On the sixth day, Evelyn Ford discovered a corpse. Judging by how bloated it was, it had probably been dead for four or five days. Though the body was severely swollen, Evelyn still recognized it as one of their team members.

Evelyn placed the body in a bag and then stored it in her space. She would bury it once they found land.

Evelyn’s heart grew heavy. She sat silently in the back, and Ronan Kendrick stopped the assault boat and came over to hug her.

"Someone must still be alive."

Evelyn shook her head. "The hope is so slim."

It took Evelyn two days to shake off her depression and rally her spirits. ’The most important thing now is to stay alive, escape the ocean, find land—not to drown in sorrow.’

After pulling herself together, Evelyn transformed from a delicate woman into a veritable powerhouse. When she piloted the assault boat, she did it with the ferocity of someone launching a rocket, cranking the speed to maximum and nearly flinging Ronan Kendrick out from the back.

Evelyn now had only one goal: to escape the ocean and find land. Earthquakes, hurricanes, gales, torrential rains... she wouldn’t let anything stop her.

Yet after another three days, the two were still adrift. Evelyn even began to suspect they were just going in circles, trapped in some kind of inescapable loop.

’Otherwise, how could we still be on the ocean after all this time?’

’Surely the ocean hasn’t swallowed the entire planet of Azure?’

’I still have plenty of gasoline and motor oil in my space, but if we never find land, are we supposed to live on the ocean for the rest of our lives?’

Evelyn refused to give in. She continued onward, following the wind’s direction.

But it seemed even the heavens were against her. Just when she was feeling so driven, a hurricane swept across the water’s surface. Evelyn lost her footing and tumbled right into the sea.

The second she hit the water, Evelyn breathed a sigh of relief. ’At least my period is over.’

Ronan Kendrick pulled her out moments later. After this incident, Evelyn decided to take a more gradual approach; finding land wasn’t something she could rush.

"ACHOO."

Snot streamed from Evelyn’s nose as she shivered uncontrollably from the cold. She leaned over the side of the assault boat and retched into the water. ’I swallowed so much of that water... It’s so foul and fishy. I have to get it all out, or I’m done for if I get diarrhea.’

"GAG..." Evelyn felt like she had thrown up nothing but bile. She collapsed onto the floor of the assault boat, staring with utter despair at the misty surface of the ocean.

"Drink some water, take a pill, and get out of those clothes, quickly."

Ronan Kendrick touched her forehead. It was burning up.

"I’ll rig up a shelter with the tarp. You get inside and sleep for a while; I’ll pilot the boat. Don’t be anxious. We can’t see where we’re going right now, so we can only press on slowly. You’ve been on an emotional rollercoaster the last couple of days. I know you’re worried about the others, but you have to look after yourself, too."

Evelyn understood all that, but drifting day after day on the water’s surface, with no path forward and no land in sight, she couldn’t help but feel her heart race with panic and frustration.

Evelyn stripped off her soaking-wet clothes and quickly changed into a dry set of thermals and a military greatcoat.

"It’s so hard to stay alive."

On their fifteenth day adrift, Evelyn found another corpse. This one was disfigured beyond recognition; there was no way to tell who it was. Still, Evelyn placed it in a bag and stored it in her space along with the first.

The days bled into one another. Aside from occasionally being slapped into the water by a hurricane, the ocean posed no other threats. The heavy fog, however, showed no signs of lifting.

Ronan Kendrick did most of the piloting during this time. They staggered their sleep schedules, managing only about four hours of rest a day each. All other hours were spent trying to make headway.

"Mina, why are you losing your fur?"

Evelyn lifted Mina out. A moment ago, she had stroked its tail and discovered fur coming away in large clumps.

Lola, on the other hand, seemed a bit better. It was already able to fly out and flit around inside the assault boat.

Ronan Kendrick turned his head to look at Mina. "Could it be unable to acclimate? Or maybe the stench from the water is making it sick, causing the fur loss."

"I don’t know. It looks really unwell. I’ll give it some medicine."

Mina lay limply in Evelyn’s arms. If not for the faint rise and fall of its chest, she would have thought it was already a goner.

Evelyn dissolved the medicine in warm water and force-fed it to the animal. But by the next day, not only had Mina’s condition not improved, Lola had also started to shed its feathers.

"I’ll feed them a little of my blood. Don’t worry, it might just be seasickness."

Ronan Kendrick fed them his blood, and their vitality improved considerably, but then he noticed another problem.

"Evelyn, their skin doesn’t look right."

No new fur had grown back on the bald patches. When Evelyn leaned in for a closer look, she saw that dark spots had appeared on Mina’s skin.

Evelyn couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Mina’s skin was normally pinkish; the sudden appearance of dark blotches was worrying.

Thankfully, Ronan Kendrick’s blood helped them bounce back quickly, but it seemed the hair follicles in the bald patches were already dead.

But two days later, Evelyn discovered red bumps sprouting from the bald patches. The sight was unsettling. Mina had grown listless and was whining constantly.

"How could this happen?"

"Could it be that my blood doesn’t work on them?" Ronan Kendrick was also puzzled.

Evelyn decided to experiment with her own blood. As soon as she pricked her finger, blood welled up. She squeezed the blood into a spoon and then fed it to them.

Her own wounds healed very quickly now. While not on par with Ronan Kendrick’s, a cut would scab over in about two hours.

After drinking her blood, the two little ones seemed a bit more energetic. However, Evelyn didn’t dare to let her guard down and continued to watch them. A few hours later, the bumps had disappeared, and the spots had faded considerably.

Staring at the black water, a thought suddenly struck Evelyn.

"Ronan, do you think... this water is so foul, could it be from a nuclear power plant meltdown? A radiation leak?"

After speaking, Evelyn pressed her temples, forcing herself to calm down.

"Could Mina and Lola be losing their fur and developing spots and bumps because of radiation? I remember Aeridor doesn’t have a nuclear power plant."

Evelyn scratched her hair in frustration. "The radiation must have come from somewhere else. The seawater flows downstream... Kaelen, upstream, has a nuclear power plant."

Evelyn shook her head again. "That’s not all... right, the meteorite."

’The meteorite was radioactive, but it was very weak, not enough to harm a person.’

Evelyn’s mind was reeling, but a voice in her head was screaming at her to get away from here as fast as possible.

"Ronan, we have to go faster! We need to escape this stretch of water now!"

Evelyn pulled out the gas masks, bitterly regretting her idiotic decision to take hers off earlier. Worse, she had swallowed so much of that black water. A chill went down her spine.

"Okay, I’ll drive the assault boat. You don’t need to worry too much. Radiation has no effect on me. You drank my blood, so it shouldn’t affect you either."

"Really?"

"Mhm. Look, Mina and Lola opened their eyes after drinking your blood. It means your blood has a better compatibility than mine, and its healing ability is stronger."

Evelyn felt somewhat relieved.

’But in this endless expanse of water... can we really escape?’