O—unsurveyed
A thorn nags at my mind. I scan the map again. Most areas are marked with anX, only a few are circled. And the understanding rattles through me like water through old, rusty pipes.
“Do you think whoever was on that ship was searching for something? Looking for a place where people might still exist?”
Clay sinks down into one of the kitchen chairs, letting out a breath and touching his torso. I worry that he pushed himself too hard, climbing down the rocks into the boat. I worry the pain and inflammation will return. I worry about so many things.
“Looks that way,” he answers.
I thought the world would always be there, waiting. Even if I never returned. But it hits me now—a question I don’t want to ask. I look to the kitchen window. “I wonder if there’s anyone else alive out there?”
I feel dizzy, like my own body has been dismantled, scattered to the winds and tides.
Clay shakes his head, eyes settled on the map, his mind lost to a series of terrifying thoughts.
Has the world gone silent?
Time has reshaped everything. Oceans have risen, earthquakes from the deep, hurricanes unspooling from the Atlantic… or maybe it was something else. Some other catastrophe that dislodged the continents and scattered them across a single ocean. If the map we found is correct, most of them are uninhabited. Places that have gone quiet.
A dull pressure forms behind my eyes. I knew that the world was surely changed. I knew that most of the people I once loved were long gone, but I hadn’t imagined this. A restructuring of everything. A collapse.
We boil the rice down to a porridge, mixing in fresh seaweed, sea salt, and the last of the dried thyme. After we eat, I walk down to the shore to watch the sunset, seeking something in its dull warmth.
A sign of life.
Homes dotting a shoreline, laughter from a nearby ship.
But we are alone. This thought begins to pick at me, a sharpened fingernail against a scab.
How long had the flotilla of boats been adrift before they reached our shores? Months, years in our timeline. Their passengers long ago dead.
The last of the sunlight flashes across the sea, turning a soft rosebud, reminding me of watermelon. I never liked watermelon growing up, I found the texture too grainy, like sand. But also oddly slippery. When the other kids clamored for it, I grimaced. But I crave it now, the sweetness of summer, the scent of barbecues smoking in backyards, the sound of sprinklers circling over lawns. A reminder of days spent carefree andinnocent, as if time would never touch me, never fold its fingers around my throat and squeeze.
The ocean surrounding the island grows warmer each day, the sky breezy and mild.
But I feel turbulent. Anxious. After those men walked onto our island, I was afraid of everything. I hoped we’d never see another human again.
But now, I wonder if this is worse: never seeing another human again.
We eat rice for three days in a row, our bodies strengthened a little. I check the henhouse each morning, but it’s as if the chickens have given up hope. They see no point in laying eggs into a world that has gone dark.
On the fourth day, Clay pushes through the back door into the kitchen, breathing heavy from the climb up to the house from the shore, a silvery fish hooked between his fingers.
I almost drop to my knees. He moves to the sink, setting it inside. And I think it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
We smoke the fish outside over the bonfire, then sit, eating slowly, carefully pulling away each bite from the delicate bones. The taste of survival.
The night is humid, warm, and I press myself into his arms, staring up at the stars—knowing that tonight we will sleep under the open sky. Bellies full, minds calmed.
But there is still an emptiness inside me.
A fear when I cast my eyes out over the sea. A feeling that we’re all alone.
Clay’s breathing changes, and I think he might be asleep.
But still, the words leave my lips. “There’s nothing left.”
“We’re left,” he answers.
