I Have Felt Better

***

I was told the world today wasn’t so different from the world thousands of years ago.

The sky was still blue and the horizon still stretched endlessly, a painted illusion of infinity. But beneath the glass barriers of Worlderia, beneath the sterilized air vents humming softly in every corner of our biodomes, humanity walked on borrowed breaths.

The invention of Kyslicium wasn’t just a scientific achievement; it was humanity’s lifeline. A synthetic element, pure and stable, crafted to replace the invisible killer we once thought of as life itself: oxygen.

It took seventy to eighty years—an entire lifetime back then—for oxygen to slowly unravel the human body, cell by cell. Today, people live three hundred years or more, their youthful faces barely reflecting the weight of time. Death before a century is now seen as a tragedy, a premature extinguishing of a flickering light.

But for me and the other survivors of that final Wood Hunter mission, death didn’t feel so distant anymore.

We had inhaled oxygen. Pure, unfiltered, raw oxygen.

And now we were waiting to see if it would finish what it had started.

The sterile smell of antiseptic filled the examination room—a sharp contrast to the earthy, decaying scent of the wastelands. Fluorescent lights hummed faintly above me, reflecting off the polished steel walls. I sat on the edge of the medical cot, shirtless, cold air prickling at my skin as the doctor’s stethoscope pressed gently against my back.

“Deep breath in, Zehn.”

I complied, the metallic hiss of the rebreather mask echoing faintly in my memory.

“And out.”

The doctor, a man with prematurely silvered hair and a warm smile, removed the stethoscope from my chest and hung it around his neck. His eyes studied me carefully, searching for something—anything—out of place.

“How do you feel today, Zehn?” he asked, the same question he asked every week.

“Nothing unusual,” I replied, pulling my shirt back over my head, the fabric sticking slightly to my still-cold skin.

“Well, it’s only been a couple of months since you returned from your final mission,” he said lightly, scribbling something on his glass tablet. “I heard Team B went out to recover the remaining Biocores, but…”

“There was only one left after the explosion,” I finished for him.

Silence settled between us.

“And one isn’t going to be enough,” I continued. “It won’t last five years like the scientists planned. Maybe a year. Two, at best.”

The weight of failure sat heavy on my chest. We were supposed to keep humanity's future safe. Instead, we handed them a countdown clock.

“Oh no, it’s not your fault, Zehn,” the doctor said, offering me a practiced smile. “We all know who caused this.”

His words hung in the air like smoke from a dying fire.

“No,” I said firmly, my hands balling into fists at my sides. “People hate him too much already. It was… it was instinct. A reaction. None of us would have acted differently in his place. The explosion—it was an accident.”

The doctor sighed, rubbing his temple.

“Accident or not, if it weren’t for him, we wouldn’t be facing this crisis right now.”

I flinched at the truth buried in his words. It was so easy for people to blame Kael—to turn him into a symbol of our collective failure. A scapegoat. But I had seen his face that day. The awe. The fear. The unfiltered, childlike wonder as he touched the Biocore with bare hands.

I couldn’t blame him—not the way the world did.

I stepped out of the hospital room, the automatic glass doors sliding shut behind me with a soft hiss. Outside, the city of Worlderia stretched upwards in pristine white towers, bathed in soft sunlight. People moved calmly, each one of their breaths monitored and measured by invisible systems.

To them, life was stable. Predictable. Safe.

But for me, every breath felt like a countdown.

Kael’s face lingered in my mind—his wide, terrified eyes as he clutched his injured hand, the faint glow of the Biocore splinter embedded in his palm.

“We’re not out of this yet,” I muttered to myself, blending into the orderly crowd of pedestrians.

Somewhere out there, beyond the safety of glass barriers and sterilized air, something ancient still waited among the wastelands.

And we were running out of time.

The cell implant in my ear vibrated softly, a faint chime echoing inside my skull. A recent invention—rushed into production after the incident with Kael—it was a safeguard. A way to instantly reach the scientists if something went wrong again.

But this call wasn’t from them.

It was from the Director of the Wood Hunters, and he wanted to see me.

Before heading to HQ, though, there was one place I needed to go first.

Kael’s home was tucked away in one of the older districts of Worlderia, where the glass towers gave way to squat, dimly lit buildings.

When I stepped inside, the room was heavy with shadows. A single candle sat on a low metal table, its flame trembling slightly in the still air. The light caught the sharp angles of Kael’s face as he stood near the window, his silhouette etched against the faint glow outside.

He wore his usual white shirt and black vest, looking more like a scholar from a forgotten age than a Wood Hunter who had faced death in the wastelands.

“Why are you sitting here in the dark?” I asked, stepping cautiously into the room.

Kael turned his head slightly, his face illuminated just enough for me to see his faint smile.

“Our predecessors used only candles when they needed light. So I thought I’d give it a try.”

“Kael, I—“

“Don’t worry, Zehn,” he interrupted softly. “I know you don’t think badly of me. But the rest of the population… well, that’s another story, isn’t it?”

His voice carried a weariness that didn’t belong to someone his age.

“What do the doctors say about your hand?” I asked, nodding toward the bandaged limb hanging at his side.

Kael shrugged lightly. “I wouldn’t know. I stopped going to the clinic after my first visit.”

“Why? Are you serious? That’s reckless, Kael.”

“I just… don’t think it’s necessary,” he said simply.

The candlelight danced across his face, making him look both older and impossibly young all at once. My eyes drifted to his hand—still wrapped in white bandages, though they looked clean and unstained.

“They said it would rot, you know,” Kael continued. “They told me my hand would turn black and fall off within a week unless they removed the splinter. But it was supposed to rot either way, as they said, only at a slower pace.”

“So what now? Does it hurt? Are you okay?”

Kael smiled at me. “Relax, Zehn. You shouldn’t even call them ‘doctors’ anymore. There are no diseases to cure in this era. They’re not healers—they’re philosophers in white coats, debating ‘what ifs’ and hypothetical outcomes.”

He walked to the table and picked up a weathered book, its pages brittle and yellowed.

“Did you know,” he flipped through the pages, “that people used to die from something called ‘the flu’? A tiny virus, invisible to the eye, wiped out millions. And doctors back then—they were heroes. Real heroes who fought against death every day.”

“Kael, what are you getting at?”

Instead of answering, he slowly began to unwrap his bandaged hand. My breath caught in my throat, and I turned away instinctively, expecting the sight of raw flesh, decay, or something far worse.

“Look at me, Zehn.”

His voice was steady, but it carried weight.

I hesitated, then turned my eyes back to his hand.

It was… perfectly fine. Smooth, unblemished skin stretched over his palm. Not a single mark remained where the Biocore splinter had embedded itself.

“But how—“

Kael raised one eyebrow and reached for a small metallic box on the table. With a flick of his wrist, the lid opened, revealing the splinter—a shard of dark wood, glinting faintly with a faint emerald hue in the flickering candlelight.

“Why do you still have that? That thing is dangerous!” I took a step back, my voice rising.

Kael chuckled softly, his dark eyes gleaming in the dim light. “Sometimes, Zehn, you’re surprisingly dense for a Wood Hunter.”

He picked up the shard carefully, holding it between his thumb and forefinger.

“This… is proof. Proof that the wood itself isn’t harmful. My hand healed, Zehn. Completely. And I’ve never felt better.”

My mind raced, grasping for an explanation. "Are you—are you sure?"

“Okay,” Kael admitted, “there’s one tiny lie in there. I have felt better before. Do you know when? Outside the barrier. When I breathed in the oxygen.”

His voice dropped to a whisper, and his eyes shimmered with something close to reverence.

“I felt happy. Really, truly happy. Like my lungs were finally… free.”

Chapter 1: END