Jin opened his eyes to darkness.
For one terrible moment, he thought he was still in the cave. Still standing in that endless black, with the system window folding itself away in front of him. His hand closed around nothing. His heart slammed against his ribs.
Then he smelled grass.
Cool night air. Damp earth. The faint, sweet smell of leaves. Somewhere close, the soft rustle of a big tree moving in the wind.
He blinked, and the dark resolved into shapes. A sky full of stars, scattered between drifting clouds. The silver tree above him, its leaves glowing faintly in the moonlight. The low, dark shapes of the school buildings around the courtyard. And the little ring of seedlings at the base of the trunk, just beside his knee.
He was sitting under the silver tree, cross-legged in the grass, exactly where he'd sat down that afternoon.
He was home.
He let out a breath that shook all the way out of him.
