed with which she starts walking toward the women’s changing room confirms that the healing worked better than any graph on the monitor.

Zhang goes with her.

Before she disappears through the door, Rhayne looks back over her shoulder.

"Don’t leave."

"I promised I’d come back, remember?"

She nods and goes in.

Only then do I step out of the Diving section.

When the two of them reappear a few minutes later, Rhayne looks like a different person.

Or maybe it’s exactly the opposite.

The receptionist’s black pants fit surprisingly well. The light shirt, a soft yellow, hangs a little loose at the shoulders, but comfortably, and the light jacket completes something that could easily have come out of her own wardrobe. The woman who sold me the clothes must be almost exactly her size.

Rhayne still walks carefully. She doesn’t need to anymore. I can tell by how even her steps are, but her body is still waiting for a failure that isn’t coming.

At reception, the discharge process takes longer than I’d like. Rhayne has to confirm she received an explanation of the conventional treatment, sign the waiver for the three thousand GNC recovery program, and register that she chose a procedure carried out by an authorized support Diver.

The doctor adds the post-treatment results to her chart and recommends she avoid strenuous activity for a few hours.

Rhayne agrees to everything.

I suspect half the conversation goes in one ear and out the other. She keeps glancing down at her legs.

When the last signature disappears into the terminal, the doctor closes the file.

"You’re discharged."

Rhayne seems to need to hear it.

"I can go?"

"You can. If you feel weakness, pain, loss of sensation, or any motor change, get treatment immediately, though it wouldn’t be with us anymore. Go to a hospital."

She nods.

"Thank you."

We leave the desk together.

Near the main doors, I look at Zhang.

"Are you hungry?"

She seems to consider the question seriously.

"I am."

"Excellent. Finally something easy. Let’s eat something before—"

"But I’m not going with you."

I stop.

Zhang says it with the same calm as always, as if she hadn’t just turned down food a few hours after crossing districts and handing over twelve hours of her own stay to heal someone.

"I have a few people to see."

That settles it.

I remember what she said in Thirstfall before activating the Pearl. She didn’t know when she’d get another chance to come back and see the people who still mattered.

I check the clock.

"You’ve still got three days once you get back to your district."

"Yes, dear Sands."

"Then go. Thank you for everything, Zhang Xi."

Zhang smiles.

Rhayne moves closer to her.

"Thank you too. Really."

Her voice comes out quieter.

"If you hadn’t come..."

Zhang takes her hand.

"But I did."

Rhayne looks down at their fingers.

"You lost a day because of me."

"I didn’t lose it. It was an investment in a friend worth having."

The answer comes simply.

Zhang squeezes her hand once and finishes.

"I choose where to spend what matters to me."

Rhayne doesn’t push.

Zhang lets go and lightly touches the side of her face.

"Enjoy your Earth, little one."

Rhayne’s smile wavers for a moment, carrying something that doesn’t quite become sadness.

"You too."

Zhang looks at me.

"Take care of her."

"That’s the plan."

"I’m sure it is."

She says goodbye with a small tip of her head and heads for the exit.

It’s still strange watching that woman walk away.

Long black hair swinging against her back, tattooed arms, cargo pants, chains tapping quietly against the fabric. Nothing in that image resembles the shaved-headed monk in the grey tunic I know.

’It’s going to be hard to connect this picture to her someday.’

Then she stops near the door to let an older woman through first, inclines her head, and waits calmly.

’There’s the Zhang Xi we know.’

She disappears outside.

"So," I say. "What do you want to do first?"

Rhayne looks at the door Zhang just went through, then at the lobby.

She seems lost for a few seconds.

While she waits for an answer to show up, I finally have time to look at her properly.

The difference is strange.

There’s no brutal change between Earth Rhayne and Thirstfall Rhayne. Her eyes are still the same storm-cloud gray. Her hair is still that shade between silver and lilac that seems to shift a little depending on the light.

The face is hers too.

Even so, something is different.

Her hair is better kept. It falls more evenly, without ends burned by salt, training, and Thirstfall weather. Her skin has fewer small marks and injuries picked up over weeks of sleeping wherever she could, training, fighting, and crossing places that weren’t built with human comfort in mind.

Her eyebrows are better kept.

Even her hands look more delicate, without fresh calluses and small scars.

Rhayne is prettier on Earth. That’s undeniable.

And that bothers me for a specific reason.

Thirstfall doesn’t invent a random face. It shapes appearance according to some private idea of who we believe we are, filtered through things we can’t always see consciously.

If her version in that world looks a little more tired, more neglected, more marked...

Maybe that’s how she sees herself. The same way Zhang Xi sees herself as a monk with a shaved head.

She notices I’m staring.

"What?"

"Nothing."

Her eyes narrow.

"You’ve been looking at me for a while."

"You look different."

The insecurity arrives fast.

"Bad?"

The question confirms more than I’d like.

"The opposite."

She goes still.

The red starts in her cheeks.

"Oh..."

Apparently my brain has decided to invent problems on its own.

I look at the street.

"So. What do you want to do?"

Rhayne takes a few seconds to recover.

"I want to go to the orphanage."

I turn my attention back to her.

"Now?"

She nods.

"I want to see if they left anything for me."

"Left what, exactly?"

"Mail. Other documents. Maybe my things are still there."

The way she says it shows that even she doesn’t know exactly what she expects to find.

Maybe that doesn’t even matter. She just wants to go back. A place to call home.

"Is it far?"

Rhayne thinks about the route.

"About twenty minutes on foot."

She looks at her own legs.

Then smiles.

"I think I can manage."

"If you fall, I’m billing Zhang."

"You’re not going to do that."

"Of course not. She’d probably bill me back with a sermon and some philosophy about life."

Rhayne laughs, and then we head out.

The walk starts slow.

District 3 already looked different when I crossed the neighborhood alone. With Rhayne beside me, it gains a second layer.

She knows this place.

She points out a small shop that used to sell a different kind of food. She recognizes a pharmacy, but complains that they changed the front. On one corner she slows down in front of a public drink machine and spends a few seconds looking at the prices.

"It went up."

"By how much?"

"A lot."

"That doesn’t help."

She looks at me.

"I don’t remember exactly what it cost."

"Then maybe it didn’t go up."

"It went up."

"Solid argument. That settles it, then?"

She hides a smile.

We keep going.

Rhayne recognizes a street before we reach it. On another one, she picks a side of the sidewalk out of habit and only afterward seems to notice she was following an old routine.

From her reactions, some things changed. Others are exactly as she remembers.

Maybe that combination is worse.

"It’s strange," she says after a few minutes.

"What is?"

She runs her fingers through her hair while she looks at the buildings.

"I know where everything is."

I wait.

"It just doesn’t feel like I was here yesterday."

I understand perfectly.

For Earth, months went by.

For her, more than two years.

There are recent memories in her head that belong to a completely different world. Battles, stations, people, the streets of Azure Prime, the ocean sky, the sound of OXI moving through ancient structures, mages burning Mana to produce magic.

Now her body is walking through a familiar neighborhood where none of that exists.

"It’ll come back," I say.

"What will?"

"The familiarity."

She looks at me.

"You think so?"

"No idea. But saying it with confidence works better."

Rhayne laughs quietly.

A little while later, she starts paying more attention to the corners.

Her steps pick up.

"Are we close?"

"Yes."

She points ahead.

"Past that corner."

The smile that appears isn’t big, but it’s there as Rhayne speeds up slightly.

I just follow her.

We reach the corner and she turns first and stops. I almost walk into her and take a second to understand what’s happening.

Across the street there’s a lot fenced off by metal barriers and temporary panels. Behind them, a building takes up only part of the space it should fill.

One of the wings has been demolished.

What’s left is broken walls, exposed beams, and a section of stairway ending in empty air. The windows of the main block have been removed, leaving dark holes in the facade. Part of the roof no longer exists.

Structural condemnation notices ring the entrance.

There are no children.

There’s no staff.

There’s no movement at all except one small construction machine parked near the rubble.

Rhayne takes a step.

"No..."

I look at her.

She crosses two more.

Her leg fails.

I catch her waist before she goes down.

"Rhayne."

She doesn’t look at me.

"It was here."

"The orphanage?"

"It was here."

Her breathing turns uneven.

Rhayne shakes her head and points at a still-intact part of the building.

"No. It is here. That wall... the second-floor window... it was here."

She grips my arm hard.

"Den, it was here."

"I believe you. Breathe."

I keep my hand on her until I feel she has her balance back.

What’s on her face isn’t only sadness. It’s what someone looks like trying to fit two incompatible versions of the same place together.

She expected to find changes.

Maybe different people.

Maybe rooms rearranged.

Not this.

"What do you think happened?" I ask.

Rhayne doesn’t answer.

Because she doesn’t know, obviously. My question was stupid. It came out on its own.

Once I’m sure she’ll stay on her feet, I ease off the support and start looking over the area.

This doesn’t look like the result of a fire or a sudden collapse.

There are work markings.

Clean cuts in some of the structures.

Equipment.

Property notices.

It was deliberate.

I walk a few yards along the barrier.

Rhayne stays behind me, looking at what’s left of the building.

Then I find the sign.

Big enough to be read from the street.

The logo takes up the top. White letters on a dark blue background.

HALCYON CIVIC DEVELOPMENT

Below it:

URBAN REQUALIFICATION PROJECT

PROPERTY ACQUIRED

NO ACCESS

I stare at the name.

Then at the building behind the fence.

Something happened while Rhayne was in Thirstfall.

Something big enough to make an entire orphanage disappear.

I look back at the sign.

Halcyon Civic Development.

A few memories reach me, and I finally understand what happened.