Chapter 2: Morning After Nightmare
The scream tore through the thin walls of the apartment, a raw, feminine sound of pure terror. Marcus bolted upright, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. His hands flew to his chest, palms smothering the soft, heavy weight there. His fingers dug into the flesh, desperate for the familiar, hard planes of pectoral muscle.
They weren’t there. Just more softness, more curve, the ache of sensitive tissue under his frantic grip.
He was still her. It hadn’t been a dream. The relief of waking was a cruel joke.
The bedroom door blew open, hinges protesting. Leo filled the doorway, backlit by the hall light, his silhouette monstrously broad. He was shirtless, a pair of old sleep pants hanging low on hips that were now narrow and sharp. For a second, he just stood there, a mountain of confused muscle, his breathing quick. Then he was across the room in two strides, the floorboards creaking under a weight they weren’t designed for.
“Marc? You okay?” Leo’s voice was sleep-rough, that deep tone vibrating in the quiet.
Marcus couldn’t speak. A pathetic, hiccuping sob escaped him. He shook his head, his blonde hair—long enough now to tangle in his lips—sticking to his wet cheeks. He’d been dreaming of the gym, of his own body, of looking in the mirror and seeing himself. Waking up was the nightmare.
Leo didn’t ask again. He just sat on the edge of the bed, the mattress dipping violently, and gathered Marcus up. He pulled him in, one huge arm encircling his back, the other hand cradling the back of his head. Marcus’s face was crushed against the solid wall of Leo’s chest. He could feel the rapid thud of Leo’s heartbeat, smell the sleep on his skin, the faint, clean scent of his deodorant.
It was the least sexual thing imaginable. It was pure, desperate anchor.
Marcus went limp. All the fight, the anger, the humiliated lust from the night before, drained out of him. He let himself be held. His own arms, slender and weak, came up to clutch at Leo’s sides, his fingers splaying over the defined ridges of his serratus muscles. He cried, silently now, shuddering against the warmth.
“It’s okay,” Leo murmured, his chin resting on top of Marcus’s head. “It’s just us. It’s still us.”
They stayed like that until Marcus’s breathing evened out, until the frantic pulse in his throat slowed. The morning light, thin and gray, began to outline the boxes of Leo’s old life that were still stacked in the corner, clothes that would never fit him again.
Marcus finally pulled back, wiping his nose on the back of his wrist—a gross, guy habit that felt absurd with his delicate hands. He looked up at Leo. In the soft light, he could see the confusion in his friend’s eyes, the gentle worry that was so Leo it almost hurt. It was still in there, behind the superhero jawline and the shadow of stubble.
“Bro,” Marcus said, his voice wrecked. “Let’s try not to fuck today.”
A startled laugh burst out of Leo, sharp and sudden. It broke the tension like glass. “Yeah. Yeah, okay. That’s probably a good rule.”
“I just want a normal day. Or as normal as it can be being a hot chick now.” He said it with a flat, practiced sarcasm that was his last line of defense. “Fuck, we need new clothes.”
He looked down at himself. He’d fallen asleep in one of Leo’s old band t-shirts. It was a XXL, but on his new frame, it hung off one shoulder and draped to mid-thigh like a shapeless sack. It was also stained with tears and, he realized with a jolt, probably other things from last night. He smelled himself—sour sweat, sex, panic.
Leo followed his gaze. “I can’t wear any of my jeans. The thighs just… burst. Like the Incredible Hulk, but less green and more pathetic.” He gestured to a pair of ruined chinos tossed over a chair. “And my arms are too big for all my shirt sleeves. I look like a kid wearing his little brother’s clothes.”
A practical problem. Something to solve. It was a lifeline.
“Okay,” Marcus said, swinging his legs out of bed. The movement made everything jiggle. He ignored it. “Mall. We need to go to the mall and not look like two homeless people who robbed a bodybuilder and a swimsuit model.”
“I have, like, eighty bucks in my wallet,” Leo said, standing up. He immediately cracked his head on the low-hanging light fixture. “Shit! Goddamnit.” He rubbed his forehead, scowling at the offending object.
“We’ll use my card,” Marcus said, heading for the bathroom. “My info’s still the same. My face… isn’t. This should be interesting.”
The mall was a sterile, fluorescent purgatory. The air smelled of pretzels, cheap perfume, and anxiety.
Marcus had thrown on the least terrible items he could find: a pair of Leo’s old basketball shorts, cinched tight with a belt, and a hoodie zipped to the top. He’d found a baseball cap and shoved all his blonde hair up under it. He looked like a tiny, suspicious person trying very hard not to be seen.
Leo wore sweatpants that were comically short, exposing his ankles, and a t-shirt so tight across his chest and biceps the seams whined in protest. He moved with a hesitant, shuffling gait, constantly checking his periphery so he didn’t bowl someone over with his shoulders.
People stared. Women’s eyes lingered on Leo, sliding over the contours of his arms and chest with open appreciation. Men’s eyes flicked to Marcus, then did a double-take, lingering on the curve of his ass in the loose shorts, the hint of cleavage above the zipper. A guy in a store uniform stacking shirts actually winked.
Marcus felt a hot flush crawl up his neck. Old habits kicked in. He straightened up, threw his shoulders back—a confident, dominant posture. In his old body, it would have been a challenge, a display. In this one, it thrust his chest out and arched his back, making him look like he was posing on a runway. The clerk’s smile widened.
“Dammit,” Marcus muttered, slouching immediately.
“What?” Leo asked, leaning down. His proximity was a wall of heat.
“Nothing. Just… this body does shit on its own. Let’s go in here.” He ducked into a generic men’s casual wear store.
The fluorescent lights were brutal. Marcus beelined for the jeans, his eyes scanning sizes. He automatically reached for his old size—34/32.
“You gotta try them on,” Leo said softly from beside him. He was holding a pair of 36/34 jeans and looking doubtful. “Nothing from before is gonna fit.”
He was right. In the fitting room, a tiny, mirrored closet, the truth was inescapable. The men’s jeans hung off his narrow hips like he was a wire hanger. He couldn’t keep them up. The waist swam on him, but the hips and thighs were simultaneously too tight in a weird, wrong way. He stared at his reflection, a boy playing dress-up in his dad’s clothes, if his dad’s clothes highlighted the fact that he had a startlingly feminine figure.
A soft knock. “Marc? You okay?”
“No,” Marcus said through the door. “I can’t wear men’s jeans. I need… I need women’s.” Saying it felt like swallowing broken glass.
There was a long pause. “Okay,” Leo said, no judgment in his voice. “There’s a place across the hall.”
The women’s store was a symphony of pastels and soft music. Marcus felt like a trespasser. He grabbed the first pair of black jeans he saw in what he guessed was his size—a number that felt invented—and a simple gray t-shirt, and fled to the fitting rooms.
Here, the mirror was even crueler. The lighting was designed to flatter. And it did. The jeans, a “curvy fit,” slid on with a shocking ease. They hugged his narrow waist, then cupped his ass perfectly, flaring slightly over his thighs. They fit. They actually fit his new shape. The t-shirt, soft and stretchy, draped over his chest, defining the swell of his breasts without trying. He looked… good. Put together. Normal, for this new alien normal.
He looked like a woman. A very attractive woman.
A wave of dizziness hit him. He braced himself against the wall.
“Those working?” Leo’s voice came from outside his curtain. He sounded anxious.
Marcus pushed the curtain open. He didn’t step out, just let Leo see.
Leo’s breath caught. His eyes traveled from the capped head, down the line of the shirt, over the jeans, and back up. His expression was unreadable for a second—that dark, hungry flicker from the night before—but it was quickly buried under a wave of something softer, sadder. “They fit,” he said simply.
“Yeah,” Marcus croaked.
“You look… less like you’re drowning in fabric.”
“I look like I’m going to get cat-called every three seconds.”
“Probably,” Leo agreed with a wince. “But you also look like you belong in your own skin. More than in my old shorts.” He held up a massive armful of his own finds: several pairs of identical black jeans in a size that sounded like a television model, and a stack of plain, solid-color t-shirts in XXL. “My turn.”
Watching Leo try to navigate a normal-sized fitting room was its own kind of tragedy. Marcus heard a thud, a muttered curse, and the sound of fabric straining. After a few minutes, Leo emerged. The new jeans fit his powerful legs and narrow waist. The simple black t-shirt stretched across his chest and shoulders, defining every muscle. He looked like a fitness model on his day off. He also looked deeply, profoundly uncomfortable. He kept flexing his shoulders, as if testing the limits of the cotton.
“It’s tight,” he complained.
“It’s supposed to be, you giant asshole,” Marcus said, but there was no heat in it. “You look like you. The new you.” He handed his card to the clerk, a teenage girl who couldn’t stop staring at Leo. Leo stared fixedly at a display of scarves, his ears turning red.
They changed in the restrooms, stuffing their old clothes in the bag. Emerging felt like stepping into new skins. The awkwardness was still there, a living thing between them, but it was quieter now, muffled by denim and cotton.
As they walked back through the mall, the stares were different. Before, they’d looked like freaks. Now, they looked like a couple. A mismatched, jaw-dropping couple. Leo, the towering, silent muscle god. Marcus, the petite, blonde bombshell walking slightly too fast, with a tense, don’t-fuck-with-me stride that didn’t match his appearance.
A group of guys in their early twenties, loitering near the food court, locked onto them. One let out a low whistle aimed at Marcus. Another called out, “Hey, big man, save some for the rest of us!”
Leo froze. His whole body went rigid. Marcus saw his hands, those huge, capable hands, curl into fists at his sides. A protective fury radiated off him. The old Leo would have hunched his shoulders and looked at his shoes. This Leo looked like he was calculating the trajectory needed to send all three of them through the Cinnabon stand.
Marcus acted without thinking. He slipped his hand into Leo’s clenched fist, threading their fingers together. Leo’s hand was so big his own disappeared inside it.
“Leo,” he said, his voice low. “Don’t. It’s not worth it. They’re nothing.”
He felt Leo shudder, then slowly relax. The guys, seeing the linked hands and the storm on Leo’s face, wisely shut up and moved on.
They walked out to the parking lot in silence, hands still clasped. The sun was high and harsh. They reached Leo’s car—a sensible compact that he now had to fold himself into like origami.
Once the doors were shut, the world sealed out, Leo didn’t start the engine. He just sat there, his big hands gripping the steering wheel at ten and two.
“We should go to the gym,” he said finally, his voice quiet. “Now. Before we lose our nerve.”
Marcus looked at his friend’s profile, at the tension in the new, strong line of his jaw. He thought of the machine, the white light, the feeling of his molecules being scrambled. He thought of the bathroom, the crushing need, the horrifying intimacy. He thought of the nightmare, and the anchor of Leo’s arms this morning.
He nodded, pulling the seatbelt across his new chest, feeling it settle between his breasts. “Yeah,” he said. “Let’s go see what the hell we bought.”
The car ride was a tension-filled bubble of stale air-conditioning and unasked questions. Leo drove with a new, deliberate care, as if afraid his own strength might snap the gearshift. Marcus watched the strip malls blur past, the new jeans already feeling more familiar than he wanted to admit.
“We’re not going to the gym like this,” Marcus announced suddenly, his voice cutting the silence. He plucked at the soft gray cotton of his new shirt. “I need a sports bra. A real one. Or I’m gonna knock myself out trying to run a treadmill.”
Leo glanced over, his expression shifting from grim determination to mild panic. “Another store?”
“It’s either that or I wrap myself in duct tape. Your call.”
The next place was a large, brightly lit athleticwear chain. The mannequins in the window were frozen in poses of effortless vigor. Marcus took a deep breath, pushed through the doors, and was immediately assaulted by the smell of synthetic fabric and optimism.
He headed straight for the women’s section, a kaleidoscope of neon and pastel. Leo hovered near a rack of men’s compression shirts, looking like a bull in a china shop made of spandex.
Marcus’s initial resistance began to dissolve under a wave of practical curiosity. He was, at his core, a person who understood gear. This was just new gear for a new… configuration. He ran his fingers over the seams of a high-impact sports bra, assessing the stitching. He checked the size chart, his mind translating his old understanding of build into this new topology of cup and band.
He grabbed a few in black and navy. Then his eyes landed on a rack of short, tight workout shorts. The kind he used to see girls wearing at the gym, the kind that made his old self look a second too long. He pulled a pair in heather gray off the rack. They were small, barely more than fabric-covered underwear.
“Really?” Leo’s voice whispered behind him. He’d drifted over, holding a single, gigantic black tank top.
“They look practical,” Marcus said, defensively. “For mobility.”
“They look like you’re giving up on pants entirely.”
“Says the man whose new biceps are fighting a war against sleeve integrity.” Marcus tossed the shorts over his arm. He added a few pairs of leggings, the thick, performance kind. Then, on a whim, he picked up a cropped top, a tiny thing made of breathable mesh. It was undeniably revealing. The old Marcus would have seen it as an invitation. The new Marcus saw it as a possible solution to the constant, overheated feeling in this body.
He looked at the growing pile in his arms. A laugh, short and surprised, escaped him. “My parents are going to lose their minds when they see this credit card bill.”
“The ‘My Son Is Now a Girl’ shopping spree line item,” Leo muttered, a faint smile touching his lips. It was the first hint of their old, dark humor since the light had hit them. “Lucky they’re loaded.”
“Lucky for you, too,” Marcus said, snatching the tank top from Leo’s hands and adding it to his pile. “You need more than one shirt, you giant. Get a few. And maybe something that doesn’t look like you’re about to enter a strongman competition.”
At the register, the total was staggering. Marcus swiped his card without flinching. The mechanical cha-ching felt like an acceptance, a surrender to a new, absurd normal. The bags they carried out were heavy with possibility and denial.
Back at the apartment, the silence felt different. It was no longer the shocked quiet of disaster, but the focused quiet of a project. Marcus dumped his bags on his bed. He held up the cropped mesh top and the short gray shorts.
“Okay,” he said to himself. “Gear test.”
He locked his bedroom door. He stripped off the new jeans and t-shirt, standing in just his boxer-briefs, which were all wrong. He carefully opened a sports bra, figured out the complicated clasp, and wrestled his breasts into it. The compression was immediate and profound. A deep, relieved sigh left him. The constant, aching weight was contained, lifted, managed.
He pulled on the shorts. They were obscenely short, the hem riding high on his thighs. He looked in the full-length mirror on the back of his door. A stranger stared back—a petite, powerfully built woman ready for a spin class. The shorts highlighted the curve of his ass, the new, round shape he’d only felt before. The sports bra flattened and shaped his chest into a strong, athletic line.
He slipped the mesh top on. It stopped just above the waistband of the shorts, leaving a slice of toned midriff exposed. He turned sideways. The silhouette was all woman, but it was also strong.Capable. It wasn’t the soft, inviting curves from the bathroom mirror. This was armor.
He opened the door. Leo was in the living room, having changed into the new, tight black tank top. The fabric clung to every ridge of his shoulders and chest. He was trying to plug in his laptop and fumbled the charger, his thick fingers struggling with the delicate plug.
“Need a hand?” Marcus asked.
Leo looked up. His eyes traveled over Marcus, head to toe. There was no unleashed hunger this time. It was slower, more comprehensive. His gaze was a mix of awe and a deep, aching recognition.
“You look…” he started, then stopped. “You look like you.”
“I feel less like I’m going to tip over,” Marcus admitted, walking into the room. He did a small, experimental squat. The fabric moved with him. “The support is… it’s good.”
A genuine smile broke across Leo’s face, transforming the harsh lines of his new jaw. “So the mission was a success. We acquired the necessary… infrastructure.”
“Infrastructure,” Marcus snorted, collapsing onto the couch. He tucked his legs under him, a strangely natural gesture. “Yeah. That’s one word for it.”
He looked at Leo, really looked at him, sitting there in his muscle-bound confusion. The fear of the gym, of the machine, was still a cold stone in his gut. But here, now, in clothes that fit their stolen skins, with Leo’s familiar smile on a stranger’s face, the panic receded just enough.
“Tomorrow,” Marcus said, the word definitive. “We go tomorrow. First thing.”
Leo just nodded, his big hands resting on his knees. The unspoken truth hung between them: they were dressed for the battle now. They just had to walk back into the room where they’d lost themselves.
The silence after Marcus’s declaration was thick with everything they weren’t saying. The echo of ‘the room where we lost ourselves’ bounced off the cheap apartment walls. Leo just looked at him, that new, unreadable face holding the ghost of his old friend’s worry. Then he nodded once, a sharp dip of his chin, and went back to wrestling with the laptop charger. The moment passed, buried under the mundane.
Sleep that night was a fractured thing. Marcus drifted off to the feeling of the sports bra’s tight embrace, a cage that felt more like safety than confinement. He woke once to the sound of a distant crash from Leo’s room, followed by a muffled, “Shit, sorry wall,” and almost smiled. The bizarre normalcy of it was a lifeline.
Morning light bled through his blinds, striping the piles of new clothing. The practical gear from yesterday was folded neatly. The other bags, the ones from the later, more impulsive haul, gaped open, spilling out possibilities. Marcus sat on the edge of his bed, staring at them. The fear of the gym was a cold, hard stone in his gut. Dressing for it felt like preparing for a war.
He bypassed the simple t-shirts. His hand went to the cropped mesh top again, the fabric light as a whisper. He pulled it on. Then, from the depths of a bag, he dug out the tight jeans he’d bought on that strange, defiant impulse. They were a deep indigo, the denim soft and stretchy. He wriggled into them, the fabric clinging to his hips and thighs like a second skin. He had to suck in a breath to button them. The waist sat low, the curve of his hips flaring dramatically below it.
He looked in the mirror. The person reflected was all contradictions. The sleek, athletic cap of his hair, the determined set of his mouth—those felt like him. The narrow waist poured into denim, the slice of pale stomach above the waistband, the way the jeans sculpted a shape that was purely, undeniably female—that was the stranger. He added a loose flannel, leaving it untied over the top. Armor, and a concession.
When he walked into the living room, Leo was already up. He wore his new uniform: the black tank top, the jeans that actually fit his legs. He was trying to make coffee, but his hand engulfed the carafe, pouring water with a clumsy slosh. He looked over as Marcus entered.
His gaze did that thing again—the quick, involuntary sweep. It lingered on the strip of skin between the jeans and the crop top before snapping back to Marcus’s face. “Battle ready?” Leo asked, his voice morning-rough.
“As I’ll ever be,” Marcus said, hearing the tightness in his own voice. “You ready to not break anything?”
“No promises.” Leo handed him a mug, his movements careful, deliberate. “The guy, the one demoing the machine. He had a name tag. ‘Silas.’ Scrawny guy, greasy hair, talked a mile a minute about quantum alignment.”
The memory, hazy until now, clicked into place. “Right. Silas. Looked like he lived in his mom’s basement. You think he’s still there?”
“Where else would he be?” Leo shrugged, a massive roll of shoulders. “He seemed like a… fixture.”
The gym, ‘Peak Physique,’ was a cathedral of sweat and ego at the wrong end of town. Pulling into the lot felt like driving into a memory of a crime scene. The familiar cracked asphalt, the flickering neon sign—it was all the same. Everything except them.
Walking from the car to the entrance was the first gauntlet. Marcus was hyper-aware of the sway in his hips the tight jeans forced, the way the flannel brushed his thighs. He shoved his hands in his pockets, trying for a slouch. Leo moved beside him, a mountain of silent tension, his shoulders hunched up near his ears.
The guy at the front desk, a kid Marcus vaguely recognized from before, didn’t look up from his phone. “Swipe in.”
Leo fumbled for his key fob. His giant fingers, numb with nerves, dropped it. The plastic clattered on the counter. The kid glanced up, annoyance shifting to blank surprise as he took in Leo’s physique. Then his eyes slid to Marcus. The annoyance melted into a different, sleeker expression. A slow smile spread.
“Hey,” the kid said, aiming it at Marcus. “Haven’t seen you here before. Need a tour?”
Old instincts roared to the surface. Marcus opened his mouth, ready to unleash a “fuck off” in his old, gravelly tone. What came out was a breathy, almost flirty, “We’re good, thanks.” He cringed internally. His voice had betrayed him again, turning dismissal into invitation.
Leo’s hand settled on the small of his back. It wasn’t a possessive grip, just a point of contact, a steadying current. “We know where we’re going,” Leo said. His voice, that new, deep instrument, held a finality that brooked no argument. The kid’s smile faltered. He looked between them, at Leo’s obvious bulk and the protective stance, and nodded, going back to his phone.
The interior was a jungle of clanking metal and grunts. The air tasted of stale sweat and disinfectant. Everything was as Marcus remembered it, yet nothing was. The free weight area, his old kingdom, looked like a landscape of peril. The mirrors, which had once reflected a version of himself he understood, now threatened to show him the truth.
And there it was. Tucked in a corner near the old, defunct hydration station. The machine.
It wasn’t imposing. It was a sleek, white pod-like structure with a single reclining seat inside, surrounded by a halo of what looked like blue LED strips. A placard on a stand next to it read, in cheery font: “SYNAPSE SYNCHRONIZER – PROOF OF CONCEPT! EXPERIENCE OPTIMAL NEUROMUSCULAR FLOW!”
It looked ridiculous. Like a prop from a cheap sci-fi movie.
There was no greasy, scrawny Silas.
“Shit,” Leo breathed beside him.
They stood frozen, twenty feet from the pod, as the gym life swirled around them. A man deadlifting groaned under the strain. Someone dropped a kettlebell with a crash. None of it mattered. The machine sat there, inert, innocent.
“Now what?” Marcus whispered. His heart was a frantic drum against his ribs. The tight jeans felt like they were cutting off his air.
“We ask,” Leo said. He started forward, his movement pulling Marcus along. They weaved through equipment, drawing glances. Marcus kept his eyes on the pod.
They reached the empty station. Up close, it was even flimsier-looking. The padding on the seat was cracked. One of the LED strips was dark. Marcus reached out a hand, needing to touch it, to see if it was still warm with whatever evil it contained.
“Hey! Don’t touch that!”
The voice was sharp, nasal. They both spun. It wasn’t Silas. A muscular woman in staff gear was striding over, her expression annoyed. “That unit’s offline. Has been for a week.”
“Offline?” Leo’s voice was tight. “Where’s Silas? The guy who was running it?”
The woman’s eyes narrowed, assessing them. Her gaze flicked over Leo with professional appreciation, then to Marcus with a flicker of something else—curiosity, maybe disdain. “Silas? Yeah, he’s gone. Management canned him. That thing was a liability. Gave a couple guys nasty burns, and one dude said it made him forget his own phone number for, like, an hour.” She shook her head. “Total scam. You guys signed up for a trial? You’ll have to take it up with corporate, but good luck.”
“Gone?” The word felt hollow in Marcus’s mouth. “Did he leave a number, an address, anything?”
“You cops or something?” She crossed her arms. “Look, he was a weird temp. He packed his weird little machine parts into a weird little van and left. That’s it. Now, I gotta work. You’re blocking the zone.”
She walked away, leaving them standing in the shadow of the silent pod. The hope they hadn’t even fully acknowledged curdled in Marcus’s stomach, turning into a leaden despair. The only tether to their old selves had just been severed.
Leo was staring at the machine, his big hands clenching and unclenching. The serene, confident mask he’d been trying to wear was gone, replaced by a raw, bewildered fear that looked utterly wrong on his heroic features. “He’s gone,” Leo echoed, the words a low rumble of defeat.
The sounds of the gym faded into a dull roar. The clank of weights, the thud of feet on treadmills, the casual, shouted conversations—it all became a hostile, meaningless noise. They were marooned here, in these wrong bodies, with no map and no guide.
Marcus turned from the dead machine. His eyes swept across the gym floor, over the men straining at barbells, the women on the mats, everyone inhabiting their own skin with such unthinking ease. A hot, desperate anger ignited in his chest, burning away the cold shock. This couldn’t be it. This couldn’t be the end of the story.
“No,” Marcus said, his voice quiet but fierce. It didn’t crack. “He’s a person. He left a trace. Everyone leaves a trace.” He looked up at Leo, meeting his friend’s lost gaze. “You’re a software engineer. I was a personal trainer. We’re not helpless. We find him.”
Leo blinked, the focus slowly returning to his eyes. He gave a slow, shaky nod. The mountain of muscle straightened, a purpose—however fragile—replacing the despair. “Okay,” he said. “How?”
Marcus’s mind was already racing, scrolling through the faded memories of that day. The van. The woman had said a van. “The van. You remember the van he hauled this thing in with? It had a logo. Something stupid.”
Leo’s brow furrowed in concentration. “It was… green. A cartoon brain with lightning bolts. A website.” He squeezed his eyes shut. “Synapse-something-dot-net.”
A lead. Faint, but real. It was a thread in the dark. Marcus grabbed it. “Then we start there. We go home. We use that gigantic brain of yours and we hunt.”
They turned their backs on the Synapse Synchronizer, on the room that had unmade them. The walk out felt longer, the eyes on them felt heavier. But the weight between them had shifted. The crushing helplessness was now a shared, burning mission. They had no idea what they would find, or if finding Silas would mean a way back, or just more terrible questions. But motion was better than standing still. The search was on.