“No!” Nessy growled low in her throat, shifting to position herself between Krysanthea's gun and me. "He's not corruption!" she snarled. "He's Alec! Our Alec! Can’t you smell it? Use your damn nose, ‘effing lizard-bird!”

  The velociraptor hesitated, inhaling the air.

  “If you kill him then you’ll lose Alec forever! I’ve been searching for weeks, he’s our Alec! My nose is good, you know that!” Nessy pressed on insistently, standing between me and a bullet.

  Krysanthea's amber eyes flickered with uncertainty, her expression bouncing between duty and doubt. The gun in her hand remained, its metal catching the dying light, but her conviction wavered.

  I watched the internal struggle play across her scaled face, each emotion visible in the minute shifts of her pupils, the tension in her feathered crest.

  "That… doesn't change what I'm seeing," Kristi said. "A body without pulse. A broken neck. Movement and speech where there should be none. This is exactly what Systemfall bloom shit acts and looks like!”

  The sky above had darkened, clouds gathering in brooding masses that mirrored the tension between us. Fat raindrops began falling. I didn't feel them, my nerves dead.

  “Alec… please fix your neck, you look ridiculous,” Nessy commented.

  I considered her request, weighing the advantages of remaining in this liminal undead state against the practical benefits of greater mobility.

  “Come on… you’re freaking this feathery knob out,” she added, causing Kristi to let out an annoyed hiss.

  With careful concentration, I directed the remaining Reconstitution energy toward my cervical vertebrae.

  The sensation was indescribable—not quite pain, not quite pleasure, but a strange electric confluence of the two. I felt bone fragments shifting, realigning with wet clicking sounds. Torn ligaments reknit themselves, severed nerves reconnecting with zaps of eldritch energy that radiated outward through my body.

  My head slowly rotated back into proper alignment with my spine, the unnatural angle correcting itself with audible pops. I drew a full breath for the first time since impact, oxygen flooding lungs that had been still for what felt like an eternity. The handcuffs slipped off my smashed hands and then I healed my fingers back into function.

  Carefully, I pushed myself up onto my elbows, then into a sitting position. My movements were jerky, puppet-like—a fair approximation of life rather than life itself. My heart remained stubbornly still. The Play Dead skill continued to suppress my vital signs, maintaining this strange half-existence.

  "There," I said, my voice steadier now that my vocal cords had been partially repaired. "I'm alive-ish. Satisfied?"

  Krysanthea stared at me. She looked smaller suddenly, more vulnerable—a person facing the collapse of everything she had believed to be true.

  “I can't hear… your heartbeat,” she said, her gun-hand trembling and swaying like a drunken sailor.

  “I need more sandwiches for that,” I lied.

  Kristi swallowed. Nessy wrapped me in a fluffy, wet dog hug. I hugged her back.

  I looked at these two women—one scaled and feathered, one furred—both loving different versions of someone I both was and wasn't. The weight of their expectations, their memories, their grief pressed against me from all sides, threatening to crush what little sense of self I'd managed to cobble together since my bath-bound rebirth.

  Krysanthea looked like she was on the verge of crying again or filling us with bullets.

  “Why didn’t you two knobs tell me that you were dating?” Nessy demanded into the silence between us.

  I didn’t reply, not having an answer.

  “He… knew how you felt about him. He didn't want to hurt you,” Kristi let out. “You know how bloody clingy you are. We decided that it was best to keep you… in the dark.”

  The implication now was pinned between them—that Nessy's feelings had been obvious, one-sided, perhaps even burdensome to her Alec. I watched the husky absorb this information, saw the flinch, the burst of pained emotions she couldn't suppress.

  "We… thought it would be easier for you that way," Kristi continued. "Alec worried about you constantly—how you'd react, how you'd cope. He knew how devoted you were to this... this syn-pack concept of yours, to the stupid promises you made as kids."

  Each word hammered into Nessy, whose ears flattened. I felt her stiffen against me, fur bristling slightly beneath my hands.

  “They weren't… stupid,” she growled. “A pack is… forever.”

  "Exactly! See, you're just proving my point! Alec didn't want to lose you as a friend," Krysanthea added. "But he needed... space. Independence. A chance to find himself beyond your orbit, outside of Ferguson.”

  Rain began to fall far harder now, plastering Nessy's fur to her body, running in rivulets down Krysanthea's scales and feathers, tapping on her ranger hat.

  The three of us, locked in this strange triangle of grief and revelation, became illuminated intermittently by flashes of lightning.

  "Why didn't he just tell me?" Nessy asked, her voice small, almost childlike in its wounded simplicity.

  "Would you have accepted it?" Kristi challenged, though there was no malice in her tone. "Would you have given him that space? Or would you have tried harder, pushed more, clung tighter?"

  “I… uhhh… I… urm… erm,” Nessy fretted then fell silent, sulking to herself.

  "I still have to follow the law," Krysanthea said, straightening her shoulders. "System-blooms are prohibited in Ferguson. They must be contained and destroyed." She stared at me with amber eyes. "No matter what form they take."

  "If you kill him now, you'll never have a chance to talk to him again," Nessy said suddenly, her voice clear despite the rain streaming down her face. "Is that what you want? To destroy any possibility of reclaiming what you lost?"

  I watched the calculation play across Krysanthea's features—duty versus desire, protocol versus possibility. Her amber eyes flickered between Nessy and me, pupils contracting and expanding with each flash of lightning.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  "The real Alec might be gone, killed by the cartel," Nessy pressed on. "But this one—our Alec—he's here now. Different, yes. Changed, yes. But still the boy we care for… in all the ways that matter!”

  "How can you be sure?" Krysanthea asked, her voice half lost in the downpour.

  "Because I tracked him," Nessy replied. "Through life, death, water, fire, magnets, metal pipes and madness. My nose led me to him because he's still Alec—not yours, nor mine… but ours. A new, old Alec, my best friend, the only person in the universe I trust with my life!”

  The rain came down in sheets now, transforming the quarry into a symphony of sound—water striking stone, rustling through leaves, drumming against our bodies. It washed away blood and tears alike, a cleansing deluge that seemed to mark the end of our dire standoff.

  Krysanthea's gun hand finally lowered, defeat written in the slump of her shoulders.

  "I should arrest you both," she said, but the words held no conviction. "At the very least confiscate and destroy that... that tree."

  “You cannot destroy all Systemfall bloom,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Nessy nodded. “Our planet is endless now… a patchwork of realities smooshed, stitched together by the System.”

  “I…” Kristi opened her mouth.

  "You won't do shit to Alec," Nessy said, her certainty absolute. She pressed closer to me. "Because deep down, you know we're right. Because you… love him, and some part of you recognizes him."

  The dog-girl quickly stuffed the remaining, soaked sandwiches into my mouth, leaving the little tree completely barren.

  Krysanthea holstered her weapon. She stared at us for a long moment, amber eyes unreadable in the gathering gloom.

  "You have until morning," she finally said. "Get that thing out of my forest. And don't let anyone see you… being dead." She turned, scales gleaming dully in the rain. "I was never here. This never happened."

  Without another word, she began climbing the steps back to the ranger station, each movement carrying the weight of everything she was leaving behind.

  I wasn’t couldn’t tell if she was crying or just getting wet from the rain, but she looked profoundly broken.

  Nessy and I remained on the shore, rain washing over us with a rumble of thunder overhead.

  "That was insanely brave and also insanely stupid," Nessy berated, her claws digging into my shoulders as she hugged me again and licked my face. Rain plastered her fur to her skull, transforming her usually fluffy appearance into something distinctively sleeker, black and white, like a dame from a noir film.

  “Eh,” I shrugged.

  "'Eh'? That's all you have to say?" Her voice rose an octave, ears flattening in agitation. "You throw yourself off a cliff, shatter every bone in your body, terrify me half to death, and all you can say is 'eh'?" She pulled back, blue eyes blazing with relief and fury. "Do you have any idea what it was like to see you broken on those rocks? To think for even a moment that I'd lost you again after everything we've been through?"

  Not having a heartbeat was making me feel weird, broken, unnatural, numb. It was hard to talk, to think. I spent a bit of Reconstitution to restart my heart and nerves, feeling warm and alive and then cold and wet.

  The thunder rumbled overhead as warmth flooded back through my system, blood rushing like a tide returning to shore. My heart stuttered to life with a painful lurch, stumbling into an irregular rhythm before finding its cadence. The sensation was both welcome and strange—like remembering how to breathe after centuries underwater.

  “Sorry," I murmured, the apology feeling inadequate against her big blue-eyed accusing look.

  "Sorry doesn't cut it," she growled, punctuating each word with a gentle shake of my shoulders. "You don't get to sacrifice yourself for me. That's not how this works. That's not how we work. We find solutions together. We survive together. We don't—" her voice cracked, "—we don't throw ourselves off cliffs and hope for the best!”

  “It seemed like the best way to save Sandwitchu and to also get Kristi off our backs.” I replied.

  “What if you didn’t heal after breaking your neck?” She asked. “What if you didn't wake up?”

  “I did though.”

  “What if Kristi decided that you were an abomination to be purged and shot you full of holes? What then, smartass?”

  "Hey, this is a nice change," I commented.

  "What is?" Nessy sputtered.

  "Being chided instead of smothered with endless affection," I replied, the words escaping before I could filter them.

  Her paw connected with the back of my head in a swift, disciplinary smack. “Not cool, Alec!”

  “Ow,” I laughed. “Pack-abuse!”

  "And for the record," she added, ears twitching with indignation, "I do not simply smother you with affection. I provide appropriate levels of canine companionship and support. There's a difference."

  "Says the dog who literally licked my face within seconds of meeting me."

  "That was… medical care! You were bleeding!"

  "And the constant hugging?"

  "Pack reinforcement! Builds trust! Also, don't change the subject. We were discussing your apparent death wish."

  "I'm sorry," I repeated. "It was the only way I could think to—"

  "Save me and our tree. I know." Her voice softened, blue eyes luminous in the rain. "Just... don't make a habit of it, okay? My heart can't take watching you die repeatedly. It's very bad for my fur. Causes premature graying."

  We gathered ourselves—me with my newly-beating heart, Nessy with the precious bucket containing our barren Sandwichu Tree—and began the ascent up the limestone stairs. Each step was a small victory, a reclamation of movement and purpose. My legs felt somewhat stiff, like stilts I was using for the first time, muscles remembering their function with reluctant obedience.

  The quarry fell away below us. I glanced back once, seeing the broken rocks where my body had lain, now washed clean by the falling rain. No evidence remained of the miracle—or abomination—that had occurred there. Nature, at least, passed no judgment.

  At the top of the stairs, the ranger station stood closed, Krysanthea nowhere to be seen. The building's windows glowed with warm light, a beacon against the gathering darkness. For a moment, I imagined her inside, perhaps sitting at her desk, staring at nothing, trying to reconcile her duty to murder me. I felt a pang of empathy for her—another victim of my unintended intrusion into this world of talking predators.

  We skirted the station and made our way into town. Ferguson unfolded before us, familiar in every brick and cobblestone. The rain had chased everyone indoors, leaving the streets eerily empty. Storefront windows glowed with muted light, signs swinging in the wind. Most of them bore names I recognized from my Ferguson and a few others were completely unfamiliar.

  The architecture was the same—the same 1920s Art Nouveau buildings lining Main Street, the same town square with its weathered gazebo—but small differences nagged at my perception. A mural of what appeared to be a golden retriever in a business suit, captioned "Mayor Goodroy opening the car show of 1928." A taller mailbox with paw-prints embossed on its side. A fire hydrant painted to look like a cute dog.

  Nessy led me through the rain-slicked streets, occasionally pointing out landmarks with quiet commentary. "That's the Howl & Growl—best burgers in town. Monday is karaoke night." Or: "Old Mrs. Featherstone lives there—scariest bird you'll ever meet, but makes the best blueberry pies."

  It felt like a guided tour of an uncanny valley—everything almost right, but subtly, disturbingly wrong. Or more like, I was the wrong element, the intruder into a world that had its own internal logic and harmony, millennia of it.

  We turned down a side street, the rain easing to a gentle patter as we approached a large brick building with wide garage doors. The weathered sign above read "Will's Wheels" in faded red letters, with a smaller sign declaring "Quality Repairs Since 1982."

  "You live above the garage?" I asked, following Nessy around to a metal staircase at the side of the building.

  "Yeah. Been here since trade school," she replied, managing the bucket carefully as she climbed. "Will gives me a discount on rent in exchange for emergency repairs on weekends."

  The stairs led to a small landing and a door painted a cheerful blue. Nessy slid a fake brick, procured a key and fumbled with it, operating the lock, her wet fur making her movements clumsy. Finally, the lock turned with a satisfying click, and the door swung open.

  "Welcome to my humble abode!" she said, gesturing me inside with a flourish that sent water droplets flying from her fur. "I know... it's not much, but it's home."

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