Beyond the Dying Light

Chapter 11: A Land

They took turns.

Ben first, then Aria, then Ben again — each shift ending when the arms gave out, which was sooner each time. The booster worked in short controlled bursts that pushed the raft forward in lurches, enough to make progress but demanding to hold steady. The ocean wasn't rough but it wasn't calm either, long slow swells that the raft rode awkwardly, and every few minutes someone had to shift their weight to stop the whole thing from tipping.

Above them, the sky was extraordinary in a way neither of them had the energy to fully appreciate. No atmospheric shield meant no filter — the stars were dense and close, the kind of sky that made the universe feel immediate rather than theoretical. The spherical asteroid they'd struck before crashing was still visible, hanging in low orbit like a pale second moon, its rounded silhouette lit from behind by the star they'd barely escaped. It would have been beautiful under other circumstances.

"Ben," Aria said during one of her shifts. "What if there's no land?"

"There's land," Ben said, not opening his eyes.

"You don't know that."

"Most planets with liquid water have land."

"Most."

"Aria."

"I'm just saying—"

"There's land," he said again, more firmly, in the tone of someone who had decided this was true and was not taking further questions.

She didn't push it. The booster hummed and the raft moved forward and the stars wheeled slowly overhead.

She was mid-stroke when a groan came from behind her.

Then: "...why is everything wet."

Aria spun around. Ben sat up so fast he nearly tipped the raft.

Natan was awake — blinking, slow, propped on one elbow, looking at the ocean around him with the expression of someone whose brain was working through several problems in sequence and not enjoying the results of any of them.

"There he is," Ben said, and his voice came out rough in a way that wasn't entirely tiredness.

"Why are we—" Natan started. "Is this—" He looked up at the sky. Stopped. The asteroid hung there, massive and close, lit from behind, the stars sharp and endless behind it. He stared at it for a long moment. "...where are we?"

"New planet," Aria said. "The blue one. We crashed."

"I know we crashed. I meant—" He looked at the raft. At the ocean. At Ben's exhausted face and Aria's shaking arms. "How long have you two been—"

"Hours," Ben said pleasantly. "Your turn."

Natan opened his mouth.

"Don't," Ben said.

Natan closed his mouth, took the booster from Aria, positioned himself at the back of the raft, and got to work without another word.

About four minutes later he said: "You let me sleep this whole time?"

"You were unconscious," Aria said.

"Same thing."

"It is not the same—"

"I'm just saying I could've helped—"

"You were unconscious, Natan."

Ben had his eyes closed and his arms folded. "Both of you be quiet. I'm sleeping."

"You're not sleeping, you just don't want to take a turn," Natan said.

"Correct."

Aria reached into her bag and produced the remaining ration packs — two of them, slightly crushed. Natan stared.

"You held onto those through a crash landing into an ocean?"

"I grabbed them right before impact."

"That's—" He paused. "That's actually incredibly impressive."

"I know," she said simply.

Ben had opened one eye. "Don't eat too much. We ration it until we find land."

"Ben," Aria said.

"I'm serious."

"I know, but maybe don't say 'if we find land' with that voice."

"I said until."

"With that voice, Ben."

Natan was smiling despite everything — the exhausted, involuntary kind, the kind that happened when things were bad enough that the only other option was the opposite.

"Hey," Ben said, sitting up slightly. His earlier teasing register was back, which meant he was feeling better. "Aria cried a lot when you were out, you know. Very dramatic. Very emotional. Like a girlfriend would."

The raft rocked as both Aria and Natan turned to him simultaneously.

"Who's his girlfriend?"

"As if—"

"We are not—"

"Don't even—"

Ben's stomach chose that moment to growl with absolute perfect timing, loud enough that all three of them paused.

Then Aria handed him his share of the ration without a word.

He ate it with the expression of someone who had won something.

They drifted.

The star rose — their new planet's sun, smaller than Aurelia's, a cooler light, strange shadows — and in the daylight the ocean looked different. Less threatening. Still enormous, still featureless in every direction, but blue-green and almost clear in the shallows of the swells, and the sky above it was a color Aurelia's shields had never quite replicated.

Natan pushed. Arms burning. He'd stopped tracking time because tracking time made it worse.

Please, he thought, for no one in particular. Just land. Anywhere. Something solid.

"Look."

Aria's voice. Quiet, careful, like she didn't want to jinx it.

He looked up.

Dark against the horizon. A shape that didn't move the way water moved — solid and low and absolutely still. It grew slowly as they pushed toward it, taking on edges, then texture, then the unmistakable line of trees against sky.

An island. Real ground. Something that would hold them.

"That's land," Natan said, like saying it out loud would confirm it.

"Yes," Ben said. Something in his voice had loosened entirely.

Aria pressed both hands over her mouth for a moment. Then she picked up the booster from Natan's exhausted hands and pushed — harder than she had all night, harder than she probably should have — and the raft surged forward.

Nobody told her to slow down.

— End of Chapter 11 —