In the days before his Absolom departure, Sam had imagined what arriving in the Late Triassic epoch would be like.
He had expected to see a vast desert. Perhaps dinosaurs. Or volcanoes erupting. Possibly earthquakes shaking the ground.
When he arrived, he saw none of those things.
Only darkness.
Rain splattered him and pounded in the night like a million horses galloping around him.
And he was falling, no ground under his feet.
He reached out, panicking, head spinning, looking for any sign—
He hit the water hard, his mouth open, and it filled with a salty mix that made him gag as he sank into the blackness.
He writhed, waving his arms, kicking his legs. When his face reached the surface, he coughed and hacked just before a wave crashed into him and rolled him over, forcing the burning water down his throat again.
Sam fought, and the waves fought back, slamming into him, relentless, never tiring. He felt like he was at war with the sea, and he knew the sea would win and that he would be buried here.
The rain fell in sheets, and the waves came like a battering ram until Sam simply stopped fighting. He was too tired. He rolled onto his back and left his mouth open to collect rainwater. His body flowed with the waves, not struggling against them.
He realized then that the thick departure outfit served as a life preserver as well. It was probably saving his life.
The moon was a sliver, but even in that small crescent, it was brighter than Sam had ever seen. It seemed a bit larger too. That made sense. The moon was closer to the Earth back then.
In the rocking of the waves and pitter-patter of the storm, Sam realized the big mistake he had made in thinking that he would arrive on land. In the Late Triassic, Pangea contained all of Earth’s landmass—and the supercontinent only covered a quarter of Earth’s surface. There were no ice caps, which meant the rest of the planet was covered in water. The odds of him arriving on solid land had always been one in four.
Had Daniele known? Surely she had. She would have realized it.
Why hadn’t she told him?
The obvious answer was that there was not much he could do about it. It was simply bad luck. For all Sam knew, he was a thousand miles from Pangea, from the coast and salvation.
In a way, it was a fitting end. This was what Absolom was—leaving a person adrift, in a sea of time, with no hope of spotting land and no future, only the endless expanse of time and open sea around them.
As he stared at the unfamiliar stars in the sky, blinking the rain out of his eyes, he wondered if dawn would bring the sight of land. He hoped so. If not, he was finished out here. Hunger, dehydration, or a predator would claim him soon, and he would belong to the sea forever.