He recognized the feeling.
The tearing sensation, the destructive force, the violent headache — he knew all of it. It was the same as before. A forced jump.
Knowing that didn't stop the migraine.
He was lying flat on the ground, pinned by it. The sand beneath him was hot — so hot it felt like the inside of an oven. A heat unlike anything he had ever experienced. When he opened his eyes, there was nothing but sand in every direction. Stretching for thousands of kilometers, maybe millions. Maybe more.
He pushed himself up slowly, like a child taking its first steps. The moment he got to his feet, he began to tremble. This time, unlike the cave where he had gripped the wall for support, there was nothing to hold onto. Which made it worse.
When he finally stood upright, he opened his mouth and tried to call for help with everything he had.
No sound came out.
His throat and tongue were so dry they felt like cracked earth. He looked down at himself. He was wearing a white tunic — or what used to be white. The color had shifted to a deep, dirty red. His eyes were sunken in their sockets. His cheeks — if you could still call them that — had collapsed inward. He barely looked human.
— Period: Ancient Egypt. Host body: Razmen. Status: Runaway slave. Available energy: 25%.
"Brilliant. Out of every possible role — I'm a slave. A fugitive slave at that. You really outdid yourself this time, Peter."
He stood there for a moment, thinking.
Alright. If I don't move, I die out here. Walk. Maybe there's a city somewhere.
He started walking. His feet sank into the sand with every step — bare, unprotected, burning against the ground. Blisters formed quickly. He kept moving anyway.
The only living things he passed were cacti — green columns studded with spines. He knew they contained liquid. Enough to keep him going.
"If I grab it with my hands I'll shred my palms. Need something."
He scanned the ground. Found a rock.
"Good enough."
He used it to batter the spines until they softened and broke away, then wrenched the plant open with both hands. The liquid inside was bitter and thick. He drank it anyway.
It helped. For about ten minutes.
The sun had climbed to the center of the sky and it hit like a physical force. Sand rolled into his eyes. The dunes stretched in every direction — mountains of it, endless.
Then he saw it.
To his left, an oasis. Palm trees. Banana trees. The shimmer of water. Green, impossible, perfect.
He ran.
He ran until his legs gave out, stumbled the last few meters, and threw himself into the water. He swam. He laughed. He reached for the fruit hanging from the trees, bit into it—
And woke up with a mouthful of sand.
He was lying face-down on the ground. Sand in his mouth, sand in his ears, sand coating every inch of his skin.
"Damn it. A mirage."
He got up. Started walking again. But this time, his body had nothing left. His legs buckled. He went down and couldn't get back up.
"Is this really how it ends? After everything?"
He had no answer. His mind went quiet. His eyes closed.
Above him, birds began to circle.
---
Seven years earlier — Peter's training
The room was built entirely of steel. Fluorescent lights ran the length of the ceiling. About fifteen trainee explorers sat in rows, all of them young, all of them trying to look more confident than they felt.
Their instructor addressed them.
"Can anyone tell me what a prototype is?" He pointed to a holographic diagram hovering in the air.
A student answered immediately.
"It's the energy source for time travel."
"Correct. It's the heart of everything, as Gilbert said. To make a temporal jump, you need an extraordinary amount of energy — far beyond anything the human race has ever been able to generate on its own. That's where the prototype comes in. It's an inexhaustible energy source discovered on a distant planet during a deep-space expedition. Scientists have been studying it for decades and still don't fully understand what it's truly capable of. What we do know is that it now powers all time travel. There is only one in existence — but research into creating replicas is ongoing."
Peter raised his hand.
"Instructor Marc — how did we arrive at the current method of consciousness transfer? Why don't we just travel physically?"
The instructor smiled.
"Good question. Picture a glass filled to exactly 20ml — completely full. Now add one more drop. What happens?"
"It overflows," someone said.
"Exactly. Our world is structured so that each period in time has a fixed population capacity. Which means—"
"If someone physically traveled to another era," Peter said slowly, "the world would collapse. Too many people in the wrong time."
"Precisely. That is why consciousness transfer was developed. Your body stays here. Only your mind makes the jump — inhabiting a host who already exists in that period. No overflow. No catastrophe."
Peter stared at the holographic diagram for a long moment.
At the time, it had sounded elegant. Controlled. Safe.
He hadn't yet understood what it felt like to wake up in someone else's body in the middle of a desert, unable to speak, dying of thirst, with no way home.
---
When everything seemed lost, a caravan appeared on the horizon.
One of its members — an old man — broke away from the group and walked toward the body lying motionless in the sand.