And his mother’s voice softly echoed within.
.
“One, two,” it sang, as he marched with a friend,
Her spirit beside him, a hand to extend,
Her voice entwined with his steady breath,
Guiding him onward, defying all death.
.
With her strength in his heart, he could run once more,
Love lighting his path like it had before.
Tears filled his eyes, as they often had,
But this time was different—this time, he felt glad.
By the time we reach the waterline, my tears mingle with sweat on my face. The ocean looms before us, a dark and menacing expanse but I don’t even look at it.
Bending down, I scoop up the sand at the same time Fabien does, and I turn around to get back to the pillar.
The water splashes me whole, the spray hitting my legs, my face, soaking my clothes. Yet, all I care about it the sync Fabien and I have.
“Don’t stop!” he shouts over the roar of the waves.
“Oh, don’t you stop either!” I shout back, catching what looks like the tiniest smirk on his face.
We sprint back toward the pillar, the weight of the wet sand heavy in our shells. My legs burn, my clothes stick to me, and each step feels like it could be my last.
“Keep going, you two!” Gypsy yells as she darts past us. “Just a couple more runs and we’ll have it!”
When we finally reach the gouge, I understand what she means. The top of the pillar is now closer than ever—so close, in fact, that I can clearly see what’s sitting atop it.
“An hourglass?” I mutter, hardly believing my eyes.
It’s small, barely the size of my hand, with two delicate glass bulbs. The bottom bulb is filled with shimmering golden sand, much like the sand we’re running on, the grains glowing with an iridescent sparkle even under the harsh sunlight. The top bulb, though… it holds something else entirely—a miniature storm, water thrashing wildly inside like the sea itself is trapped in glass.
“It mirrors our situation,” Fabien observes. “We couldn’t see it before, but when the sand kept rising, the hourglass must have been flipped, placing the sand on top and the water below.”
“Not good,” I pant out. “Not good at all. Means there’s no end to this tide pressing in on us!”
“We need to flip it soon,” he groans, cursing under his breath. “Fuck, let’s move!”
We dump our sand into the gauge and break into a sprint. Fabien’s counting, and I do my best to match his rhythm.Somewhere along the way, I notice Zayan and Miss Captain syncing up as well. And then, before I know it, we’re running together, not a scatter of legs and breaths but a single, ragtag unit.
Even Miss Captain—whose legs, I swear, are fashioned from iron rather than mere flesh and bone—seems to be reaching her limit.
Two laps later, the island is barely a floating dot in a churning, furious ocean, the waves sending sprays so high they reach the pillar.
Zayan lunges for the pillar, stretching, straining, hand reaching— “Damn it, it’s not enough!” His face is red, eyes narrowed in frustration. “Rancour!”
“No dice!” Fabien shouts, stretching his arm but falling just short.
Miss Captain, breathing hard, looks like she’s ready to make a desperate sprint. And just then, an idea hits me.
