Harlock awoke with a sharp gasp, his chest rising and falling in ragged heaves. Sweat clung to his skin, cooling rapidly in the frigid air of his quarters. He could still see the boundless expanse of sand stretching far and wide and hear the grinding whine of jerry-rigged mechanisms propelling their flagship across the endless desert.

But something was different.

The acrid dryness in his throat was gone, replaced by the unmistakable tang of salt. A steady rhythm of waves lapped against the hull. He blinked, chest tightening. That wasn’t possible.

Staggering from his bunk, he shoved open the hatch. The deck was slick with mist, the air thick with brine. The ocean—the ocean—spread to the horizon in every direction, moonlight rippling across the vast, rolling surface. He gripped the railing, his mind spinning. It was gone. Yesterday, it was gone. The ship rocked gently beneath him, cradled by currents that should not exist. The forsaken husk, retrofitted to crawl across dunes, now floated—no, sailed—as it was always meant to. Heart pounding, Harlock stumbled below deck, his thoughts locked on one name.
Brennus.

The engineer had been the reason they even had a fleet to move, his mind the key to reimagining shipyard machinery as desert-propelling lifelines. If anyone could explain this, it was him.
Harlock burst into Brennus’s cabin and found him hunched over the ship’s console, muttering under his breath. The dim glow of the instrument panels flickered across his face—eyes wide, hands grasping at dials that no longer functioned as they had in the desert.

“Brennus?” Harlock stepped forward.

“We’re off-course,” Brennus said, his voice taut. “Sand’s shifting fast—we need to adjust our propulsion vectors before the next dune field or we’ll—” Harlock grabbed his shoulder.

“Brennus, stop. Look around you.” Brennus’s fingers twitched. His gaze flicked toward the porthole, but his expression remained unchanged. “We don’t have time for this, Harlock.” The cold dread in Harlock’s gut solidified into certainty. Brennus wasn’t seeing the ocean. He was still in the desert. Without another word, Harlock dragged him to the infirmary.

There, the medics were already working—dozens of crew members exhibiting the same symptoms. Vacant eyes. Mutters of sand and heat where there was only salt and spray. A handful were beginning to return to themselves, blinking in slow, confused realization. Others clung stubbornly to the illusion. The tests run by the medics confirmed it soon enough. Traces of an unknown compound in their blood, a chemical signature that matched the remains of the Scourge bio-weapon. Harlock swallowed hard. The implications were staggering.

Yesterday, they had all believed the world had changed. That the ocean was gone. That the only way forward was to turn ships into land-striders, to cross an arid wasteland where the sea once thrived. But it had been a lie. A mirage woven into their very minds.The truth, however, was just as terrifying. The Scourge compound had altered reality—not in the world itself, but in their perception of it. And if a hallucination could be shared on a global scale, what else could it do?

What would it do next?

CLICK HERE to read Part 1!