A wooden container drifts in murky water. A wave hits, and the impact reverberates through the wood before fading to nothing.
Inside, a hand shakes as its body shakes, tumbling as its body tumbles. Then it jolts. The body's breath comes wrong, its mind blank, ears muffled as though pressed with cotton. One eye opens to darkness. The walls press close.
He's submerged in water.
Both eyes open wide, staring without comprehension. His gaze holds no focus, empty and still.
The jolt comes again and he finally gasps, torso slamming against the wooden walls. His body spasms, eyes darting left and right, searching in panic for something, anything. Nothing but darkness.
The wood is soft with water. He digs his nails in and claws, breath quickening as his lungs heave. Splinters drive under his nails and the wood screeches. A pin-sized hole emerges.
Then a burst of light distorts the walls and illuminates the rough texture as a drop of water clings at the source. Everything slows for a moment. He blinks. Then blinks again. He's awake.
His head turns and his nose bangs against wood, the movement jerky and uncertain, as if he's feeling his body for the first time. He needs out. When he presses upward his elbow jams against the side, but he keeps pressing with his knuckles at the hole until the material can no longer withstand the pressure surrounding it.
He turns to the corner and takes a final breath.
Water bursts into his face, flooding into his mouth and throat. His face scrunches and his tongue recoils as the water claims more space inside the coffin.
Before he knows it, he's floating inside his open coffin that floats inside an endless sea.
His head feels empty, his stomach too, but adrenaline floods through him and that's enough.
He thrashes. Legs kicking. Arms pushing down against the water. He drives himself upward through the murky depths.
There are no fish. No life at all in the water around him.
He breaks the surface and gasps. Air fills his lungs. The burning in his nails flares sharper.
The cold settles into his bones. The thirst comes next, immediate and consuming. Salt coats his tongue and throat. Something hard and bitter presses against his cheek, trapped between his teeth. The texture is rough, mineral, old. His stomach clenches despite being empty. His mouth opens without permission and his throat convulses. Bile comes first, burning its way up, then the object tumbles out with it.
A small disc, grey-brown like old pottery, floats for a moment on the murky water. A symbol is pressed into its surface. Intersecting lines that curve and branch, radiating from a sun carved deep into the fired clay.
The edges are worn smooth, as if someone has held it in their mouth for a very long time.
The taste lingers even after it's gone. Bitter and mineral mixing with salt and bile. He watches it drift away from him, spinning slowly, sinking. The water swallows it and he lets it go.
Salt water will kill him. He knows this somehow.
He lets the current decide his path.
In the far distance, he sees mounds of white and red and black protruding from the water, drifting away. They might be boats. No point trying to reach them.
Time stops meaning anything. His body stops fighting.
His foot scrapes rock.
The water is chest-high. He stumbles, tries again. His knees hit stone. His hands reach forward, trying to catch on slippery rocks. The current pulls at him but he crawls forward until he's out of the water.
He collapses face-down. The peak of a rock digs into his ribs and hip. A small sound escapes him.
He lies there for a moment. Just breathing.
Then the smell hits. Sweet and thick. Rot and rust filling his nose and mouth.
He lifts his head. His breath catches.
Bodies cover the shore. Hundreds of them piled on rocks like discarded cargo. Some still have faces. The corpses stretch up the rocky beach in every direction. Men, many women, teenagers, and less often children.
He's lying next to a body with black hair fanned across stone. Half her face remains. Half doesn't.
Something cold moves through his chest. Not quite horror. He has no memory to compare this against. But something deeper. A visceral wrongness that makes his empty stomach churn.
His hand touches something soft behind him. He doesn't look. Scrambles backward until he hits a boulder. Legs slipping on wet stone.
His body wants him to vomit but he is hollow. Can only retch instead.
He moves without thinking. Standing up. Falling. His legs won't support him properly. Gets up. Falls again. Now he's climbing over rock and flesh. Hands finding holds wherever they can.
His palms are callused. He notices distantly.
The stench clings to his clothes. His skin. His long hair that hangs heavy with seawater.
The rocks give way to packed dirt stained dark with old blood.
As he climbs higher, buildings come into view. Collapsed walls. Empty doorways. Gray stone structures half-buried in rubble. But there are people moving between them.
Living people.
He walks toward them. Legs shaking with each step. His throat burns with thirst. He needs water. Food.
The first building is close. He leans against the rough stone wall to steady himself.
Voices drift from nearby. People talking like normal people. As if there isn't a shore of corpses behind them.
Maybe this is just how things are here.
He doesn't know where here is. But anywhere is better than nowhere.
The lingering clay taste in his mouth means something. He can't remember what.
His mind is alert but his body is hollow.
He takes a breath and walks toward civilization, leaving behind the place where someone once crawled out of the earth.
Hours of wandering. The ruins all look the same.
Gray stone. Collapsed walls. Streets buried under rubble that shifts beneath his feet. A cool breeze filters through the broken buildings. Carries the salt smell from the shore mixed with dust and something metallic.
He's seen people. Figures moving in the distance. Shadows watching from doorways. But they don't approach and he doesn't either.
His legs shake with every step. His sodden clothes cling cold against his skin.
His throat is closing up. The thirst has gone from uncomfortable to painful to unbearable. Every swallow feels like grinding glass. His tongue sits thick and swollen in his mouth.
Has to find water.
He stumbles into what might have been a square once. Open space surrounded by broken buildings. Rubble cleared enough to walk through.
There's a well in the center. Stone rim cracked but standing.
People gather around it. Perhaps a dozen. Gaunt faces. Hollow eyes. Clothes devoid of color. They move slowly. Mechanically.
He approaches with careful steps. Watching.
A man stands at the well. Middle-aged, or perhaps just worn down by this place until he looks it. He pulls up a bucket. The rope scraping against stone. Fills a tin container. The water inside is murky. Brown-gray. He pours some out to remove the larger debris floating on top.
Then he drinks.
The others watch in silence. Nobody speaks.
His throat burns. The thirst is so intense it feels like his windpipe is collapsing inward. His body sways slightly toward the well.
The man finishes drinking. Sets down the container. Wipes his mouth.
Within a minute his hands begin to convulse.
Two minutes pass. He's on his knees. Coughing. A wet, desperate cough that seems to tear something loose inside his chest.
His body tenses. His own hands grip his thighs.
Three minutes. Blood pours from the man's mouth and nose. His body convulses. Jerking violently. Movements wrong and inhuman. As though something inside is trying to break free.
Four minutes. He goes still.
His throat screams for water. His legs tremble. From weakness or from the effort of staying in place. Can't tell.
The others step around the corpse.
A woman takes the container the dead man has been using. Wipes the rim on her sleeve with casual efficiency. Fills it from the well. Drinks.
Nobody looks at the body. Nobody moves it. They simply step around it and continue drinking. Filling containers. Their faces hold the same hollow resignation.
He understands then. Thirst is worse than maybe-death.
His body leans forward. Drawn toward the water despite what he's just witnessed. His throat burns. His vision swims slightly. But his legs lock. Refusing to carry him closer. He stands there. Caught between desperate need and the image of blood streaming from the dead man's face.
Finally his feet move backward.
Can't do that. Won't. There has to be another way.