Even in my dreams, I see the dead. Their bodies limp and lifeless, their eyes open, staring up into the heavens. Like in my waking world, I move toward them on heavy limbs, too aware of my own aliveness. But when I light the fire, the dead scream.
When I wake up, drenched in sweat, I can still hear echoes of their cries, like they’ve pierced the veil of dreams.
“Eshaal!” The call from outside the door—not a scream, though close enough—is real. Not a continuation of my nightmare. At least, that’s what I tell myself as I roll out of bed and fling the door open. Derrick is waiting in the hallway, his blond hair disheveled and his clothes rumpled as if he’s just woken up too. It’s a relief to see his familiar face after my nightmare.
“I’ve been knocking for ages,” he says. “Orla sent me. She…,” he pauses, looking down at his feet instead of at me, “… wants us to clear out Juliette’s apartment.”
I must have heard him wrong. “But we have another day,” I say.
“Actually, it’s more like twelve hours,” he clarifies.
“But we don’t even know exactly when she left. How can they say her time is up?”
“If this is too difficult for you, I can take care of it,” Derrick says. “But orders are orders.”
I turn away and close my eyes, but instead of finding peace, I’m bombarded by the images from my nightmare. Except this time the dead wear Juliette’s face. Even my subconscious has given up any hope of finding her.
“Okay,” I say, even though it’s the last thing I want to do.
When Derrick and I go to Juliette’s small apartment, I almost expect to find her there.
Stepping through the front door, I take in the stack of books piled high on the small dinner table, the loose papers scattered all around, the unwashed dishes in the sink. Once everything has been cleared out and sent to headquarters for sorting and redistributing, the place will be ready for new tenants. It’ll be like Juliette was never here at all. Like our first date wasn’t sharing secrets over her terrible cooking at that dinner table, or our first kiss wasn’t an awkward fumble of hands by her front door.
“I’ll pack up here,” Derrick says, pointing at the mounds of books. “Why don’t you take care of the bedroom?” He’s looking at me like he knows my mind is not exactly occupied with getting rid of Juliette’s things and like he’s okay with it. If there’s one other person I can trust in this world, it’s Derrick. Ever since the two of us got paired up together for work, he’s had my back. And I’ve had his.
Juliette’s bedroom is as messy as anything else. Her bed is unmade, and there are stacks of notebooks, papers, and folders dedicated to her scientific research on her bedside table and desk. We already searched through it all when we realized she had left Heaven, but nothing useful turned up. But I have to believe there’s something we missed.
Instead of packing it all away into boxes, I start going through everything. Because I have to know the reason Juliette left out of the blue. Why she went so far that for the six days we’ve been searching, there’s been no sign of her.
Not even a dead body.
Juliette was happy in Heaven. She had found her calling doing biological research. She was convinced that with enough time, we would be able to finally destroy the Sunken and go back to some semblance of the life our ancestors knew. She scoffed at the dissenters when they marched on the streets demanding that they be allowed to go out in search of humanity, of land, of things that don’t exist anymore. So I’m having a hard time understanding why she’d go—and why she didn’t tell me.
The answers are here; I just have to find them.
But all I find are buried memories. Folders of research trips outside Heaven that Juliette would tell me stories about. Old photos of her parents and grandparents from before the world outside sank underwater and everything changed.
I pocket the only photo of Juliette among her things: one where she’s standing in front of Heaven’s gates with a nervous smile, ready to embark on her first research trip with her parents.
“Eshaal.” I’m not sure when Derrick appeared again in the room or how long he’s been saying my name. Everything is a blur. Between my pounding head and the emptiness eating me up inside, nothing seems to make much sense. “Our shift is about to start, but I can tell Orla that you’re sick. We’ll find someone to fill in for your shift today and—”
“No. I’m fine. Just … give me a minute.”
Derrick sighs but nods. His footsteps sound too loud as he exits the bedroom. I stand up, taking in the room one last time. The last of this will be packed away by the time we’re back in Heaven.
I take out the photo of Juliette, running my fingers over it like that’ll help me commit her face to memory. I flip it over to find Juliette’s familiar scrawl, though it’s less legible than usual. There’s a hastily drawn map, and beside it are quickly scribbled words in Juliette’s handwriting:
go north until you find land
Tracing the words with shaky fingers, I feel something akin to hope flutter in my chest.
I pocket the photo and take one last longing look at the place. There are so many memories of Juliette here, but they can’t be my last ones. Because Juliette is still out there—she has to be.
Derrick and I walk through the dark alleyways of Heaven, past pitch-black buildings crumbling at the edges, ivy and moss climbing up their sides and windows. Most of these buildings are filled to the brim with people. When Heaven was first built, every family had their own apartment. But as the population inside the city swelled, two families had to live in the same unit. Things have only gotten worse with time; now we’re packing as many people as possible into each home. But anything is better than the alternative.
The only reason people like me, Derrick, and Juliette get the privilege of a quiet space for ourselves is the work we do. We’re the lucky ones, and even still, sometimes being trapped in this city feels like a nightmare.
Derrick and I weave through the sleeping city toward the gates that tower above us all. Two stone pillars line either side of it, circular domes atop them both. But the gates themselves are made of heavy dark wood, its edges lined with glittering gold. Carvings of flowers and vines adorn them, climbing up, like they’re reaching for heaven itself. The gates are a remnant of the dreams people had when they built this place, the dreams of my parents and their friends. They wanted Heaven to be the place where humanity didn’t just survive but thrived. And so they built these gates, looming and gilded with gold, to represent those dreams. They were, after all, the gates to Heaven.
But once the Sunken came, only survival was possible. The last of humanity charged through these gates, locking them shut behind them. Instead of marking the entrance to Heaven, where humanity thrived, the gates became what divided us from the rest of the world. The locked gates that shut out the hell beyond.
Derrick presses the intercom button by the gate. First, there is only the sound of static, but then the operator appears on the line.
“Yes?” The person asks.
“Derrick Wood, and Eshaal Rana,” Derrick says.
The intercom devolves into silence for another moment before the operator speaks again. “Okay, go through.”
A mechanical whirr sounds as the doors open. Derrick and I have changed into black hazard suits and goggles. They cover every inch of skin, leaving no room for the lethal atmosphere to seep in and harm us. The toxic water that now covers most of the Earth has also polluted the air, with the areas nearest to the water being the most dangerous. Extended exposure means certain death. Still, I can already smell the world outside our gates. It’s damp and heavy, like a mixture of earth and water carried in the wind. There’s something unsettling about it.
We step outside the gates, and the usual dread surges through me as I peer down the steps of the mountain where the last of humanity resides. Towering walls surround the city, and with the gates marking the main entrance, the separation between Heaven and the outside feels tenfold.
We descend the mountain, farther and farther away from the safety of Heaven. The Sunken never come this close to the city, but with little protection between the gates and the pier, this is the part of the journey that fills me with the most tension. My muscles clench up as we make the trek, and I only feel my breathing relax once we finally reach the end of the stairs and find the boat with our equipment.
“Do you ever feel like one day those gates will leave us out here?” Derrick asks in a quiet voice, as he climbs aboard and picks up the oars to start our journey.
“Gates aren’t sentient,” I reply, even though that fear has crossed my mind more times than I can count. If one day the doors to Heaven were closed to us, we would be left out here to fend for ourselves. And there’s a difference between being out here for a few hours for a shift and being out here permanently.
More reasons why I can’t understand why Juliette would risk it.
On the boat, I dig through the pack of supplies and weapons to grab my flame gun, wrapping its strap around me. A wave of relief washes over me.
Derrick begins to row, propelling the boat forward slowly. I turn on my flashlight. The light slices into the darkness, but there’s nothing to see except the surface of the ocean, smooth and black, until tiny ripples form to announce our presence. The water makes my heart beat faster. The dead from my nightmares always feel too close when I’m out here, like they’re waiting at the seams of my mind, trying to crawl out into reality.
I try to shake their images out of my head. Juliette needs me.
“Should we do a check around the perimeter first, like usual?” Derrick asks cautiously. The perimeter of Heaven stretches five miles from its landmass in all directions.
“No.” I know it breaks protocol, but Derrick doesn’t seem surprised to hear my answer. It’s almost like he expected it.
“I found something in Juliette’s bedroom.” I dig into the pocket of my suit and remove the photo, then flip it around to show him Juliette’s note on the back and the map she hastily drew. “This is a map from Heaven to … somewhere. Out north. We have to follow it. We have to find this place.”
Derrick’s frown deepens. I half expect him to say no. Each of our shifts has a designated area we’re supposed to search, and north of the perimeter is not part of ours. I don’t tell Derrick that the map stretches farther north than we’ve ventured in years, where we have no idea what the Sunken population is, or how much land—if any—remains.
“You know the risks here, Eshaal,” Derrick says, though it’s not disapproval in his voice, but caution.
The farther out we go, the less likely we are to return. It was only a few months ago that an incinerator and navigator team went out for their shift, broke protocol by going farther than they had been instructed, and never walked through the gates of Heaven again.
“I have to do this,” I say, though it doesn’t seem fair to saddle Derrick with the risks either. “I can go myself. You can tell Orla that you tried to stop me, but—”
“No.” Derrick’s tone is firm now. We both know my suggestion was ludicrous; there’s a reason why our shifts send people out in pairs of two: one incinerator and one navigator. The incinerator burns the dead bodies, protects Heaven at all costs. And the navigator guides and keeps watch. Each on their own doesn’t work—not when danger lurks around every corner out here. “If you’re going north, then so am I.”
He steers the boat, turning it around. In the moonlight, I can almost make out the gates of Heaven, high up on a mountain. Protected.
With each stroke of Derrick’s oars, we move farther away from it. And the dread grows in the pit of my stomach.
It’s daylight and several hours before we spot land: a small island, big enough that we can’t see the other end of it.
Derrick sways the boat to the side of the island before using a rope to tether it to the trunk of a nearby tree. The shore is close enough that I can balance on the sides and jump off onto the soft, marshy ground.
“I’ll stay close,” I say, turning back to Derrick.
“I should come with you,” he says. “We don’t know what’s out here or why Juliette would even come here. We’re miles out from Heaven. We’ve never come this far before.”
In our three years of working together, Derrick has never left the boat behind. But we’ve never broken protocol before. We’ve never come this far out.
“We haven’t come across any Sunken yet, but if we do, I can protect myself,” I say, though I’m not sure I believe the words I’m speaking.
There’s little we know about the Sunken, truly. It’s difficult to study a creature so dangerous and so out of reach. One we can’t kill, only briefly scare away or injure with the threat of fire. But we do know they need water to survive. They’ve never ventured far inland, never attempted to trek up the mountain to Heaven.
“It’s not just the Sunken I’m worried about,” Derrick says, though his face turns ashen at the mention of them—I can make it out even under his goggles. “Even if Juliette really drew a map to here, you don’t know what you could find. She was working on research for Orla before she left. Maybe she found something dangerous.”
I sigh. “I don’t even know if this is the place. Whatever’s here, I can protect myself. But you have to stay with the boat, you know that.”
Derrick nods, though his pallor doesn’t return to normal.
He always gets that look of fear when it’s time for us to separate, no matter how many times we’ve done this together. Instead of letting me go, he asks, “Why do you think she came out here? She must have told you something.”
“If I could answer that, I wouldn’t be here breaking protocol, would I?”
Derrick doesn’t look amused by my answer, but he doesn’t say anything else. Instead, he grabs the emergency telecoms device and hands it to me. “Radio me if you see anything weird.”
I slide it into the pocket of my suit, nestled beside the photo of Juliette, before making my way toward the trees. Derrick’s question burrows into my mind—why would Juliette come here?
The land on this island is similar to what I’ve seen before. It’s all swampland, a place where water and earth meet.
I keep my weapon hoisted and ready as I jump over puddles of water, through damp grass, and under the boughs of trees. There’s nothing here, but that thought sets my teeth on edge more than anything else. The Sunken can creep up on you when you least expect it, especially in marshlands like this. And if they manage to take you by surprise, there’s little chance that you can defend yourself. They can kill in an instant, drowning you in the same water their bodies are made of as you writhe in pain while the toxic, burning water fills your lungs.
I smell the dead body before I see it. It’s not a scent you forget once you’ve encountered it—the rancid odor of decaying flesh. I hesitate in front of a thicket of trees. The body must be somewhere on the other side. My stomach twists, thinking about the possibility of the body belonging to Juliette.
I take a deep breath, steeling myself for what lies behind the shelter of trees. Then I push aside the tall grass and low-hanging branches and march forward.
The corpse lies facedown in the middle of a creek. I edge closer, trying not to think about Juliette and the body as one. Trying to think of the body as a body, not Juliette at all.
Still, it’s hard to ignore Juliette’s dark brown hair cascading down her shoulders and drenched in the water of the stream. The heart-shaped dark brown birthmark on her arm confirms that I’m not mistaken, as much as I wish I were.
I reach out, my fingers hovering over her body. The odor is overwhelming here. I almost wish Derrick were with me. I turn the body over, trying to ignore the waves of nausea crawling up my stomach. Her golden-brown skin has turned blue black; her hazel eyes, once so bright and full of life, are dull and lifeless. At least the toxic particles in the humid air here haven’t yet turned her completely unrecognizable.
I pull my hands back, tears blurring my vision. They say that when you’re about to die, your life flashes before your eyes. But they don’t tell you that when the person you love dies, their life replays in your head, and you’re left asking yourself why and how—endless questions you can never answer.
I swallow my tears, pushing the grief as far back as possible while I hold up the flame gun with shaky fingers. I try to steady myself as I rest my finger on the trigger, looking at Juliette one last time, even though she barely looks like herself anymore. At least she won’t become one of them. That’s the only reassurance I have.
A twig snapping in the distance stops me in my tracks. My breath hitches, and I turn the flame gun in the direction of the sound. The thicket of trees nearby moves slowly, and my heartbeat hastens. My fingers hover over the trigger, ready to spew fire at a moment’s notice. I step gingerly across Juliette’s body, shielding it from whatever’s approaching. Derrick’s words from the boat ring loudly in my head: She was working on research for Orla before she left. Maybe she found something dangerous out here.
Finally, a brown hand emerges carefully from the thicket of trees, followed by a girl who can’t be much older than me. Her arms are raised in surrender, and she’s unarmed. No protection at all—no suit or goggles. Her short brown hair is messy and tangled with twigs and leaves, and her dark brown eyes are sharp with fear as she takes me in. Somehow, she’s unharmed from the toxic atmosphere.
“Who are you?” I ask, still aiming my flame gun at her.
She’s unfamiliar to me—and I thought I knew everyone at Heaven. With our dwindling numbers, it’s not exactly difficult. It’s been years since Heaven has accepted any new refugees.
“I’m Sona,” the girl says. “I’m a scientist. I’ve been researching landmasses. I recently tracked down this island, and I’ve been camping out here for a while, and then she showed up.” Sona nods at Juliette’s body. My stomach clenches with anger that Sona was the last person to see Juliette alive, not me.
“How did she…?” I can’t bring myself to say the word die because admitting that aloud would make it too real.
“She washed up on shore. I think she might have drowned. I was just as surprised as you to find her. I didn’t think I’d come across anyone else this far out.”
“And so you just left her body here in the creek?” I ask, anger seeping into my words. I half want to pull the trigger on Sona. “Left her to be taken by monsters?”
Sona hesitates, looking to Juliette’s body instead of at me.
It dawns on me before she can say any more. “Did you say you’re a scientist?” I ask. “Were you using her body as bait to draw the Sunken out? So you could study them?”
Sona’s face loses some of its color, telling me that I’m right. She doesn’t even try to deny it, to defend herself.
I step forward, the flame gun heavy in my hands. Now her dark eyes flicker toward me, a renewed glint of fear in them.
“How stupid could you be?” I ask.
“I just wanted to see exactly what the Sunken do where a human body is concerned. It’s never been observed before, and I wanted to make sure we really had it right. When they take the body, what do they do with it? How can a human being be changed like that? The whole thing is a scientific marvel.”
“You’re going to get yourself killed,” I say. “Do you understand how dangerous the Sunken are? And you have nothing to protect yourself—no suit, no goggles, not even a weapon.”
In the early days of Heaven, there were people who fancied themselves brave, venturing out into the unknown lands to try and take on the Sunken. Not a single one returned. I didn’t know there were still people foolish enough to risk their lives in similar ways.
Sona frowns. “That’s a rather primitive way of thinking. Their methods are a bit unorthodox, but … look, this is why I’m here. It’s for research, to understand them and their methods better. Maybe if we do, we can find better ways to adapt to this new world.”
I wonder for a moment if this is the effect of the toxic atmosphere. If the death settles on you like delusion at first, until you lose sense of everything, lose your grasp of reality entirely. I heard it was one of the symptoms, though the more brutal ones were what gave me nightmares as a child—the toxic particles slowly crushing your lungs until your body struggles for air, clouding your eyes until your sight turns to nothing but blackness.
“You should come back with me to Heaven,” I offer. “We can give you shelter, protect you.” Even as I offer this, I wonder if she’s beyond help already.
“Heaven,” Sona says, as if there’s something distasteful about the name. “The great city closed off from everyone and everything since the floods started. A refuge isolated from everything and everyone.”
“Isolation was the only way for us to survive,” I say, my voice hardening with defensiveness. Heaven may not be perfect—isn’t perfect—but we do what we have to in order to survive. “How did you survive? We thought the last of humanity outside our gates died a long time ago. The refugees stopped coming soon after the Sunken appeared. We thought everyone outside Heaven was dead … or taken.”
Sona studies me closely in a way that feels jarring. “The refugees didn’t stop coming. Heaven wouldn’t let anyone else in. They said they were ‘at capacity.’”
I blink at her slowly. “What are you talking about? We kept our gates open until the Sunken emerged, and then … it was too risky to transport anyone inside without risking our own lives, risking our survival. Once we figured out we could use the fire to keep them away, we sent out search parties to find anybody else left alive. There was no one left…” I still remember when teams of people returned to the city empty-handed, their faces grim. They had many stories of terrifying encounters with the Sunken, but none of human survivors.
“There was no one left,” Sona repeats with a chuckle, but there’s a darkness underneath it. “Your government told us we would find protection in Heaven if we could pay for it. People like my family didn’t get in. Your people watched as thousands of us died, to the floods, the hunger, the cold. They watched as the Sunken took us, not caring what happened. I guess our lives weren’t as precious as the ones who bought their way into Heaven. And those search parties? Death parties were more like it. The Sunken were growing in number, and so they sent you people out to incinerate anyone they could find, dead or alive. If they weren’t citizens of Heaven, they didn’t matter.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” I insist. Her words feel like a fog in my brain. I was born in the new world, but if there’s one thing I know, it’s the story of Heaven. The last city on Earth, housing the last survivors of our planet. And Sona’s story isn’t true. It can’t be. “Nobody bought their way into Heaven. We were all refugees. There were supposed to be more cities after ours so we could save as many people as possible, but then the Great Flood happened and the Sunken arrived and it was too late. Otherwise—”
“That’s a nice story,” Sona says, though pity colors her sarcastic tone. “But that’s not the truth. Whoever your parents were, you were lucky they had the money to get in.” She pauses and adds, “Or maybe unlucky.”
I shake my head again, as if that’ll make Sona’s words disappear. Make it like I had never met her or heard any of this. “You shouldn’t even be here. You shouldn’t—humanity outside Heaven doesn’t exist. There’s no one left.”
Sona raises an eyebrow. She almost looks bored by this conversation. “Or we found another way to survive.”
“Nobody else survived,” I insist. But the more I say it, the less convinced I become. Sona is real. I’m not hallucinating. The toxic air hasn’t killed her. She’s alive and standing in front of me, speaking to me. Telling me lies … or truths … Either way, I can’t make any sense of her claims. And what about Juliette? If she came out here, maybe it was for the same reason as Sona. To find the truth the rest of us didn’t know.
I think back to Juliette when she returned from her research trips. She was always more subdued then, quieter. Like she’d returned but left a part of her outside the city. I thought it was just the fear. That in the same way I was haunted by nightmares of the dead, she was haunted somehow by the outside world. But maybe there was more to it than she’d ever let on.
“Well, I’m here, and I have never set foot in your precious city. And after everything they’ve done, I wouldn’t want to go there either,” Sona says.
I want to say more, demand the truth, but it’s just then that the air around us shifts. It’s not a visible change. It’s a certain stillness that infuses itself into the environment: The wind stops, the soil under my feet becomes less solid, the sound of water becomes louder than the blood pumping in my ears.
“No.” It’s all I can whisper as I turn back around, toward Juliette. But I find the monster instead: the Sunken.
It’s the first time I’ve seen one of them this close. Its blue-green skin glows in the sunlight, and hard scales line its body, glinting sharply when one catches the light.
Murky brown mucous drips from its webbed hands and feet.
But the faces of the Sunken are what haunt the dreams of every resident in Heaven: shaped like a human’s but resembling no human I’ve ever met. Soulless black eyes, no nose to speak of, and rows of vicious teeth.
I scramble back, almost tripping over the edge of a tree, pulling the trigger of my flame gun as I double back. The flames rip out of my weapon in a flurry, engulfing the Sunken in front of me.
It lets out a roar and stumbles back. Then its eyes sway from me, to Sona, to Juliette on the ground.
I can’t let them turn her into a monster.
I pull the trigger once more, launching toward the monster instead of away from it. For a moment, all I see is the wall of fire in front of me, feel the heat of it prickle my skin.
“What are you doing? Stop!” Sona screams from somewhere in the distance, but I barely register her words.
In the wake of the fire, the Sunken is still there, hunched down to protect itself. The scales on its skin have charred and blackened. I feel triumphant for a moment, but the monster rises again in a flash. It lumbers forward, toward me. My heartbeat quickens as I reach for the trigger again, but the gun lets out only a cough of a flame. It’s jammed.
“Shit, shit,” I mumble, pulling the trigger again, harder. But that single moment is all it takes. The Sunken sways away from me and toward the body on the ground.
“No, don’t!” I cry, but it doesn’t listen. I don’t even know if it’s capable of listening.
Its webbed hands find Juliette’s body, the murky brown mucous already beginning to envelop her. I rush forward, pulling the trigger of the gun with all my force. The fire finally rips out again, but it’s too late.
The Sunken flees with Juliette’s corpse, and I watch through the orange flames as it disappears downstream in the blink of an eye.
“She’s gone.” The words are a whisper on my lips. I had the chance protect her—what remained of her—and I couldn’t. I was too late. She was right here in front of me, and I was too late.
“This is your fault,” I cry to Sona, needing someone to blame for my failure. “You lured that creature here, and now look what happened.”
Sona just frowns at me for a moment before shaking her head. “You people never change,” she mumbles, pushing me aside and beginning to follow the stream down, on the trail of the monsters.
I reach out to stop her but hesitate. I wait instead, half expecting her to come back. Because if she doesn’t, if she’s not a refugee who needs our help to survive in this new world, what does that mean about the world I’ve known my entire life?
What does it mean about Heaven?
I have more questions than answers when I get back to Heaven. The city that once seemed like the only place for survival now feels like a trap. When the gates slam shut behind us, my heart jumps to my throat. The alleyways we walk through seem too narrow, like they’re closing in on us. The people in the streets have the look of the haunted. I wonder what they know, if they know anything. If the things Sona told me are true, I wonder who in this city is a liar and who is being lied to.
I head to Orla’s office as soon as I’m back in the city. It’s a place that’s intensely familiar to me. While she’s risen in the ranks in headquarters, I first knew her as my trainer. She taught me everything I know about my job, my duty. Everything about how to protect Heaven. Usually, Derrick and I meet with her quarterly, though occasionally special circumstances require an impromptu meeting. Juliette being missing for a week definitely qualifies as a special case.
“Eshaal.” Orla welcomes me in with a smile. Her office has only become grander over the years. Once, it was little more than a cubicle in a corner of headquarters, but last year she was moved to this central office. There are leather chairs stationed at her desk and a plush velvet carpet on the hardwood floor. Portraits of the founders of Heaven line the wall behind her, alongside a picture of Heaven’s gates, when they were first constructed.
“How did everything go?” Orla asks, once we’re both seated. Her piercing blue eyes look right through me, and there’s something unnerving about her smile. I’ve always found comfort in Orla, but now I can’t help the way my skin prickles at being in her presence.
“We broke protocol,” I confess. “It was my idea.”
Orla doesn’t seem as perturbed by that as I would have imagined. “I take it you were successful if you are admitting to breaking protocol.” She holds my gaze, a glimmer of something in her eyes that I can’t read.
“We went farther north than Derrick and I have ever been before. It was a long way away from Heaven. She was there; she was dead,” I say.
Orla’s face falls as she reaches out to touch my hand. “I’m sorry, Eshaal. Juliette was … She was one of our best scientists. And I know she was on the brink of some kind of breakthrough about the Sunken. Some way to finally eliminate them.”
“I still don’t understand why she would leave,” I say. “You must know something. She was seeing you more often than anyone else for her research.”
Orla smiles sympathetically. “I know you want to make sense of this, but sometimes these things happen. Juliette was … unwell, in those last few days. Her research was all she thought about. I overlooked it because she was about to discover something big. I didn’t think she would do something so drastic. But maybe she went too far. Maybe she tried to … find a way to eliminate them on her own.”
Orla’s words make no sense. If Juliette had really been obsessive during her last few days in Heaven, I would have noticed it. I realize Orla is only trying to appease me, trying to find a way to make me see the false reality she’s creating for Juliette: an obsessed scientist who took her research on the Sunken too far. That would be her story now.
“But we found her body intact. If it were the Sunken that killed her, then we wouldn’t have found her at all,” I say, in an attempt to refute Orla’s lies. “In fact, there hadn’t even been any damage to the body. It was like … I don’t know, the olden times. Normal decay. There was no reaction to the toxic water particles.”
Orla shifts in her seat, the discomfort in her expression obvious, though she doesn’t drop the smile. “This is why we need scientists like Juliette. This new world is so unknown to us, we’re still making discoveries about the atmosphere, how it’s changing, how the Sunken affect everything.”
But her words don’t assuage my doubt. Not after everything that’s happened today.
“Why would her body not be affected by the atmosphere?” I ask this time, my voice firm. Demanding an answer.
Orla clears her throat. “It’s possible that where you found her, the water particles could be significantly less concentrated. Without studying the body, there’s no way for us to know for sure.”
“Can I see the research?” I ask, changing my tactic. Orla may not give me a straight answer, but the research can’t lie. Juliette had to have found something that led her to leave this place.
“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Orla says with a sigh. “Eshaal, I understand you have questions, that you want to understand why this happened. But sometimes there is no answer. Sometimes it’s better to stop digging, for your own peace of mind.” She says it kindly, but there’s an underlying threat in her voice. “I know this is a troubling time for you. You should get some rest, and I’ll speak to Dr. Valasquez about getting you some grief counselling.”
Somehow, I very much doubt that Dr. Valasquez will provide me with anything but platitudes. But I know someone else who might answer my questions.
Rowing a boat is no easy feat, though Derrick always makes it look effortless. At least tonight, the new moon hangs above the sky, casting a dim glow over everything as I row out of sight of Heaven. I worried that Orla would shut down my clearance at the gates but the operator had opened the doors without any questions.
I know it’s ridiculous to believe the word of a stranger over the world that I’ve always known, seen with my own eyes, and heard with my own ears, but I need answers. And I fear the only one who can give them to me now is a monster.
I stop the boat outside the perimeter of Heaven, but the city and mountain have disappeared into the dark night already. Around me, there’s nothing but the vast ocean of toxic water. No matter how many doubts plague my mind, fear burrows deep in my bones as I stare out at the dark liquid every which way.
I sit there for what feels like hours, every sound sending shivers down my spine.
Finally, I feel it. The hair rising on the nape of my neck, a chill in the air, and the churning sound of the water.
My breath hitches as the monster rises from beneath the surface.
In the dark of the night, its blue scales shimmer, water glinting off it where moonlight hits.
The green mucous on its webbed hands is congealed around the fingers, though splashes of it drip into the midnight-black water below us.
Its canine mouth leers at me as it approaches my boat. Its beady eyes regard me coldly.
My heartbeat quickens, and I raise my flame gun, my only protection against the thing in front of me.
The creature’s cold eyes stare down at my weapon, then up at me. Unlike the one on the island, this one doesn’t stagger back in fear, but it doesn’t grab me and drag me underwater either. Instead, it hovers in front of my boat as if waiting, though it doesn’t speak.
I try to ignore my fear, study the monster in front of me. That’s when I notice the darkened spot on its arm. A heart-shaped birthmark.
“Juliette?” I ask in barely a whisper.
It nods, as if it understands me. But the thing in front of me can’t be Juliette. Aside from her birthmark, it bears no resemblance to her.
The creature lifts one of its webbed hands, and I flinch. But it doesn’t reach for me. Instead, it points to its beady eyes, black irises never leaving my own.
I touch the glass of my goggles, and the creature makes that motion with its head again—a motion of agreement, I realize …
I hesitate.
On my first day of training, Orla told us that the most important thing about leaving Heaven is our protective gear: the suit and goggles. They protect us from the hazards beyond the gates of Heaven, the outside world that’s been ravaged by climate change. The new, horrible, monstrous world we inherited. But I’m wondering now if that was part of Heaven’s collection of lies.
I reach toward the tightened straps on the back of my head, taking a deep breath before I undo it. I pull the goggles off slowly, even as Orla’s warnings ring in my ears.
For a moment, dark spots dance in front of my vision, and I see a monster in the shape of Juliette—the monster’s teeth with Juliette’s bright eyes, the monster’s claws but Juliette’s brown skin. But I blink and the image disappears. The dark spots clear to reveal Juliette’s familiar face. The one I’ve known for my whole life. No sign of any monsters. She smiles, and everything seems to still. Her hands, the same delicate ones I’ve held a million times, reach forward. Her fingers link with mine. Despite her being submerged in water, her hands are warm, like human blood still flows through them.
The new world too seems brighter in front of my eyes, more alive. The darkness in the air and water doesn’t seem so pressing anymore. And the scent of the water, which was so foreboding before, now smells sweet and the air feels warm. Unlike anything I’ve sensed before.
“Juliette.” I sigh. “I don’t understand. I saw you. You were dead.”
“A first death,” Juliette says. “A death you have to die if you want to come underwater and start a new life.”
“You mean with the Sunken—as one of them?”
“Not Sunken … people. We’re human. When the rest of the world sank underwater and Heaven shut them out, they adapted,” Juliette explains. “And when I found out that we’ve been lied to about everything, I decided to join them. You must have figured it out if you’re here. There is no toxic atmosphere, Eshaal. Humanity has carried on outside the gates of Heaven.”
I shake my head because even though I can see it all with my own eyes, I can hardly believe it. “But I’ve seen them, the Sunken. They are monsters. That’s why we burn the bodies, so the Sunken don’t get their claws into more of us. So they don’t keep growing their ranks while our population dwindles; so they can’t take over what’s left of the world, including Heaven.”
But even as I say these words, they don’t ring true anymore. I’ve never seen the Sunken with my naked eyes, only through goggles. Everyone in Heaven knows that to go outside without protective gear would mean death; we heard the horror stories from headquarters, saw the pictures. And the people at headquarters are in charge after all; they’re the ones venturing out into the world with scientists, trying to protect us from the danger outside our gates. We’ve never had reason to question them. The only ones who leave are the ones headquarters employs, like me and Derrick and Juliette.
“We don’t care about Heaven,” Juliette says with a sad smile, almost like she pities my disbelief. Like she and I are not the same anymore. And I guess we aren’t. “We just want to live. That’s what we’re doing. This is the new world, Eshaal. Not Heaven. This is how we survive now: underwater, not on top of a mountain, fearing everything outside the gates of a man-made city.”
“But we built it so the human race wouldn’t go extinct. So we could survive.”
“First, Heaven shut out the rest of humanity to protect themselves. Now they want to kill the Sunken because they’re afraid of us. It’s never going to stop. I met other humans when I was doing my research trips. I didn’t believe anything they told me at first, but the proof was always right there in front of my eyes. Once I started asking questions, I couldn’t stop. I told Orla that I was zeroing in on a way to eradicate the Sunken, but really I was trying to find a way to communicate with them. To understand. When I finally managed to get in contact, I knew there was nothing else for me to do but join them. What I discovered was that there were never any monsters out here, only up there, in Heaven,” Juliette said.
“That’s why you left?” I press. “Why didn’t you tell me anything?”
Juliette sighs. “I didn’t think you’d believe me. You were entrenched so deep. We all were. I knew that if it were the other way around, if you’d told me all this without the proof I’d seen, I wouldn’t have believed you. So I tried to find proof, something to show you, but I knew I was running out of time. It wouldn’t be long before Orla became suspicious of what exactly I was up to, and I was afraid of what she would do if she knew.”
“So you didn’t even try? You just left me alone there, knowing that everything I believed was a lie?” The words are out before I can think about them, and once the anger simmering in my veins has weight, I can’t suppress it. “Do you know what it was like for me? You just disappeared without so much as a note! I searched for you … I broke protocol for you. But all I found was your dead body, and I watched that—that monster drag you away. I thought I’d failed you.”
Juliette at least has the grace to look ashamed. She glances down instead of at me. “I’m sorry, Eshaal. I didn’t think I had another choice. But … I can make it up to you. You can join me here. We can still be together, live the life we’re meant to, out here instead of locked inside the gates of Heaven.”
She looks up, meeting my eyes once more. Some of my anger washes away at her plea. I look at the water glinting silver in the moonlight, and I imagine what it would be like if I shed my old life. I could share this entire new world with Juliette. What do I have left in Heaven, other than lies and the blood on my hands? I think about the nightmares that haunt my sleep, and an unfamiliar feeling of freedom begins to itch in my skin.
“Yes, I want to join you,” I find myself saying. “But … I need to say goodbye to my old life first. I was born there; I grew up there. It’s all I’ve ever known.”
“Okay,” Juliette says, nodding. “You just have to die your first death, and then I’ll come find you.”
My mind is whirring as Heaven comes into view. There are so many people in this city who are just as ignorant as I was, whose bodies will be burned to a crisp when they die. Who’ll never know the truth because people like Orla will keep it from them until their dying breath. It doesn’t seem fair that Juliette and I get a second chance at life when none of them do.
I pull on my goggles as I get closer to Heaven, more out of habit than anything else. Immediately, I feel the shift around me. The goggles feel heavy, like a burden more than protection, now that I know the truth. There has to be a way I can show everyone else the truth too.
A familiar figure is shadowed in the dark when I pull up to the docks. Derrick, wearing a grim expression I haven’t seen before.
“Eshaal,” he greets me, while I climb out of the boat. “I thought you had decided to follow after Juliette.”
“What?” I ask.
“She left in the dead of night, and so did you.”
“You told Orla.” I can already see it in his eyes.
“What was I meant to do? She asked me to watch you ever since Juliette disappeared. She told me you were saying weird things in her office earlier today. She feared the worst, and maybe she was right to. The rules for our job aren’t to be taken lightly, Eshaal. You’re lucky to be alive, you know.”
“No, I’m not,” I say. “Derrick, Juliette is alive.”
He blinks at me slowly. “You know Juliette is gone. She’s probably already one of those monsters.”
“No, she isn’t. I just saw her; I talked to her. She’s not a monster, Derrick. She’s still her.”
Derrick frowns. “What are you talking about?”
“We’ve been lied to our entire lives. This job, being an incinerator, is a farce. We’ve been burning bodies, but not to save them from the Sunken. We’ve just been killing them.”
Derrick shakes his head. I can see in his eyes that I’ve lost him.
But I know something that could still convince him. I pull off my goggles in a rush, throwing them into the water where they land with a splash. Derrick follows them with wide eyes.
“Look, Derrick, I’ve taken off my goggles, and I’m going to be okay. I took them off earlier on the boat, and I was fine. The goggles … they change things, what we see. If you take yours off—”
“This is what you call okay?” he asks. “We need to get you back inside before you die. You’re already talking nonsense. You’re delusional.”
“I’m not,” I insist. “If what Orla said is true, the toxic particles of the water should have already set into me, but I’m the same. Nothing has changed.”
“You’re talking nonsense. I should have told Orla to get you help a long time ago. You’re obviously overwhelmed by everything. I know the job isn’t easy, and losing Juliette … talking to a psychiatrist can help you deal with all this. It’s my fault, really. I should have seen what this was doing to you, but I thought you were strong enough to handle it.”
“I’m leaving. Tonight. I only came to say goodbye, and Juliette said she’d come find me after—”
Derrick dashes for me, snatches the flame gun out of my hands, and aims it at me.
“I’m not letting you leave, Eshaal. As your friend, I’m going to take you back to Orla, and she will decide what kind of treatment you need,” Derrick says carefully.
I know trying to explain anything to him is fruitless now. Instead, I turn away from him, bounding down the steps of the mountain. A moment later, I hear Derrick’s heavy steps following behind.
“Burn me alive if you want. You’re not going to stop me,” I say through gasping breaths, even though I know if he pulls the trigger, my first death will be my final. There will be no body left behind for a second chance.
“I don’t want to do this, Eshaal, but I’m just trying to protect you,” Derrick says, his voice punctuated by sadness. I understand it more than he could know. If Derrick had come to me just yesterday, claiming everything I’ve known about the Sunken was wrong, I would have held a flame gun to his head too.
If only I could take him to Juliette, will him to take off his goggles and see her for who she is now.
But maybe there’s more than one way to show Derrick the truth.
I come to a sudden stop, and Derrick almost loses his balance as he stops on the step just above mine. I turn to face him now. He’s gasping for breath too, but some of his anger seems to have subsided as he looks me over.
“Good, you’ve come to your senses,” Derrick says.
I step forward, toward him. He backs away slowly, like he’s unsure of what’s happening.
“I’m sorry,” I say, unable to keep the tremble out of my voice.
A crease forms between Derrick’s eyebrows, but he doesn’t get longer than a moment to consider my apology. I brace myself against the cliffside and sidle past him, pretending to surrender. But once I’m on the other side of him, I gather all my strength and push him as hard as I possibly can. I look away, but that doesn’t stop me from hearing the awful thuds and cracks of his body hitting the concrete steps, one after the other, as he tumbles to his death. The sounds echo into the night. Once they stop, I hurry down the steps toward Derrick, in a rush and far too slow all at once.
There is no life left in his eyes. They’re glazed over. There’s no breath in his lungs, no pulse in his throat.
My heart throbs painfully at the sight. For three years, Derrick and I have worked side by side. Not quite friends, but not just colleagues either. Now Derrick is dead. But what had Juliette called it? A first death. He could still live, just as Juliette had. And then he would understand the truth—he would be living it.
I drag Derrick’s body along the dock. Juliette promised me this was true, and I had to believe it. I roll Derrick’s body into the water. At first the waves pull him in slowly, washing away the blood still on his clothes. Finally, they pull him in completely, and I watch his body disappear.
I take a deep breath, ready to join him in his first death. But then I look up for one last glance at Heaven, at the gates still visible from down here. The last bastion of the old world. A cruel dream that we all helped construct. It’s worse than any nightmare.
I climb back onto the boat and thumb through the emergency supplies—weapons meant to obliterate gangs of Sunken if we were ever attacked on a shift. Among the supplies, I find grenades. After grabbing them, I climb up the steps once more. This time, I don’t stop until I reach the gates. Once upon a time, it brought me comfort to see these gates, knowing that they protected the last city on Earth. Now the sight fills me with a burning rage.
I pull the safety pin and throw one at the gates, then hurl more incendiary grenades at the walls surrounding the city. At first, there is only silence. Then the explosions begin. Flames start to consume everything.
Heaven is tinged orange. Fire alarms blare from every corner. I can picture the inside of the city: Panicked residents pushing past one another to get to safety. Rushing out of their homes and trying to find a way outside the city’s walls. Their survival instincts making them forget they believe the outside to be the most dangerous of all.
The gates of Heaven are now gone forever. Maybe the people inside can finally learn the truth. Maybe they can finally be free.
I glance down at the bottom of the mountain, where Derrick’s blood stains the earth. Now it’s my turn to die my first death.
I wake to a new world. I look around for the crowded buildings of Heaven, the streets weaving through them, the gates closing off everything. But instead, I find a place vast and unfamiliar. The water stretches every which way, the surface nowhere to be found. In the distance, I can make out a small cluster of houses, paths weaving between them, and people—not monsters, both outside and inside—peering at me, curiosity alive in their eyes.
It feels unsettling to see them, even though they bear no resemblance to the monsters I thought they were. It’s because they feel so familiar, so human. Like there’s no difference between the Sunken and the citizens of Heaven.
It takes me a moment to realize that I’m one of them now, that I’m no longer a citizen of Heaven. The thought sends a shiver down my spine.
Juliette sits in front of me, her brown hair floating in the water. I glance down at myself, and I realize I’m the same as always. Human, brown skin, black hair. But I’m somehow different too, breathing in the water instead of air. I sit up, feeling the rocks of the ocean floor below my feet.
“I didn’t think you’d really do it,” Juliette says, taking my hand in hers, pulling us both up to stand. “But I’m so glad you did.”
“I had to. I didn’t have anybody else up there. My parents, you, Derrick … you were all gone. Is he here?” I ask. I look around at the endless stretch of water around us. I half expect Derrick to swim up to us, ready to finally accept that I was telling him the truth.
“Is who here?” Juliette asks.
“Derrick?” I ask. “He died a first death. I rolled him into the water. I thought … someone would come take him, and I’d join him here. Maybe it wasn’t you, but there must be a way to know who and—”
“He’s not here, Eshaal,” Juliette says. Her voice is unusually cold.
“Why not?”
“People from Heaven only die one death. I made a deal to come here. I told them that I would destroy all my research, make sure Orla and the rest of the people at headquarters never got hold of any of it. But the deal was only for me and for you. The rest of them? When they die, they die. They can rot just like they left the rest of humanity to rot.”
I think about Heaven and its people, the faces I saw every day of my life. All of them doomed to that hellish city, until the water claimed them too. Except the water wouldn’t make them its own; it would wash them up and spit them out, leave them to die. If not for Juliette, that would have been my demise too, in the end.
“Come on, we have so much of this world to see,” Juliette says, pulling me along.
And I follow, having nowhere and nobody else to turn to.