What The Ocean Gave Back

Chapter 1

The water was warm, which surprised him. In the apocalypse, water had always been cold- rain collected in rusted barrels, rivers choked with ash. But this water was warm and salt-heavy filling his lungs like an unwanted guest. Then hands seized him under the arms, and the world lurched.

Caelan broke the surface choking. The sky impossibly blue stretching overhead, unbroken by smoke or the silhouettes of ruined buildings. He vomited seawater onto sand while someone pounded his back with frantic, heavy hands.

"Cassius! Cassius, breathe!"

The name meant nothing to him. He rolled onto his side and blinked the stinging water from his eyes. A large man knelt over him, brown hair plastered to his forehead, eyes wide with panic. The man's build was massive- the kind of frame Caelan would have recruited in the old days, back when there were still enough people to recruit.

"Who?" Caelan rasped, his voice coming out wrong. He looked down at his own hands. They were without the calluses and scars he'd earned over the three years of killing. His knuckles were smooth as a child's.

"Cassius, can you hear me? It's Elias. You fell off the rocks- you went under for-" The big man's voice cracked. "I thought you were dead."

Caelan sat up slowly. His body tired, fragile, nothing like the weapon he'd honed through years of survival. He grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled it forward-black, short, barely reaching past his ears. Not my body. The feeling of the sweltering hot sun gassed down upon him from all directions. He'd gone from a gloomy cold place to a hot summer day.

"Where am I?" He asked.

Elias stared at him. "The island. You've been here for a week. Cassius, are you okay?"

Caelan looked past the man. A small island spread before him- lush green, ringed with white sand and turquoise shallows. A small path could be seen going further into the greenery- probably to some kind of settlement sitting among the many palm trees. Everything was like a paradise. It looked like something he would never have been allowed to see or experience again.

"I'm not Cassius." He said quietly.

Elias's expression shifted from concern to something more guarded.

"Let's get you inside."

He let the big man help him up, mostly because his legs were unsteady and partly because he needed information. The world had no zombies. The sky had no smoke. The air smelled fresh like flowers and salt instead of rot. Whatever had happened, wherever he was, the apocalypse didn't exist here.

Inside the house, an older man with silver-streaked hair was chopping vegetables at a kitchen counter. He dropped the knife when he saw them.

"Good lord- what happened?"

"He fell of the rocks at the south point." Elias said. "Nearly drowned."

The older man- Fred, wrapped a towel around Caelan's shoulders and pressed a glass of water into his hands. Caelan sniffed it, then drank. It was pure and clean. He nearly closed his eyes at the taste of it.

"Are you hurt anywhere?" Fred asked, his voice soft with genuine worry.

"No." Caelan set the glass down. "Where exactly is this island?"

Fred and Elias exchanged a glance. A third man appeared in the doorway- tall with a buzz-cut, arms folded. He surveyed Caelan with visible suspicion.

"He's playing games again."

"Daniel." Fred said gently. "He almost died."

"He's been nothing but trouble since we got here." Daniel's jaw tightened. "Throwing tantrums and destroying things. And now this. He probably jumped on purpose."

Caelan looked at Daniel with the flat, quiet expression that had once made armed raiders step backward. Daniel, to his credit, did not flinch- but he stopped talking with a bit of sweat streaming down his back.

"I don't know who Cassius is." Caelan said. "I don't know any of you. The last thing I remember is dying somewhere very different from this place. My name is Caelan."

Silence filled the kitchen. Fred's kind brown eyes searched his face while Elias shifted uncomfortably and Daniel snorted in disdain.

"He's lost his mind." Daniel said.

"Maybe," Fred murmured, still studying him. "Maybe not. His eyes look different."

Caelan caught his reflection in the window glass. The face staring back at him was young- twenty, maybe- with black hair and sun-kissed skin. But the eyes no longer belonged to the body. They were shifting, the color bleeding from pure black into something more vibrant, bluer, like dissolving ink in water. It's changing. His soul strong enough to alter the human body. Soon he would no longer look like Cassius, he would just be Caelan.

"I'm hungry," He said.

Fred blinked, then let out a startled laugh. "Well, that I can fix." The older man moved back to his cutting board with practiced ease of someone who solved problems through cooking. Within twenty minutes he set a plate of grilled fish, rice and sliced mango before Caelan.

It was the most beautiful thing Caelan had seen in years. He ate slowly, savoring every grain, and when he finished he looked up at Fred with an expression so raw that the old cook had to turn away and busy himself with the dishes.

"Thank you." Caelan said. He meant it with every fractured piece of himself.

That night he lay on the newly washed sheets on the bed that had apparently belonged to Cassius- a spoiled, angry boy who had hurt a child and been sent here as punishment. He gathered this much, from the careful, halting conversation Fred offered during dinner while Daniel refused to speak and Elias hovered like a worried dog.

He was now in a contract marriage with Lucien- a man who had every reason to despise the person whose body Caelan now wore. He stared at the ceiling. The tropical breeze came through the open window carrying the sound of rustling leaves and the faraway noise of ocean waves. It was peaceful. It was so peaceful that it made his chest ache, because Caelan had forgotten what safety sounded like. I died, he thought. And now I'm here. He rolled over, pulled the thin fragrant blanket up and slept deeply for the first time in three years.

In the morning, his hair was longer. When sunlight caught it through the window, it shone the faintest shade of blue.