Jas let his eyes drift toward the flickering lantern. Shadows danced along the cabin walls, strange shapes that reminded them of solar flares. “Maybe it was the fever,” they murmured, “but… I remember things. A ship. A broadcast. The sunspot—Sunspot 4079—they said it was bigger than the one from 1859.”
Roman paused, exchanging a glance with Ivy Mae.
“You’ve heard about that one?” Jas asked, voice thin but insistent.
Roman sighed. “We saw bits of an old transmission once. Archived footage, barely intact. Talked about Musk, Ramaswamy, some… DOGE department? Sounded like a joke, but it wasn’t. Said the sunspot had turned toward Earth and the grid just—vanished.”
“And no one could stop it,” Ivy Mae added. “They were too busy playing politics. Power over people, money over meaning.”
Jas shivered. “What if that’s what started it? The unraveling?”
“Maybe,” Roman said, rubbing his temples. “Or maybe your brain just stirred up every conspiracy and ghost story we ever heard during the Collapse.”
“But some of it’s real,” Jas said, more certain now. “The sky—before I passed out—it felt... wrong. Like it was trying to talk to me.”
Ivy Mae squeezed their hand. “Rest now. We’ll figure out what’s real soon enough.”
Outside, a low hum pulsed in the distance—half wind, half memory—and in the sky above the treeline, faint emerald ribbons stirred once more.