Listen to the Water | FULL SERIES | Wattys 2022 Shortlist | ✔

(33) Ande: Singing Stone

Either there's something magical going on, or I just had the weirdest dream.

I'm awake again. There's no warm water-shell around me. That's unusual enough already, so I keep my eyes shut and run a full inventory of my body. There's no pain. At all. I'm healed... unless my injuries have infected the rest of my body, and there's a more gruesome reason I both can't feel my arm, and can feel the cold.

I crack an eye open as dread punches through me, but all I find in front of me is darkness. Because my lights are off. I light them, and they spring on at full capacity, making me startle violently. I slam them off again. My eyes dance with bright spots, which I let fade before trying again. This time, I manage a more appropriate light level, just enough to make me stare at my own limbs like I expect them to grow flowers. With whatever's just happened, they might as well.

My arm is healed, and those earlier memories weren't a dream. Thick, dark scars run up my forearm, ridged like rake marks in sand. I can move my hand, and control my hand-light perfectly. I stretch out my arm gingerly, and startle even harder as the light reflects off of something—someone—an arm's length away.

I bolt upright. Now I feel my arm, tender and still a bit achy. But that's nothing, as I lift my light to find Sar sitting immobile against the wall we're sheltered under, watching me like they're not sure how I'm going to respond. They've pulled their tail up around them, and they're hugging themself. It takes me a long, stunned moment to realize what's so different about them. Their mask is down. This is the first time in forever—almost ever—that I can read their actual feelings on their actual face.

I point to my arm. "Did you heal this?"

I owe them a massive thanks if so; I can't even imagine how much energy that must have taken. But Sar shakes their head. I look around, still more than a little disoriented, but there's no sign of Taiki. Or anyone else.

Motion catches my eye. I look back as Sar frees one hand and indicates the wall. "It healed me, too."

I blink. "It what?"

"I don't know." Andalua help me, they're nervous. "Can you... feel it, I guess?"

It takes me an embarrassingly long moment to realize what they're talking about. Feel it. I followed a song here, and found Sar passed out at the base of this wall. I thought it might be a trap. But the song took away the pain in my arm, and now we're both sitting here, very much alive, and un-trapped as far as I can tell. Unless that's my misinterpretation.

"Did you follow it here, too?" I ask, because Sar looks about to retract the question.

"I think so?"

They don't look sure. Understandable, given the mental state they fled in. But there's something else I'm missing, and the little glances they keep throwing up the wall behind us might be a clue.

"Can you still feel it?" I sign.

"Can't you?"

"Not anymore. But I did last night? It faded while I was trying to sleep."

Faded, I now realize, as the pain in my arm did. The answer clicks like a trap snapping shut. The water tasted sweet when I was swimming here last night. If that was a healing song, did it disappear when my arm was healed?

And how long have I been out? Sar has been sitting here alone in the dark, waiting for me.

Sar was drawn here, too.

"Are you still hurt?" I risk signing, and they flinch.

"Not hurt." It looks like it's taking them an enormous amount of trust to admit this. "Just depth-sick."