Later that night, Havenwall settled into the familiar rhythm of exhausted survival.
The generators hummed softly somewhere outside. A few distant voices drifted through the settlement before gradually fading away one by one.
Dylan pushed aside a broken piece of wood with his boot and dropped onto the bed.
The mattress immediately complained.
He glanced around the room.
The damage from the previous night was still very much present.
Dylan snorted, grinning by himself. "Yeah..."
The bed creaked again as he settled back. His tomahawk landed on the bedside table with a dull thunk. Then he reached into his pack and pulled out the siren tablet. The sleek device lit up the moment his fingers brushed its surface.
A faint blue glow washed across the room.
Dylan stared at it.
Still looked like alien magic.
He tapped a symbol.
Nothing happened. Tapped another. A completely different screen appeared.
"Great." He stared at it for several seconds. Then started poking random icons.
The tablet responded by opening what appeared to be seven different menus simultaneously.
Dylan groaned. "Dammit." He remembered watching Ysa and Jenkins earlier.
There had been something about the settings. Some symbol. Or maybe another symbol.
Hell if he knew.
After several failed attempts, two accidental alarms, and one screen that appeared to be asking whether he wanted to recalibrate something important, Dylan finally found the language settings.
A few taps later—
The strange alien symbols vanished. English text replaced them.
Dylan leaned back. "Huh."
Now that was useful.
A long list of folders appeared across the holographic display.
Dylan opened one of the folders.
The hologram immediately expanded. Rows upon rows of files appeared.
He frowned.
At the very top of the display, a title floated above everything else.
MY COMPLETED MISSIONS
Dylan snorted. "Course she'd name it that."
He tapped one of the images.
The photograph expanded. A younger-looking Yve stood beside some kind of stone pedestal, holding up a glowing crystal roughly the size of her head.
Beside her stood a creature Dylan couldn't even begin to identify. The thing had four arms. No visible nose but a visible thumping heart.
Yve was smiling proudly while the creature looked mildly annoyed.
Dylan chuckled. Then opened another. And another.
Every picture showed something different.
Ancient relics, strange devices, pieces of technology that looked centuries ahead of anything humans had ever built.
Sometimes Yve stood beside sirens, sometimes beside races Dylan had never seen before. Some looked vaguely human. Others absolutely did not.
Suddenly he remembered something she'd mentioned once. That she occasionally hunted for artifacts.
The more he scrolled, the more ridiculous the collection became.
A crystal tablet covered in symbols that physically moved across its surface.
An object that appeared to be a cube until he looked closer and realized it somehow possessed more sides than a cube should have.
"Damn..." He leaned back slightly. "Hell, I thought Shriekers were weird."
Another swipe. Another photo. Another impossible thing.
Dylan shook his head. "That's a whole lotta weird."
Eventually Dylan got bored.
Not because the files weren't interesting. There were only so many impossible artifacts a man could look at before his brain simply accepted that the universe was ridiculous.
He closed the folder.
The hologram collapsed.
Then he started scrolling again.
Council documents. Research logs.
Then one folder caught his eye.
RESTRICTED: FOR MY EYES ONLY
Now that caught his attention.
Dylan opened the folder, but the tablet's holographic surface immediately blinked to life.
ACCESS RESTRICTED
Enter Password or Biometric Scan
He muttered under his breath. "Oh, come on."
Choosing Password, he watched as a cursor pulsed across the translucent screen. He tried a random string of letters.
INCORRECT PASSWORD
"Tch." Another attempt. Another failure. He scratched the back of his neck, then tried again. "Birthday."
June 17, 1785. INCORRECT PASSWORD
He frowned. "Thought that one was pretty good."
Next: Celestia Yve Virellis. INCORRECT PASSWORD
"Seriously?"
He tried Nierven.INCORRECT PASSWORD
Then: I Love My Family. INCORRECT PASSWORD
I Love Chocolates.INCORRECT PASSWORD
I'm A Siren.INCORRECT PASSWORD
Humans are stupid.INCORRECT PASSWORD
Dylan snorted. "That one should've worked."
Another attempt: Oh My Heavens!.INCORRECT PASSWORD
The tablet chimed. A warning symbol appeared.
MULTIPLE FAILED ATTEMPTS DETECTED
"Yeah, yeah," Dylan muttered. By the tenth attempt, he was mostly doing it out of spite.
Then the display flickered. A new message appeared:
Forgot Your Password? Reveal Hint
Dylan blinked. "…The hell?" He tapped it.
The hint materialized across the hologram: Someone You Long For
The room suddenly felt quieter. Dylan stared at the words. His first thought came immediately. Father.INCORRECT PASSWORD
Dad.INCORRECT PASSWORD
My Father.INCORRECT PASSWORD
My Dad.INCORRECT PASSWORD
The cursor blinked patiently.
"Ain't someone ya miss," Dylan murmured. "Someone ya long for…"
A strange feeling crawled into his chest. His eyes drifted toward the closed bedroom door. Toward nothing. Toward everything.
"No." He shook his head. "That's stupid."
The cursor kept blinking.
He rubbed a hand over his face. "This is dumb."
After a brief internal argument, Dylan finally gave in and typed— Dylan Pierce.
For a second, nothing happened. Then—
ACCESS GRANTED
The folder opened.
Dylan froze. His jaw dropped. "…What?" The word barely escaped him. He stared at the screen. Then stared some more. A strange heat rushed into his face, his stomach flipped, his ears burned.
Embarrassment. Disbelief. Something suspiciously close to fluttering panic.
He looked around the room as if somebody might have witnessed it. Then looked back at the open folder. At the words that had accepted his name. Then back again.
"…You gotta be kiddin' me."
The grin threatening to form was crushed beneath a scowl, but it failed miserably. Despite every effort, the corners of his mouth kept trying to climb upward.
He rubbed a hand across his face and let out a low grunt. The stupid grin was still there. He cleared his throat. Then did it again. Like somehow that would help.
He shifted on the bed and dropped back against the mattress, staring up at the ceiling. One hand came up to pinch the bridge of his nose while he bit down hard on the inside of his cheek.
The grin refused to leave.
"Dammit."
Another cough. Another throat-clear. The warmth in his chest only got worse.
He exhaled sharply through his nose and dragged a hand down his face again. Still there. Still smiling like an idiot.
The realization only made it worse.
He groaned and threw an arm over his eyes. "Shut up."
There was nobody in the room. Unfortunately, that didn't stop him from losing the argument.
After wrestling with his inner battles for nearly five minutes, Dylan finally calmed down. He sat up, exhaling hard, as if composing himself for an audience that wasn't there.
Turning back to the tablet, he navigated through the holographic interface.
He tapped one of the files.
The hologram rippled. Countless videos unfolded.
Dylan froze.
It was him.
He scrolled through the files, each one showing moments at the dock. He tapped another. The projection shifted — there he was, asleep on the dock, twitching in his sleep.
Then Yve's voice filled the room. "He's twitching again… do humans really twitch that much when sleeping?"
The camera turned. Yve appeared in the recording, her expression curious, almost tender.
"Ysa told me humans are dangerous…" She gestured toward Dylan's sleeping form. "That doesn't look dangerous to me. He comes here every other day, just gazes out into the horizon… and when he sleeps, he twitches like that. Like he's having some kind of nightmare."
The camera flipped again, zooming in on Dylan's face. His features filled the hologram — his eyebrows, his eyelash, the bridge of his nose, the curve of his lips.
Yve's voice softened. "You've got to admit… humans do have nice features." The zoom tightened, lingering on his lips. "I wonder how that feels."
Dylan nearly launched the tablet across the room.
The hologram vanished with a violent jab of his finger.
Silence.
He sat completely still. "..." A slow breath left him. Then another. "What the hell." He stared at the blank wall, the tablet remained rested on his lap. He looked at it.
Then immediately looked away.
"Nope." His jaw flexed. "...The hell she mean by that?"
He regretted asking the question the moment it left his mouth. A dangerous amount of warmth immediately climbed into his face.
"Damn…" he muttered, staring at the tablet. "Didn't know I had a stalker." He looked away. Then back again. "...Aw, hell."
Flipping it over, he reopened the folder. If he was already suffering, he might as well know how deep the hole went.
He scrolled through the holographic files again. Another caught his eye, one where he was sitting up in the image.
He tapped it.
The hologram flickered, then played. He dragged the recording back. It showed him again, asleep at the dock, twitching. Then suddenly — he jolted awake.
Dylan froze. He remembered this day. The day he first saw Yve.
Her voice came over the recording, calm but curious: "The book I read states how fragile the human mind is. Human subject seems to be undergoing post‑traumatic stress disorder. I wonder what traumatized him that he can't even sleep—oh, there's another human."
The video shifted. Another stranger appeared. Dylan's stomach knotted.
The hologram showed fists clashing, grunts, and punches. Yve's voice rose in alarm. "Oh my heavens! They're fighting… why are they fighting? Should I help? I feel like I should help—"
She squealed when both Dylan and the stranger pulled knives, lunging at each other.
Watching now, Dylan flinched. His hand instinctively went to his side, remembering the stab, the knife dropping from his grip. He exhaled hard, the memory hitting like a punch.
On the recording, Yve screamed. The stranger collapsed onto the dock, blood pooling into the water. Moments later, Dylan dropped into the ocean.
"Oh…" Yve's voice faltered, hesitant.
Dylan kept watching, jaw clenched. He saw himself gasp, thrash, trying to break the surface. The memory was vague, blurred by pain and water.
Then Yve's voice came again, trembling: "I—what do I do… I—how do I… should I save him? I mean… come on…"
The camera turned toward her.
Her face filled the hologram, conflicted but determined. "I'm gonna save him. I don't care if anyone shames me for it… I'm gonna do it."
The video ended.
Silence pressed in around Dylan. He sat there, staring at the frozen hologram, his chest tight.
Curious despite himself, he played the next video.
The projection showed him at the shore — bloodied, bruised, beaten.
Yve's voice came soft but steady: "So… I managed to get him to the shore. He's alive… barely."
Her hands appeared in the frame, lifting his shirt slightly. The camera caught the stab wounds, raw and ugly.
"I performed first‑hand emergency procedure," she continued, her tone almost clinical. "Managed to stop the bleeding… I chewed some hagfish slime and some bull kelps. I have to make do with time or he'll bleed to death."
The hologram zoomed in on the sticky, gelatinous green paste pressed against his wound.
Dylan grimaced, muttering under his breath, voice rough. "…That's… resourceful."
On the recording, his body stirred faintly.
Yve's voice quickened. "I have to go… he's waking up."
The camera tilted, showing her point of view as she dragged herself from the shore back into the waters.
Then the hologram flickered, then went dark.
Dylan let out a slow breath and scrolled further down the folder. More photographs. More recordings. Then another one caught his eye again.
He tapped it.
The hologram flickered.
Far underwater. The seafloor stretched across the hologram, illuminated by faint blue bioluminescence. Sand and stone rolled away into the darkness beyond.
The view wobbled briefly as Yve placed the tablet between two rocks. She adjusted it twice. Then a third time.
Apparently satisfied, she swam backward until she entered the frame. "Seems like our subject killed a man..." she announced.
Dylan immediately frowned.
The camera shifted slightly as a current passed.
"And doesn't plan to even bury him." Yve crossed her arms. "That is—that is dangerous." She glanced toward something outside the frame. "Humans seem remarkably unaware of how tiny actions can create very large consequences."
Dylan already had a bad feeling about where this was going.
A moment later Yve grabbed something and dragged it into view.
A body. The dead man from the dock.
Dylan's jaw tightened.
The corpse settled against the sand.
Yve crouched beside it. "This isn't my first time burying a human," she continued matter-of-factly. "But this man deserves at least a proper funeral." She looked down at the body. "To soothe his soul."
Dylan blinked. "What?"
"I don't sense him yet," Yve said, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. "But in a few hours rigor mortis should begin, and the soul will eventually separate from the body." She nodded confidently. "Probably." A pause. "We don't want him discovering himself lying forgotten and alone, right?"
Dylan stared at the hologram.
"So..." Yve placed a hand over her chest. "As an honor to you, poor stranger—and as my duty—we shall give you a proper funeral."
The recording continued for several seconds. Then another figure entered the frame.
Ysa. She carried what looked suspiciously like a shovel. "Here."
Yve brightened immediately. "Thanks, sis."
Ysa handed it over before noticing the tablet. Her expression flattened. "Do you really have to record this?"
"Uh, yeah." Yve blinked. "Duh."
Ysa groaned.
"I'm sending this to my friends." Yve gestured toward the body. "They've been asking for a freshly dead human specimen lately."
"Weirdos." Ysa stared at her. "What do you guys even need that for?"
"To study human biology." Yve immediately started digging. "Now leave us alone."
Ysa rolled her eyes so hard Dylan was surprised they didn't fall out. "You're all weird." Her tail flicked once behind her. Then she swam away.
Dylan let the video play for another few seconds.
The hologram showed Yve continuing to dig into the seafloor, pausing every so often to drag more sand and sediment away from the growing grave. The dead man's body rested nearby, swaying slightly with the currents.
Dylan watched for a moment longer. Then he closed the video.
The hologram vanished.
Silence settled over the room once again.
For a while he simply sat there, the tablet resting in his hands. His thumb hovered over the screen. A moment later he shut the tablet off completely.
Darkness reclaimed the room.
Dylan set the tablet on the bedside table beside his tomahawk and leaned back onto the mattress. The springs groaned beneath him. One arm settled across his forehead. His eyes drifted toward the ceiling.
For a long time, he just lay there. Thinking.
The recordings replayed themselves behind his eyes.
A long breath escaped him. He groaned and dragged his arm over his eyes.
And eventually, somewhere between embarrassment, exhaustion, old regrets, and thoughts he reluctantly examined further—
Sleep finally claimed him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Author's Note;
Y'all have NO IDEA how much self-control it took to write Dylan in this chapter. I wanted him to blush, squeal, kick his feet, and roll around the bed like a teenage girl. But unfortunately he's Dylan Pierce and not me. 😭 Those scenes looked adorable in my head, but it would've broken his character sooooo badly. So I had to settle for aggressive coughing, denial, and losing arguments with himself. YOU'RE WELCOME.