Rewind: A Grimdark LitRPG Series (Pyresouls Apocalypse, Book 1) by James Callum (reading tree .txt) 📕

like sunflower seeds and lemonade. Her favorites. Jacob was stunned. He stared, dumbfounded into her baby-blue eyes.

Eyes he could get lost in forever.

She wrinkled her nose and smirked at him, eyes twinkling. “Always wanted to do that. Least I got the chance to see how it felt now. Pretty good, Jacob Windsor. Not gonna lie. Pretty damn good. But you might wanna look at your hands, instead of me. We ain’t got long.”

The fire in her palms had fallen into his. Instinctively, he moved to pull his hands apart, afraid of getting burned.

Kim’s hands were there on his, forcing them together with the same impressive strength he remembered her having. “There, doesn’t that feel better?”

No longer panicked, Jacob could focus on the magical flame in his palm. It was warm. Alive.

Cupped in his palms he could feel a faint echo of the Pyre. That same warmth that seeped into his bones and chased away the chill that had settled on the world. A chill that only grew with each passing day since the Collapse.

“How?” he asked, nonplussed.

Kim leaned back and gently, so very gently, released her hands from his, lingering her fingertips on the backs of his hands. “A girl’s got to have her secrets.”

All he could do was nod dumbly. A spike of alarm stabbed through him as lightning spiderwebbed across the nearly cloudless red sky. “What the-”

Rolling forward onto her knees, Kim cupped Jacob’s face in her hands. She smiled through glittering tears in her eyes. “Just remember this, remember my face. Remember the flame, Jacob. It’s important. I wish we had more time.”

“What? Where are you going? Don’t leave-”

A shake of her head silenced him as the lightning sparkled at the edge of his vision and darkness began to fold over everything. “I’m not leaving, Jacob. You are.”

15

“He’s back in normal sinus rhythm,” Ian said, his voice was strained. Tired.

“Why is he not waking up?” Alice asked. “Everything reads normal, no?”

“Jacob nearly died, Alice. Give him some time. His body is likely still recovering. Just because he’s in stable condition doesn’t mean he’s going to be up on his feet, walking around.”

“We do not have the time,” she began but stopped suddenly. It sounded like an old argument, one she had made many times and was tired of making.

“I know.”

“Let him rest,” Alice said wearily. “You will call me the moment he awakes, yes?”

“Very well.”

Jacob could hear the door to the room open and shut. A few moments later he felt a hand on his shoulder. “She’s gone, Jacob.”

He popped open his eyes and stared up at the older man and his ridiculous affectation of a mustache. “Guess I just wanted a few minutes to myself,” he said with a pained chuckle, trying to hide the way he actually felt.

Every joint ached. Every muscle felt torn after a day of heavy marching. And despite having been asleep, he was so tired.

“You’re going to be sore for a while,” Ian confirmed. “Can you sit up?”

With a nod, Jacob began the slow, arduous process of sitting up. He felt like an old man.

“There you go,” Ian encouraged. “Just like that.” He took out a small device and tapped it against the patch on the side of his neck. “Let me just make sure your vitals are synced up properly… yep. All signs point to you being a healthy young man.”

“But?” Jacob asked, hearing the slight tremor in the doctor’s voice.

Quirking his lips into a pensive frown, Ian looked straight into Jacob’s face. He wasn’t one to look away from a bad situation. “We nearly lost you. It was the strangest thing I ever saw. It wasn’t quite a heart attack and yet you were quite dead for a few seconds there. No brain activity, your heart stopped… we brought you back but I don’t know how many more times we can do that.

“We don’t even know why it happened. Alice swears that her tech is not causing it but I cannot find a medical reason why you’re in such duress. First, it was seizures and now this. The next time you’re brought back, you might not make it Jacob. I want you to remember that. Not to scare you but to remind you….”

“Remind me of what?”

“You do not have to do this.”

“Unfortunately, he does,” Alice said, her lilting french tones coloring her words.

“Don’t you knock?” Ian asked.

With a shrug, which made her red curls bounce, Alice came forward to stand beside Ian and look at Jacob. She frowned slightly. “I will not force you. Never will I do that. But you are now connected. It is a thread I cannot break and it makes this machine useless to any but you.”

Alice gently stroked the curving metal frame of the FIVR pod as if it were a favored pet. “Unless you know of another [Ember of Probability]? I thought not. Still, worth asking, no?”

“I wasn’t going to stop anyway,” Jacob said, squaring his shoulders resolutely. “Put me back in.”

Ian was shaking his head and for a wonder, so was Alice. “We know so very little of what we do,” she said, lips pursed. “The toll it takes on your body must be great. Rest, and eat. While you do, you can brief us. Perhaps you have changed enough things that there are differences.”

“What do you mean? I’ve barely done anything,” Jacob said. Then he groaned, realizing Camilla was left all alone in the depths of the asylum.

Alice leaned forward, eyes sparkling. “What is it?”

“When you pulled me out, I was with Camilla. She’s… it’s hard to explain right now but we were both injured and hoping to find a Pyre. Without me there-”

“She will be fine.” Alice shook her head. “We can send you back to her. While the process is not… exact, it will be within a few seconds. To her, you will have simply froze up for a few moments. Perhaps in fear.” She patted him on the cheek. “I will go fetch Alec.”

Alice swept out of