4338.206 · July 25, 2018 AD
You Are Mine Now
Seeking solitude after Luke's unexpected kiss, Jamie returns to the lagoon—and finds Clivilius waiting with an offer he doesn't understand and lacks the will to refuse. By the time the water releases him, something fundamental has changed. He returns strangely at peace to find Paul hypnotised by a picture of a flat-pack shed, and together they attempt their first construction project. The concrete fails. So does hope.
Some bargains are signed without reading the terms.
Jamie retreats to the lagoon to process everything—Luke's kiss, the confession, the forgiveness he can't quite believe. But Clivilius has been waiting. The water stirs with sensations he can't control, and a voice threads through his consciousness: Surrender yourself and I will grant you new life. Exhausted beyond resistance, Jamie gives what the entity demands. Glowing particles drift through crystal depths like evidence of a contract he can't undo.
He emerges transformed—or at least changed. The constant tension has lifted. Something like peace has taken root where desperation lived.
Back at camp, he finds Paul frozen before a picture of a flat-pack shed, the Drop Zone transformed by Luke's deliveries into actual building supplies. Neither of them knows how to pour concrete. Neither admits it until failure is already seeping into the surrounding dirt. Jamie takes charge anyway, confiscating the pickaxe before Paul murders one of them, hiding the burn that turns every swing into private agony.
By afternoon, they've accomplished nothing except proving how thoroughly out of their depth they are. Hunger joins failure on the list of problems they can't solve alone.
