Chapter Text
He’s just turned around, he has to be. There’s no other explanation. Yeosang knows these waters like the back of his hand. He knows every cave and crevice, every ripple in the sandy floor. He knows the currents and the tides. He knows where to find the tastiest snapper and the elusive eel. He knows the coastline and the trenches and the underwater volcanoes, but somehow he does not know this island.
But he has been swimming for hours now, ducking and dodging, trying to evade a massive shark’s jaws. It’s possible he’s just lost his bearings. Perhaps he was swimming faster than he thought, and now he’s farther from home than he expected to be. The problem is, he should be able to recognise any landmass within his territory, and this particular landmass is completely unidentifiable.
There are tall trees sprouting from the sand almost all the way down to the shoreline. The center of the island seems to be composed of one enormous rock that juts up toward the sky. Nothing grows on the rockface. It’s just bare and grey and massive. Yeosang sees no buildings on the land. There are no houses or resorts or even huts. The entire island looks completely devoid of walkers, those funny creatures who look like Yeosang’s people but without their tails. He’s heard them call themselves men, but Yeosang prefers to refer to them the way his family does.
Yeosang dips his head back under the water, surveying the reef surrounding the island. It looks normal, brimming with sea life, but it, too, is completely unfamiliar. He doesn’t recognise the shape or pattern of the coral.
There’s a sandbar twenty meters out from the reef that runs parallel to the shoreline, and Yeosang follows it around to the far side of the island where the trees finally give way to a beach. It’s more rock than sand dotted with stones and pebbles and larger boulders here and there. Some of the smaller rocks sparkle like gems in the late afternoon sun. Yeosang is positive he would have remembered seeing this.
Up near the base of the mountain he finally spots the first sign of habitation, a pile of rotting wood that has been cut with tools. It used to be a vessel of some kind. It’s long abandoned now, covered in moss and vines, but it means that walkers have been on the island at some point and might still be there, hiding in the trees.
Checking the sun’s position, Yeosang decides he has enough time to rest and watch for a bit. He’s exhausted from his encounter with the shark. He deserves a bit of a break before he tries to find his way home. He spies a crab scuttling across the ocean floor and dives down to grab it for a snack while he rests.
It has been two hundred eighty days since Seonghwa last saw another human, since he awoke on the rocky shore of this island, aching from head to toe, with the vague memory of a violent storm at sea. He’s not even a sailor. He was just out for a little row, hoping to see something interesting in the ocean, an octopus or a school of jellyfish. He saw nothing of the sort, but when the sky turned dark long before sunset, he was too far away to row back before the heavens released their fury.
He’d found his boat in pieces, shattered by the rocks it smashed against when it came ashore. He’s been surviving mostly on rain water and fruit and using the few supplies he came across in the wreckage of a larger ship that must have gotten caught in the tree roots on the far side of the island. He tries to stay away from that side of the island, though. The ground is treacherous there, with slippery roots and jagged rocks. Seonghwa nearly broke his neck climbing through the dense forest to get there.
Ash markings on the rock wall inside his little cubby cave are his only measure of how long he’s been stuck here, but he diligently makes a new mark every evening when the sun sets. He hopes it won’t be too long before someone finds him.
The funny thing is, some days the ocean looks strange, like when he wakes up he’s in an entirely different place than where he’d fallen asleep. The island never changes, but the water surrounding it just isn’t the same. It never lasts long, a day or two at the most, and Seonghwa can’t quite put his finger on what’s so different.
He also hasn't seen another ship the entire time he's been here. Even when he'd climbed the craggy rock of a mountain in the center of the island in the first week, all he could see was open water, all the way to the horizon. But that… it can't be. It's impossible. He knows he was only a few hours away from the mainland, and that's rowing speed. There's just no way he wouldn't be able to at least see where he'd come from.
No ships, no land… it's like the island exists in its own universe.
Exiting the cave, Seonghwa makes his way to the shore, stepping carefully around the rocks. There's some wood washed up on the beach. It’s nothing more than a few scrawny branches, but he carefully collects it for firewood.
As always, Seonghwa scans the ocean, hoping for some sign of humanity. As always, there are no boats, but something is floating a little ways off the coast. Seonghwa can't quite make out what it is, but it's bright, a spot of pale gold drifting on the surface of the water.
Seonghwa sighs. It's probably just some sun-bleached wood or a sea creature. He takes his small bundle of wood back to the cave where it can dry out and heads into the forest in search of something ripe to nibble on.
A walker, a lone walker, paces the shore, cleaning debris from the sand. Yeosang ducks under the water when the walker looks his way, only his eyes and the top of his head showing. He’s reasonably certain he managed to hide fast enough, but the walker takes a long, hard look in Yeosang’s direction before turning inland. Curious, Yeosang attempts to follow.
He swims toward the shore and around the island to where the walker disappeared into the trees. He can hardly see through the dense foliage, just a glimpse of movement here and there that could be animals or leaves blowing in the breeze. Further around the island it becomes impossible to navigate the tree roots, and Yeosang is forced to swim back out to the sandbar to give himself enough depth to hide if necessary.
Another vessel is caught in the trees here, a few feet above the water like it flew to its resting place instead of sailing there. It’s bigger than the other boat, and much more weathered, covered in sand and salt and all kinds of little green things that tend to spread and devour vessels that have run aground. Most of the wood has rotted away, revealing its bones. It’s probably been here for years rather than months, but it shows signs that it’s been disturbed recently. The crumbling cabin door has been forced open, and one of the few remaining windows has been wiped free of salt residue.
Winding his way through the roots, Yeosang finds a hidden spot to sit and watch for the walker. He doesn’t know why, but he’s sure the walker will come this way.
As the sun descends, Yeosang waits. And waits. By the time the ocean is glittering gold and reflecting the pink and orange hues of the sky, he’s almost given up. Then he hears it. A song.
It’s a simple melody, but it’s pretty, the voice crystal clear as it cuts through the wooded area around the edge of the island. It has to be the walker. Yeosang has never heard another creature sing so beautifully.
The song grows louder as the walker approaches. Yeosang can make out the lyrics now, though they don’t make any sense to him. They’re not in another language, they’re just… nonsensical. Like someone took a bunch of random words and crammed them together. But the rhythm isn’t nonsense. The words are meant to be arranged that way.
A few more minutes and the walker finally becomes visible, picking his way carefully over the slippery roots. Yeosang ducks lower, hiding most of his body behind a large fallen tree that juts out over the water. The walker’s bronzed skin and sun-bleached hair glow in the last of the daylight, and Yeosang’s tail gives an involuntary little shiver that causes a small splash behind him when the walker stops singing for a moment to smile at the sunset. His teeth are straight and white, and his lips look soft and plump. Yeosang is so entranced that he doesn’t have the wherewithal to dip under the water to hide as the walker looks his way again.
“He- hello?” the walker says. He sounds confused enough that Yeosang glances down to make sure his tail is underwater. It is.
“Hello,” he responds.
“Where did you come from?”
Yeosang looks around and points in the general direction of what he thinks is home. He hears the walker gasp, and he doesn’t realize why until he sees his own hand pointing, the webbing between his fingers clearly visible.
“I- I haven’t seen another human in… forever. Almost a year, I think. But you’re… you aren’t human, are you?”
Yeosang shakes his head very slowly. His gills lay flat against his neck when he’s out of the water, but he knows there are little shadows from the ridges in his skin. He tilts his head down in a poor attempt to hide them, but he knows it’s too late. The walker has already seen everything but his tail.
“What are you?”
The walker moves closer, stepping over a rock and onto a root, leaning down until he’s only a few feet away, and Yeosang panics. He darts under a root down into the water, splashing the walker as his tail flips against the surface behind him, and he weaves through the murky shallows out into open water as fast as he can swim. It’s dark below the surface. Yeosang realizes it’s because the sun has finally set completely, but he can still see. The sandbar is just ahead. Though he’s probably already a safe distance from the walker, he keeps going, wanting to clear the sandbar before he stops.
But just as he’s about to reach his goal he becomes… confused. He turns around, sees the island and the walker and turns to swim again, but he forgets where he’s going when he faces the sandbar. Questions fill his mind. Where is he? What was chasing him? Was it the shark still? How did he get here?
Surfacing, Yeosang sees nothing but clear, dark water before him. There are no islands or inlets anywhere around. Behind him is the island he fled, he remembers now, but when he dips down to swim again… his brain goes fuzzy.
“Come back!” the walker shouts. “I won’t harm you. Just come back.”
Knowing he has no choice, Yeosang turns and swims back toward the island.
The creature keeps his distance, swimming only to the furthest root from shore before asking, “Where am I? What is this place?”
He sounds lost and scared, and Seonghwa wishes he’d come closer so that he could offer comfort.
“I don’t really know,” Seonghwa admits. “I’ve been here for some time. No one comes here, and I can’t leave.”
“Is it magic?”
“I don’t know,” Seonghwa repeats. “Maybe it is magic. A curse perhaps? I wish I could tell you, but I really have no idea.”
“I need to get home,” the creature almost cries, worrying his lower lip with teeth so sharp Seonghwa sees blood beading on the skin. “My family will come looking for me. You can’t keep me here!”
“I’m not,” Seonghwa insists. Swears. “I have nothing to do with this. I’m stuck here as well. I can’t leave any more than you can.”
“Why?” Now he does cry, big, thick tears dripping down his cheeks.
“I don’t know, I’m sorry. I- I just don’t know.”
Seonghwa feels like crying, too. His heart aches seeing this beautiful creature fall apart in front of him.
“I have some food. It’s not much, just some fruit, but-”
“I can find my own food,” the creature interrupts. “I eat fish. There are plenty of fish out here.”
“Okay. I’m going to go eat, then. You can come around to the other side of the island with me or stay here. It's your choice, but please don’t try to swim out again. It might drive you mad.”
Seonghwa has tried before. He wasn't actually attempting to escape. Where would he go anyway? There's no land within swimming distance. But he did swim out one day, hoping he would find some fish to eat, if he could even catch one. He only made it almost to a tall ridge in the sand before he forgot what he was doing and had to return to shore.
"Meet you on the other side," Seonghwa repeats, cocking his head toward the trees before turning and carefully finding his way back to the sandier side of the island.
The creature is there when Seonghwa emerges on the shore, as far away as he can get without forgetting where he is. He's floating there, head bobbing just above the surface. Seonghwa holds up a small melon from a patch he'd found earlier, showing it to the creature, and then he smashes it open on a large rock.
The creature flinches, but when Seonghwa takes a bite he swims a little closer.
"What is it?" he asks.
"I'm not sure," Seonghwa answers, slurping juice before it can run down his arms. "It's a little like a cantaloupe, but I've never seen a red cantaloupe. I'd say watermelon, but it doesn't taste like watermelon and the seeds are wrong."
"What's can't elope?"
Seonghwa laughs. "It's a sweet fruit. It has a soft skin, and it's usually pale orange inside. This one looks a little like it's bleeding, don't you think?"
The creature nods and dips his face under the water almost to his eyes. It looks like he's trying to hide a smile.
"You can have some if you want. There's plenty."
For a moment Seonghwa thinks he's offended the creature as he dives completely beneath the surface, but he comes back up moments later with something wiggling between his webbed fingers. He bites the head right off the fish with his razor sharp teeth, and Seonghwa can hear bones crunching as he chews.
He holds out the rest of the fish, offering it to Seonghwa, but Seonghwa just shakes his head and takes another bite of the melon. "Sushi isn't really my thing," he says, and the creature tilts his head to the side. "It's raw fish and rice," Seonghwa explains before he can ask. "It's not bad, but usually people at least remove the scales first."
"We eat them whole," the creature says. He demonstrates by shoving the rest of the fish into his mouth, only the spiny end of the tail still sticking out from his closed lips. A moment later he spits the tail back into the water and grins at Seonghwa with a mouthful of fish guts between his teeth.
"Very impressive. You can come closer. So we don't have to shout at each other."
The creature hesitates, looking behind him at the barrier between the island and the outside world. He must still be scared, but he swims closer anyway, cautiously approaching the shore and stopping when the water is too shallow for him to do more than lie on his belly with his hands propping him up in the sand, a shimmering pearly purple tail swaying in the water behind him.
"I'm Seonghwa, by the way. Might as well introduce ourselves since we're stuck here together. What's your name?"
"I am called Yeosang. My family will come searching for me. Soon."
"I'm sure they're already looking," Seonghwa says sadly. "I just don't know if they'll actually see you. This place… it's not right. Nothing comes here."
"I come here. If I can find it, so can they."
"I don't think it works that way, Yeosang. I think the island is invisible to outsiders. Or at least it is most of the time. I think we're in another dimension."
"My family will come," Yeosang insists. "They will find me and guide me home."
"I hope so," Seonghwa says, wishing he could be so sure of his own rescue.