Prologue

Attempt #459

The first thing Firn saw upon waking up was a strange flash of light coming from Giant’s Deep.

The second thing Firn saw as they sat up and yawned quietly was Slate, tending to the campfire and evidently planning to soon roast some marshmallows. They decided to join in, happily reaching out for their stick as the realization of just which day this was drew in.

It was finally their very own launch day! They were excited beyond reason, and impatient to finally board their very own ship… albeit not enough to skip breakfast. Just one last treat or two before blasting off into space would never hurt anyone, and in fact, the delay it gave them was far more merciful to the survival of their entire world than they could have ever imagined.

After spending a few minutes stuffing their mouth with golden delicacies and exchanging with the Hearthian on the other side of the fire some casual banter sprinkled with the occasional sarcastic joke, the third thing Firn saw was Hal jumping off the steep descent all the way down from the observatory and straight in their direction, wearing ample white clothing and holding something that looked like a helmet under their arm. Wait— was that the eva from the Zero-G cave?

Before they knew it, Hal was right by their side and fiercely grabbing their arm, pulling up.

“Morning sleepyhead,” they said absent-mindedly with little to no true meaning or intent behind their words, “sorry for the rough start but we’re a bit strapped for time here.”

“H-hal? Wha–Why–How’d you get here!?”

Firn had so many questions, but only one of them could physically escape their lips in an intelligible manner. Truth be told, they were so confused, and just not quite completely aware enough yet, that they themself were not really sure which one out of their already humongous and yet continuously growing pile they had managed to phrase in its entirety, or even if a single one of them had been at all.

As they were dragged to the lift platform, they barely had a split second to share a distressed look with a Slate who, mouth gaping wide enough to hypothetically fit at least a dozen uncooked marshmallows simultaneously, was equally too shocked to speak coherently. By the time the next fleeting moment flew by, the shipwright’s face had already disappeared from even their upper eyes’ peripheral vision.

“Hal, what on Hearth is going on!?” they finally asked the moment they found the ability to align words in a proper order, stressing each one of them with a waning confusion which was slowly growing instead into stern annoyance.

“Time loop,” Hal swiftly responded with practiced efficiency, while their fingers pressed in a blur the button sequence separating them from the brand new ship which had all at the same time never launched before, and yet already travelled through the entire solar system. “We’ve been through this before, you just don’t remember it.”

“What? Wait, how’d you know the launch codes—”

“Time loop, Firn.” The elevator stopped with a thud, and Hal immediately resumed their quick pace, completely ignoring Slate’s confused cries resonating from below. “We have barely three sunrises before the sun explodes.”

“Before the sun what!?” Instead of an answer, Firn was unceremoniously jostled into their very own ship, losing their balance upon landing on the gravity crystal-powered floor.

“Heard me the first time.” Hal instantly broke their fall with a swift catch under their arms, as if even the way they were about to collapse had been meticulously calculated and practiced countless times, and they gently but firmly guided them to face a specific wall inside their ship.

Firn, having barely recovered their senses enough to question what a ‘time loop’ was even supposed to be and how nonsensical it should be as a concept if one were to dare pull it out of the realm of fiction, nonetheless followed their friend’s finger pointing at something close, and looked down as they saw the Outer Wilds Ventures insignia flicker into something new.

Their jaw dropped.