Tycho's Journal

I didn’t expect to survive the Rift.

None of us did, not really — not after the alarms went off and the lab shook like it was being peeled apart. I remember my father shouting coordinates, Vidcund trying to stabilize the device, Lazlo cracking an inappropriate joke right as the sky tore open behind us.

And then the light hit me, and everything else disappeared.

When I opened my eyes, I was face-down in warm sand with the taste of salt in my mouth.

For a while, I just lay there, listening.
Not for invaders.
Not for the mechanical hum of Strangetown’s labs.
Just… for anything familiar.

Nothing answered.

Only waves.

Only birds I didn’t recognize.

Only a world that didn’t belong to me.

Month 1 — The Island: I called it “the island” for the first few days, but even that feels too simple. There’s something strange about this place. The air is warm, the trees enormous, the water impossibly clear. Everything seems alive in a way Earth never did.

I found bamboo right away — thick stalks, easy to split with a sharpened rock. Instinct took over.
Build a platform.
Get off the wet ground.
Make a place to sleep that doesn’t crawl.

By the end of the first week, I had a raised deck, crude but steady. I kept thinking how Vidcund would critique the structural angles, and how Lazlo would tell me it was “rustic.” Father would just be relieved I hadn’t fallen into a crater.

I don’t know where they are now.
I don’t know if the Rift worked for anyone else.
I don’t know if I’m writing this for myself or for whoever follows.

But writing makes the silence feel less heavy.

Month 2 — Food, Fire, and Thinking Too Much: I’ve gotten better at this foraging thing.

I found patches of wild fruit and roots that don’t taste like poison, plus tide pools full of small fish. I saved the seeds from anything edible and planted them in a scraped-out patch of sand. I didn’t expect much — Strangetown soil needed weeks of lab-nutrient treatments.

But here?

The sprouts came up in days.
Green. Strong. Fast.

The scientist in me wants to study this soil.
The survivor in me wants to say thank you and avoid questioning it too hard.

I spend most evenings by the fire now, writing or fidgeting with bamboo scraps. Sometimes I try to picture the others coming through the Rift. Zina laughing at me for burning dinner. Lucy and Alexander arguing about where to build. Romeo bragging about catching a fish twice the size of his arm.

I hope they made it.
I hope they’re still fighting.

Month 3 — The Volcano: I knew it was active from the moment I saw it, looming behind the palm forests like something asleep and dangerous. But today… today it woke up.

The ground trembled. Birds scattered. My stomach dropped.

Then came the eruption — not catastrophic, but loud enough to shake the sky. When the tremor ended, everything smelled like hot stone and lightning. When I stepped outside my camp, I found volcanic rocks scattered across the sand.

Several of them landed directly on my bamboo platform.

They are still warm as I write this, glowing faintly from within. I can feel it humming — not like heat, not like energy. More like a heartbeat.

I don’t know what it means yet.
But nothing about this place feels accidental.