Nala awoke to the taste of copper and the stinging slap of salt spray. The transition from the digital void back to the physical world was like being thrown through a window; her body felt shattered, every nerve ending screaming in protest against the weight of gravity.
She wasn't in the church. She wasn't in Dodoma.
She was slumped against the rusted hull of a beached fishing boat, the wood rotting beneath her fingertips. The air smelled of diesel, drying fish, and the approaching storm the real Dar es Salaam, raw and unforgiving.
"Leo?" she croaked, her throat feeling like she had swallowed glass.
A few feet away, a figure stirred in the wet sand. Leo was curled in a fetal position, his breath coming in jagged, wet gasps. He looked human, but as the moon caught his skin, Nala saw the
