Life in the coastal settlements is built around the water.

Homes stand on stilts, connected by narrow wooden walkways that creak under constant use. Boats are tied beneath houses instead of beside them, and children learn to swim before they learn to read. The tides rise and fall, flooding the lower platforms and retreating again, and no one treats it as unusual.

You learn quickly where to step, where not to, when to move, and when to wait. The water is not an enemy here. It is part of everything.

And then, without warning, it isn’t.

There is no sign. No time to understand.

Just a sound.

Deep. Sudden. Wrong.

People look up. Some freeze. Others shout.

You turn toward the sea.

And it is already there.

The wave rises higher than anything you have ever seen, swallowing the horizon as it surges toward the settlement. There is no time to run, no path that would take you far enough.

The impact is immediate. Wood splinters, structures collapse, and the force of the water tears everything apart in an instant. You are thrown into it, into debris, into bodies, into chaos that gives you no space to think.

You try to grab onto something. Anything.

For a moment, your hands close around a broken beam. It holds just long enough for you to believe it might save you.

Then it’s ripped away.

The current takes you.

You don’t know how long you’re dragged through it. There is no sense of direction, no sense of time, only the constant pull of water that refuses to let you go.

When you finally open your eyes again, everything is quiet.

The sea has withdrawn, leaving behind a torn shoreline far from anything familiar. Fragments of wood, pieces of homes, and scattered belongings lie across the sand, carried here by the force that took you.

There is no sign of the settlement. No voices. No movement.

Only the distant sound of the water settling again.

You are alone.

And then you notice it.

The water is rising.

Not a wave. Not yet.

But enough to tell you this place won’t stay dry for long.

The wreckage around you shifts with the tide. Nothing here is stable. Nothing here will last.

If you stay where you are, the sea will take you again.

You need to move.