A wave rocked the shell harder than the rest, splashing red water over the edge. Wrighty instinctively stepped back, heart jumping, but the sea quickly returned to its steady rhythm.

  Too steady.

  The boy noticed it too.

  “There haven’t been any waves from below,” he said. “No movement. No shadows.”

  Wrighty frowned. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

  The boy shook his head slightly. “Predators don’t disappear when they’re full. They move. If a lion stops hunting a gazelle, it doesn’t mean the gazelle won’t be prey later.”

  Wrighty followed his gaze, suddenly feeling very small on the open water.

  “…So what do we do?”

  The boy looked ahead, toward the thinning fog where the faint outline of something dark cut against the horizon.

  “First,” he said, “we don’t stay here.”

  Wrighty squinted. “Is that… land?”

  The boy didn’t answer right away. His eyes stayed fixed on the distant shape, his expression tightening just a little.

  “Yes,” he said finally. “And whatever’s there…” The shell rocked again, drifting forward on its own. “…it’s better than waiting.”

  The duo began using their hands to push their little shell towards the land ahead.

  As the shell drifted closer to the distant shoreline as the sun climbed higher. The fog thinned, revealing jagged rocks jutting from the water like broken teeth. The waves softened here, no longer rolling with the same violent force.

  That was when Wrighty spotted movement.

  “Hey,” he said, stepping forward. “Doc, over there.”

  The boy followed his gaze.

  A cluster of debris floated nearby: shattered planks, torn fabric, and the remains of what might’ve once been a boat. Clinging to it were people. Five, maybe six. One of them waved frantically when they noticed the shell approaching.

  “Help! Hey! HEY!” a voice cracked across the water.

  Wrighty didn’t hesitate. “They’re alive.”

  He moved to paddle the shell closer, using his right arm to guide it through the water. The boy watched silently, eyes flicking between the survivors and the sea beneath them.

  As they drew nearer, the details became clearer.

  One man was bleeding heavily from his leg, the water around him darkening as he kicked weakly. A girl clutched a plank with both arms, sobbing quietly. Another boy, older than them, kept glancing around with wild eyes, gripping a jagged piece of wood like a weapon.

  “Thank god,” the bleeding man gasped. “Please, please don’t leave us.”

  Wrighty nodded quickly. “Yeah, yeah, we got you. We’ll figure something out.”

  The boy said nothing.

  Wrighty began pulling their shell alongside the debris, already reaching out. “Alright, one at a time—”

  “The shell won’t hold them all.”

  Wrighty froze.

  “What?” He turned to the boy. “Dude, we can’t just—”

  “The shell is already damaged,” the boy continued calmly. “It’s uneven. If too much weight shifts at once, it’ll flip.”

  Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

  The man in the water heard this. Panic flashed across his face. “Wait—what? No, no, you’re lying. You have room, just take us, please!”

  Wrighty clenched his jaw. “Doc, come on. We can try. We have to try.”

  The boy looked at the survivors again. He noticed the way the armed boy kept positioning himself closer to the shell. The way the injured man’s movements were getting slower. The way the girl hadn’t stopped crying since they arrived.

  Noise.

  Blood.

  Panic.

  The ocean beneath them rippled faintly.

  “We can take two at best,” the boy said. “The rest need to find their own way.”

  Silence.

  Wrighty stared at him like he’d been slapped. “Two?” he repeated. “You’re serious?”

  The armed boy shouted, “You don’t get to choose!”

  The boy met his gaze without flinching. “I already did.”

  The injured man screamed as he lost his grip, slipping beneath the surface for a moment before resurfacing, coughing violently. Wrighty swore and moved instinctively towards him.

  Then the water shifted.

  Just slightly.

  The boy grabbed Wrighty’s shoulder hard. “Stop.”

  “What—”

  “Do you want to ring a dinner bell?”

  The survivors froze as well, eyes darting to the water. The crying girl choked on her sobs, pressing a hand over her mouth. Nothing surfaced. But nothing needed to.

  “ Hm, I don’t think we can even take two. It won’t hold,” the boy said as looking at Wrighty.

  Wrighty’s breathing grew shallow. His fists clenched at his sides.

  “…This is messed up,” he muttered.

  “I know,” the boy replied. To survive sometimes it means abandoning those whose fates are sealed. We couldn’t take them. I won’t allow us to capsize just because of some misplaced charity.

  The boy then kicked off the debris slowly.The shell slowly pushed away. As he stared at the group a thought popped up through his skull. They were already dead.

  The shell rocked gently as the current began pulling it forward again, away from the debris. One of the survivors screamed as the distance grew.

  Wrighty didn’t look back. The boy did. He watched until they were out of sight. Only then did he turn toward the land ahead.

  “Next time,” Wrighty said quietly, voice tight, “we help more.”

  The boy didn’t answer. He couldn’t guarantee that. But his silence felt heavier than before.

  As the carapace slowly drifted towards the land, the pair felt a little relief and after another couple of days floating they finally arrived on the island. Wrighty smiled excitedly as he anticipated the land. He seemed to have cheered up from the previous events already.

  The shell scraped against land with a dull, grinding sound.

  The boy stepped down first, boots sinking into wet sand. The ground didn’t shift beneath him. It held firm, solid and real. Wrighty followed, hopping off with a tired laugh.

  “Land,” he breathed. “Actual land.”

  They dragged the shell farther up the beach together until the waves could no longer reach it. Behind them, the red ocean stretched endlessly, calm and silent, as if nothing terrible had ever happened there.

  Ahead of them, the island rose in uneven slopes. Dark soil. Twisted vegetation. Thick, knotted plants that looked more like growths than trees. The air smelled damp and heavy, filled with something sour underneath the scent of earth.

  Wrighty rolled his shoulders. “I’ll take a creepy island over the blood ocean any day.”

  The boy didn’t respond. He was staring farther inland. Movement.

  Figures emerged between the strange growths, slow at first, cautious. One became two. Then several more. People. People who fell from the sky, like them. Some were armed with crude weapons like broken planks and jagged metal. Others looked injured, exhausted, hollow-eyed.

  A tense silence settled over the beach. The survivors stared back, hands tightening around whatever they held. No one spoke.

  Wrighty raised his right hand slowly, palm open. “Hey,” he called out. “We’re not—uh—looking for trouble.”

  They were met with no answer.

  The boy felt eyes on him from every direction. Not fear alone. Calculation. Desperation.

  One of the survivors finally stepped forward. A tall figure, posture rigid, eyes sharp.

  “Y’all just arrived on land today,” the figure said. It wasn’t a question.

  Wrighty blinked. “Yeah. You… didn’t?”

  The figure laughed softly. “A few days back.”

  The boy’s gaze drifted past them, deeper into the island. He could see makeshift shelters. Fires burned low. Shapes moved in the shadows beyond too many to count.

  Wrighty leaned closer to the boy and whispered, “Doc, I think we might be a little late getting to land.”

  The boy kept his eyes forward.

  “I know,” he said.

  For the first time since he’d woken up falling from the sky, he understood something clearly:

  Surviving the ocean had only been the beginning.