"I don't know... my life didn't have the kind of experiences you two had," Nemo said, voice low as the sky began to deepen into twilight. "Honestly, it was pretty boring."
The orange hue of the setting sun stretched long shadows over the grass, painting everything in gold and fading blue.
"Both of my parents were—or still are—probably Awakened. I never knew them. I was just another kid of Atlantis."
He sat with his arms wrapped around his knees, his back slightly hunched.
"I did what I was told and didn't cause much trouble. Graduated from secondary school and went straight to working the docks. I was as normal as anyone could be... until I Awakened. Even now, it still feels like a dream. Like none of this could actually be real."
The air was warm and still. A breeze drifted in from the western edge of the island, brushing their skin with sea salt and evening damp.
"The only thing I can tell you," Nemo continued, "is that in moments probably similar to when your dad told you about your mom," he nodded toward Holt, "I used to sit on the edge of one of those endless piers around Atlantis. Just staring out at the ocean, imagining all the worlds waiting to be discovered."
He gave a quiet, humorless laugh.
"But now, knowing what we know? That's just wishing for suicide."
Giada and Holt looked at him with quiet understanding but said nothing. They couldn't offer comfort. Their convictions had emerged from clarity. His hadn't.
And there was something he hadn't told them.
The real reason he sat on the pier, alone, for hours.
It wasn't about dreams. It wasn't about yearning for adventure or freedom.
It was because he had been lonely.
Unbearably, unexplainably lonely. The kind of loneliness that eats into your sense of self until you start to wonder if you were ever real to begin with. On those quiet days, when the world felt distant and gray, he would sit and let the crashing of the waves remind him he was still there—still breathing, still something.
He had felt weak. Less than human. Unworthy. Forgotten. He had stared into that vast ocean not out of hope—but out of desperation. A silent plea for something—anything—to change.
And now it had.
But when he thought back to those moments at the edge of the pier, he missed them. Not because they had been good, but because _he had chosen them_. He had made the decision to be there. To wallow. That pain had belonged to him.
Now, he belonged to something else.
He remembered what Xeras had told him after his Awakening: "You are an Awakened now. Your life no longer fully belongs to you. It belongs to Atlantis."
He had laughed at that, called it propaganda. But after the cell, after the mission, after watching his own body move forward against fear and doubt—he saw the truth.
His life wasn't his anymore.
All of it—for the survival of humanity.
But wasn't he part of humanity too?
Why was he someone to be spent?
Why couldn't he be saved?
A bitter smile touched his lips.
Giada noticed it. She tilted her head slightly. Holt narrowed his eyes, but neither spoke. Nemo waved a hand.
"I'm going to try to sleep," he mumbled.
His stomach ached with hunger, but he hoped he'd make it to breakfast. If not… he thought, worst case, I'll eat Holt.
He gave a quiet chuckle—and then stopped.
Was that just a joke?
Or had something else crept into his thoughts?
His face went still, eyes narrowing slightly. He didn't like that he couldn't tell the difference anymore. Not when it came to this. Not with the way the Fault whispered when he was alone. Not when even his instincts didn't feel like his own.
He stood, brushing the dew from the back of his legs, and walked a few steps toward the ridge that overlooked the ocean.
Behind him, the others gave him space.
And that silence—that small mercy—allowed something else to rise.
He watched the sun dip toward the edge of the world, bleeding into the horizon in slow, melting reds. The ocean spread wide beneath it, that same endless ocean from his memories.
He had never felt smaller than he did now.
And yet, there was something strange about that feeling.
Something familiar.
His hands were trembling. Not from fear—but from restraint. There was a scream in him that hadn't yet formed words. A wound that hadn't yet bled. It wanted out.
The fault stirred beneath his skin.
He clenched his fists.
He could still feel himself. Still choose. That had to mean something, right?
"I don't know what my conviction is yet," he said quietly—to the air, to the sea, to himself.
"But I know I want it to be mine."
__________________________________________________________
Nemo slept poorly that night.
When sleep finally took him, it dragged him into a suffocating dream. He was surrounded—pressed from all sides by faceless figures, their hands gripping his limbs and torso, squeezing until he felt his bones would crack. Then, without warning, they tore him apart. Again. And again. And again. Every time, the pieces reassembled, only to be ripped apart once more.
When he awoke, the morning offered no comfort.
His stomach twisted with such gnawing hunger that he barely made it out of the hut before collapsing. His vision swam. His knees gave out. He stumbled into the sea—and the world vanished in a splash of cold.
He woke sometime later, coughing up salt water on the beach, sand sticking to his lips. Holt and Giada were beside him, equally unconscious and drenched. Standing over them, arms folded, was Solomon, a big smile on his face.
"Finally," the man said, "you're learning to collapse faster. Efficient."
That morning, Nemo finally got breakfast. Just enough to settle the pain, to silence the beast in his belly for a little while. But it didn't last. Soon the _circus_ began again.
Courses.
Training.
Discipline.
Fault control.
Philosophy.
Solomon ran them through it all like he was building weapons, not students. And when the time came to revisit their convictions, he didn't flinch or question them. Holt's desire for strength. Giada's resolve to remain human. He accepted their declarations with a nod and immediately began shaping those beliefs into tools—into armor. Teaching them how to project their conviction outward, to make it shield them from influence, distortion, and internal collapse.
But Nemo…
Nemo had nothing yet. Nothing solid enough to work with.
Days passed. The routine carved itself into their bones. Each course stripped more energy from their bodies but refined their instincts like sharpening blades. Holt had a knack for leading, and he took to the role with surprising discipline. Giada adapted fast—graceful, composed, and intense. Nemo trailed behind, not for lack of effort, but because his inner fire hadn't taken shape yet.
Then, one night, after a particularly brutal fault control session, Nemo collapsed into his bed and didn't even remember hitting the mattress.
And for the first time in a long while…
He didn't dream of faceless terrors or of many-eyed, tentacled nightmares. There were no surges of instinct trying to override his mind. No whispers from the Fault.
In fact, it didn't feel like dreaming at all.
It felt as if he had simply… arrived.
_________________________________________
Nemo opened his eyes.
He was standing.
Not in bed.
Not in his body.
Just _standing_—upright, barefoot, naked, on water.
Endless water.
Stretching in every direction, calm and impossibly flat, like a perfect mirror. Not the ocean, not truly—it was too still, too clear, reflecting the deep blue sky above. Wisps of cloud streaked across the firmament, and the entire world shimmered like a painting suspended in glass.
He looked down. His own reflection stared back at him, unbroken.
No wind. No current. No sound.
And then—
A voice.
Soft. Familiar. Neither male nor female. It carried no echo, and yet it vibrated in his chest like a memory remembered too late.
"Finally," it said, "we found some time to talk."