It was mid-morning of the next day, a sunny and parched air hovered over the sand. The dust from the ground formed a residue on Layla’s face, and stuck to her skin like chalk. She wore thick and leathery shoes to stop her feet from burning, they were held together by reeds that chafed her when she walked. The reeds were still living, but the knots were loose and frayed beyond repair. They were her only pair of shoes. When she replaced the reeds, the grass was already yellow and dying - but the dead reeds wouldn’t blister her skin and cut her up. Layla remembered making them months ago. She had found a three inch thick slab of cork buried in the sand, so brittle and dry it could snap. She had punched a hole in the front and sides and fastened the reeds through them. It hurt when she walked - the cork was swollen with sand and the shoe was firm and cracked. She didn’t care. A bloody foot was better from a blister than a burn, and she had never found another piece of cork on the island.

With her shoes, Layla stood in the sun by the clay walls of her home. Over the years, the outside had hardened and reddened to a rusty matte, and every now and again the thatch top had to be replaced. She remembered not ten minutes ago cleaning up breakfast and storing the leftovers along the walls. Papa taught her to wipe the plate with a dry leaf, and then stuff it and line it on the rooftop. Then she would basket the root cakes or stump bit leftovers, making sure to keep them in the shade. Only some things could be saved, though. Most would go bad under the beats of the sun. Eventually Layla figured she would go inside, and get ready for classes. But not yet. She had about an hour to go. 

As she stood against the clay, there was no movement or stirring of creatures around her. She noticed only the still death of the sun, and the trees and rocks that it killed. On most days, Layla tried to put it in the back of her head - most days instead she strained her ears for the sound of a crashing wave. And most days was today. Her home was at the back end of the village, in front were all the homes and circles of people she saw. And behind was always the coral, braced high above a dune and commanding all. Wherever she looked, it rose high and cratered the rest of the island. It was always close. So sometimes if she listened close she could hear beyond it, although she could never see. Hear the crash of the water against the other side, the sound of whatever might be there. She supposed that was why nobody was out after breakfast. The sound only came in the morning, and they seemed to not want to hear it. 

After a moment Layla went inside. It was a quick transition to the dark and muddy light of the inside, so she had to squint. There were her parents, sitting on their hammock and doing nothing at all.

“I’m going to leave for Classes soon,” Layla told them. They both got up and stretched. 

“Are you sure you want to go, dear?” her mother asked. “There are things you don’t want to see there. We can’t protect you.” Layla in response pretended to ponder the words and think for a moment. She furrowed her brow and adjusted her stance.

“Yes, I’ll go.” 

“It’s only this once, little guava,” her Papa interjected. “And then you’ll never go back again.” He walked over to Layla, and patted her on the shoulder. These were the moments that pained her. Layla wanted to go, and she had thought and wondered what would happen for a long time. But they could never know that. She could never tell them.

Once Papa went back to his hammock, Layla prepared to leave. The actions were routine, and she did them in tune to the creaks of silence. She had to change her clothes, pack her bag. Make her hammock, dust off her shoes. First she would always tidy the hammock, every time. It wouldn’t take long, she just straightened the hashes and laid the straw blanket on top. It was the only blanket in the house, and Papa gave it to her. 

Next, Layla got her bag and stuffed it with whatever she may do that day. It couldn’t be much, at least not for now. Then she changed her clothes and brushed her hair, and wandered out the door to meet the day. In the corner she still saw the old basket of leftover food and dead things along the outside that tried to get in. And she looked in front and behind her, and saw the people seem to fade out of a bad dream as they went back outside. The bag on her back was ratted and stiff, and the sky was divergent. The open air was hot and the minds of the people were cold. This was her life.

Father Kala was the oldest man in the village, his age Layla did not know. He taught the classes, with a white dress and a burnt face that covered his aging bones. In Classes Hall everyday he would wheeze as he told the stories of his mothers and fathers, and Layla would listen against the deep rasps of his voice. When she was smaller, and Kala could walk without a creak, she remembered he would race her around the Hall and whittle wood when he lost. She could recall talking to him, no older than four, and he asked her about why her eyes were green. “I wonder what all that means.” he had said. Yes, that’s what it was. But time had gone on, and Kala was old and bent so he couldn’t run any more. The island was drier, and he was cut and mean. But he would never leave. To many he was called Sand, he had always been there, and maybe always would. 

It was after Layla had entered Classes Hall that Sand had begun to speak. Before, the children had run around outside and through the building, kicking up soot as Kala rested underneath the shade. He did not speak much, or move often anymore, but when the last of his students had arrived he had sprung from his seat. Like a harmony, all had returned to the Hall and sat at his front as he spoke in a voice that was quiet and steady. What would they do that day? He would ask, and throw up his arms and point a finger at one of Layla’s friends. String weeds, or cut clothes or shoes, they would say. Skin trees and skip rocks. They would file out and lank in the shade while the day whittled away, and Sand would sleep all the while. But today though, none of that happened. Today nobody said anything at all, because today they were going to the coral wall.

“Follow my footprints, now. Stand where I stand,” Kala said to the group of children. There were six of them, in a village of around thirty. They were clustered in a loose line behind him, with Layla in the back and her friend Pacico just in front. The village was behind them now, and in front were the bruised spires of the coral wall, motionless like a frightened man in the dark. The ground sloped steeply upwards where they stood, with thin weeds and chaparral covering the ground in heaps. Those in front of Layla never stopped moving their tense bodies, constantly looking to see if something was there. Nothing was. Layla knew that.

  “The coral has been here for many generations, protecting us,” Sand said, as they reached the wall. He ran a finger across the rough, dead grooves of its surface. The structure was a mystery. The inner layer was rock, very smooth and endlessly dense. Then the coral rose out of the rock, sometimes crystallizing into the stone and other times extending upward and reaching the sky. The coral would be the outer layer as well, forming little delves and caves that Layla could get lost in. Nobody knew how any of it got there. It was surreal, she thought.

 “It protects us from the blue that is beyond it,” Kala continued. “This wall was alive once, children, and the water killed it.” The six of them let out a silent shutter, and recoiled back from the coral. Sand remained where he was, but removed his hand from the wall’s surface. Slowly turning around, he shuffled to the low branches of some tree. Its trunk was bent and distracted by the wall’s capillaries, the leaves had grown to touch its deep purple brine. Kala lay a hand on it and frowned, and then grimaced as he looked back to where he had come. Papa always said to look back at the village if she was scared, Layla thought. Remember her hammock, and things like that. Who knows what would happen if she stared, and forgot to forget. She could end up out here, in the open, alone with some tree on a wall. So the six children’s feet faced away from their teacher, and their faces were low and barely looking at the coral. Layla must have forgotten to do that though, because she didn’t seem to be scared.

“Now,” Sand said, “Why are we here?” He got no response, and that seemed to be enough. How was that tree there? Layla thought, still staring. How did it live? 

Snap. Layla fell to the sand. Kala rested an arm against the angle in the tree, and slid to the ground. The children followed, and lay in the thin shade, all of them still frightened. Layla knew nobody else heard the wall. It wasn’t real. But it still spoke to her, in imaginary calls and whispers. Not only here, but this was where it was strongest. It wasn’t real. She kept telling herself that. She knew it. It was a not-voice, something else in her head. But it remained, and it always came back again. 

Kala was wise, the children thought. If he didn’t speak, then they would not either. Layla looked at him, saw the ways of his eyes as he beared himself not to look at the coral. The eyes were dry, and dark and hollow. Layla thought if somewhere he ever wondered about things, or if it was just blank inside. Did Kala dream? Or Papa, or her friends? Maybe. She could never really know, though. They all thought she didn’t. She knew that. That she couldn’t, and she was just the same making toys out of hermit shells and scraping dirt from the bottom of her shoes. It was probably best that way.

Some time passed, with talking and whispering and all of the sort. When Layla’s legs began to get tired and the heat radiated up from her shoes, she knew she had been there too long. She would glance around every now and again, and make sure everyone was still there. The children slowly had been walking backwards, away and downhill back to where they had come, but Layla just stayed where she was, her head at an angle as she wondered about all sorts of things the wall could do. What would happen if she went to it, just once, in front of everyone? What would they do? They had never seen something like that before. Sand had touched it, just for a second, and the group had gone quiet and flat. So what would they do, if she went up and laid her body against it? She would never know, because she would never do it. She couldn’t, or they might find out.

“Father Kala,” Layla said abruptly. There had been a draw in conversation, and she had snapped back to attention. 

“Yes, Layla?” Sand looked at her.

“I have a question.”

“Ask away, little one,” his voice was deep and quiet, a storyteller’s voice. 

“What was it like to touch the wall?” She said it casually. He had just done it, after all. And the oldest man in the village had to know, he had done it many times before. Kala paused for a while, and did not speak. The other children were deathly quiet.

“We do not talk about those things,” he responded slowly. “They only will upset us. Corrupt us.” He turned away from his student.

“I want to know,” Layla said, “Because it looks like it hurt you to it.” Kala turned back around, and his face softened to his student’s voice.

“Not in body,” he responded. “But in here.” He pointed to his head with a shaky finger. “Now no more questions about that.” Layla nodded.

For a few more minutes then, Sand continued to talk. It seemed though that after a little while more, his voice had had enough, so he stopped and the small group began to prepare to leave. As they gathered themselves, Layla remained where she was, still in her own head. She saw the wall where it was, how it was, lost in herself. What if she went to it, touched it? Just this once. 

As the others began to leave the wall, Layla trailed them for a moment before breaking off from the group. They didn’t seem to notice her, and the filed line got smaller as they parted back to the village. It was only then that Layla walked the way back, and stood in front of the tree. As she’d been there, the shade of the branches had moved from the sand to the base of the wall, making wispy, dark etches at the edges of the basalt. She was alone, now. She could touch it, now. Just this once. 

The fine details of the wall became more and more visible when she got closer, now within an arm's reach. She had to avoid bumps and thin tendrils of black rock to reach the main body, and see the little holes and delves that existed within it. She reached an arm out, placed her finger just a hair away. It would be hard and calloused if she touched it. She didn’t know what would happen - but she slowly pressed her hand to it anyway. Just as she thought, the surface was dry and coarse. 

Even as she ran her finger, then her hand, and then her arm across the wall, she felt a desire for more. She thought of a dream she had, where a misty and wet wash had collided over a rock, making all sorts of noises and feelings she had never really heard before. Maybe, away on the other side that was there. And she wanted it, so very badly. But she had to crave it secretly, even a secret to herself, because she was ashamed. A little bit of a whirl, of pure wonder overtook her when she laid herself against the coral, but she quickly suppressed it. 

Layla for a time went to each and every rock and spire she could, to and from to see what it all was. What a place this was, she thought to herself. Eventually the tree shade was gone and replaced with a flat light, all while Layla jittered around in a quiet glee, just exploring and prodding all around her. Never once though did she laugh, or break above a silent walk as she went around though. Because nobody could know. Nobody ever at all.

Layla talked to Pacico often. He was a year older than her, and short and childish, liking to play with shells, and throw them around and act things out with them. Things like that. Whenever she saw him, he would always have a conk in one fist while he gazed around at things he didn’t understand yet - one was Layla. But that didn’t matter. None of the other children liked to speak to her. Layla sometimes thought how lonely they must be - to go home in a dim light to a quiet house, after classes when everybody left. Pacico wasn’t like that, though. He would talk to her, not often but just enough, and sometimes even laugh or tell a joke. Apparently they had met when one day he stole a rock from her - but that’s just what Kala said. She didn’t really remember. She did remember him today, though, shaking and stirring at the coral wall. He had left, with the rest of them, and Layla had stayed. She found it sad, how she couldn’t tell anybody, and she couldn’t let any of it out, either, so she decided not to. Just one little piece. She would just tell Pacico one little piece. 

It was not long after Layla left the wall that she went in search of her friend. He usually would belong to the tree line outside Classes Hall, or inside the building if it was too hot. So Layla went there, taking the long way home and then back to the middle of the village. Sure enough, Pacico was there, with a reed in his mouth and a back in the sand. He was alone - everybody else had already gone home.

“Pacico!” Layla exclaimed, and approached him. Wind stroked her hair and the darkened sun beat her eyes. 

“Sun won’t catcha, if you sit down,” he said with a squint.

“You're just dirty.”

“No - stop!”

“It’s true Pacico - there’s worms in the sand. They’ll climb up in you, stuff like that.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“They especially like the shade, too,” Layla teased, and Pacico leapt up from the ground and patted down his pants. 

“You're just terrible, Layla,” he said. “But I gotta be safe.”

“You don’t have to just stand here,” she replied. “Let’s walk the trees. You might find something.” So the two of them left the shade near Classes Hall and went on there way elsewhere. As they treaded along, their bodies phased between shade and a dying sunlight. Hardly a word was spoken.

Eventually the two came to a thick stump that was the end of some old tree. They were somewhere on the west end of the village, not in sight of any homes. Layla sighed and sat down. 

“What did you think of the wall today, Pacico?” she asked her friend. He turned around and kicked a dirty knot at the end of the tree stump. 

“Oh, well I don’t know,” he replied. “Stopped thinking about it.”

“Don’t lie, I saw you get scared over there.”

“No!”

Layla paused. “Pacico just tell me. You don’t have me to impress.” He scowled at her. 

“I haven’t been thinking of it. But the grass and the dunes were nice, I suppose.” Layla was surprised at him, and at herself. He did enjoy it, then. Just a little. So maybe she could say a little further. 

“They’re tall,” she continued. “I bet there’s all sorts of things inside them.”

“Y’know I think I saw some bird thing, or sum, over there,” he responded. “Eating some slimy thing. I didn’t know what it was.”

“A shell?”

“No. Birds don’t eat shells. And they’re not slimy.”

“Well then what was it?”

“I don’t know, Layla,” he joked. “I couldn’t bear to look for too long.” He acted out with his hands a bird flying, and then swooping down before becoming just a mess of fingers.

“We should go back, and find out,” she responded. Her fists clenched in anticipation. 

“We can’t do that, Layla.”

“Why not?”

“You know why.” His words cut through the air, and took any joy along with them. The two lulled and braked so the rustling of the trees could be heard above.

“I don’t think so,” Layla said. “What did you think of the wall? We should go back Pacico, really.” She looked away, off somewhere past the village. There was the wall, high and lonesome, perched on top the land.

“What thoughts are you thinkin?” he said. “Dunes are one thing, but the rest is something else.”

“There’s something there,” Layla continued. “There’s gotta be, besides those dunes.” In a flash, Pacico whipped his face to Layla, and his eyes were wide and filled with alarm. 

“No. It’s not like that,” he responded. “Layla you can’t be tellin the truth.”

“I am.”

“Well then don’t any more.” When Layla talked about the wall, no emotion would swell up in Pacico. He would only fall quiet. That’s what everybody did. 

“Well … my Papa says we have to go back,” Layla lied. “And we’ve gotta go right up to it too so it doesn’t come after us later.”

“Right up?” 

“Yeah - maybe even inside too.”

“Inside! My Papa’s never said that.” 

“Well mine did. And now we’ve gotta go.” Her voice quaked when she said it, and behind her back she kneaded together her hands. She could not do that. She lied, how could she do that? All for what? She supposed she had gone too far, already. Pacico knew her secret now - he had to. So to stop him Layla had to make it seem as if they had no choice to go - to lie and make up for herself. 

“I’m still not sure we should,” Pacico responded. “But the wall can’t come after me, right Layla?”

“I heard it might.” Layla said. “Why you think we go to it with Sand in the first place?”

“Well I don’t know. Shouldn’t that be enough though?” He shifted his weight and sent half an eye over to the wall.

“If you think. But I don’t - besides my Papa thinks we have to.” 

“I’m scared, Layla.”

“What are you talkin about?” Layla told him. “I am too, Pacico, but we gotta go. You even said you liked the dunes and the grass near it. Those kinda things, this isn’t different.” There was a pause for a moment between the two.

“I’ve been up near the dunes before,” he said. “So I guess your right. It was an accident at first, I was just walkin around. But I kinda liked it, so I went back a few times, just lookin at the village and the sand.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I guess. But I never went to the wall. And never on purpose. You’ve gotta believe me on that, Layla.”

“I do, Pacico. Don’t worry, anyway. I wouldn’t tell anybody.”

“That’s good.” He ran a hand through his hair, and Layla thought about all the things she had said, and why she shouldn’t have. But it was too late for that.

“Layla, have you ever gone up to it?” Pacico asked. “Besides with Sand.”

Layla thought for a moment before answering. “No, I’ve never gone up.”

“So you're just as scared as me, then,” he responded. “When do we have to go up?”

“Tonight,” Layla responded shortly. “And don’t tell anybody.”

A while later, the sun was orange and wide in the sky, and Layla’s family was finishing dinner. Their meal was served facing the horizon, but the serenity was not shared in the food. Today it was crab, with more guava. It tasted bland and bad, Layla thought, and she had to eat it with her hands. They would become greasy and crusted with sand when she ate with them, and spread to her clothes and face to make her itchy. The next day she already knew she would have to wash out her hammock. The oils of the crab’s pasty shell made her sick, and the meat was stringy and tasteless. But she had no choice. Guava was better. Much better. 

Where the crabs came from was a mystery, she thought, as she drily swallowed a bite. Baskets of them were delivered around once a month, by Pacico’s father. Maleko was his name, the man with the blonde-haired boy. The baskets were never full, and the things inside were never bigger than a fist. Layla’s fist, that was - she was sure Maleko’s could crush any crab with skin to spare. He scared Layla, she was glad he lived on the other side of the village. She felt bad for Pacico, though. He told her that Maleko’s hard, dark gaze would only leave his face when he broke off the claws of his catches, and that his father never looked in his eyes but instead at his hair. He had stopped by with a basket earlier today, Layla remembered his conversation with Ahne.

“Basket today, ‘fifth full,” Maleko had said. Only half of his lips moved when he talked. 

“Have enough to spare, there?” Ahne had responded jokingly. He had rested one hand on the basket, and smiled. Kala called him the people pleaser, a communicator. No man to live here, apparently. The ice in Maleko’s eyes didn’t move, and he dropped the basket and stood quiet for a moment.

“No,” was all he had said, before disappearing behind the palms, away to his home on the fringe of the village. Ahne had sighed, and carried the basket inside for the crabs to be rubbed and washed, prepared to be eaten. Maleko had stuffed his words into the basket as well, into a hole deep at the bottom. Layla’s family would shake them out and use them over dinner, she didn’t think anybody would mind. 

Ahne was wiping his clay plate clean when he approached his daughter. His clothes were sandy from sitting on the ground, the tempered straw shorts dappled with little flecks. She noticed he was humming some song, and when his seaweed eyes looked at her, he smiled, and hummed even louder. He went inside, and Layla followed. From what she saw, all of the crabs were gone now, what was left was grubby bits of claw peppered inside the basket. Maleko would be back the next day to pick it up. Until then, it was stuffed in the corner of the room, Layla saw it from the corner of her eye when she sat down on her hammock. She had stayed there most of the day, alone and avoiding her family, her father. She wondered if they knew what she had done at the wall.

“Layla, dear,” Ahne said. He stopped humming and looked at her.

“Yes?” 

“I need to talk to you about something.” There was a groan of a hammock as he sat down. 

“What?” Layla curled her legs, and took a shallow breath. She almost sensed herself slip away, to her not-voice, but she stopped herself. 

“Well,” he began, “I don’t think you ate all your crab.” A second passed, and then he laughed and shook Layla’s shoulder. She breathed a deep breath again.

“I don’t like that stuff,” she responded. “It looks too much like Pacico’s dad.” They both grinned. There was relief in the air, bouncing in and around the space between the two of them. She was safe here, comfortable. Papa knew her, he would protect her. Why would she ever leave that? The not-voice knew nothing. What she wanted was not right, she told herself. This is good. This is good.

 “Maleko is a hard man to read,” Ahne said. “He’s got big claws.”

“Then you got pinched today.” 

“So my little guava talks like his father now!” Layla’s father winked. “I might have gotten pinched today.”

“You talk to him everytime he comes,” Layla said. “I think it’s funny.”

“Sometimes you have to pry open the claws before you eat the crab,” Ahne responded. “But you wouldn’t know about that, you don’t eat any at all.”

“Pacico says he doesn’t even talk at home.” Layla lowered her eyes, and Ahne removed his hand from Layla’s shoulder.

“If he doesn’t then,” he said, “Then it's only his to lose. If that’s the way he is everywhere.”

“I think you already knew that, Papa.” Layla watched as he turned his head to hide his crow’s feet.

“Maybe. But that doesn’t matter.” When Ahne placed his hand on Layla’s hammock, a gust of wind took its chance to blow across their door.

“I think everyone is like him here,” Layla contined. “Or at least a lot of them. Sand is. And Mama too.” The two of them were quiet then for a moment. Layla’s mother was probably somewhere outside, knitting reeds or tending to the sand paths. She wasn’t really ever home. And when she was, she wasn’t.

“Layla,” Ahne said, with a voice that had quickly become calm and round. “Let me tell you a story. Something that happened when I was small. Maybe your age.” Layla nodded in response. 

“I try to talk, little guava, and be happy. For you. Don’t be so sure that everyone is like me, though.”

“That’s not a story.”

“Well, I know,” he continued. “But listen now, or I’ll pinch you.” He pushed his thumb and index finger together, and gave Layla a light squeeze on the arm. 

“I don’t think they like me for how I talk, too much maybe. Sand says I’m a communicator, but I’ve seen his dress for many years. He’s been around for a long time, you know. And maybe the sand doesn’t care for me either. I know Maleko doesn’t.”

“But you have to understand, my little guava, they live for their reasons, and their reasons are ours. The sand is quiet, Layla, and maybe bland and dry, but it is us.” Layla nodded. It was like he was talking to himself, about something that sounded so real in his head, but so ridiculous when it was spoken.

“When I was young, Kala took us to the wall. Just like you,” Ahne continued. “And I was scared, because it was my first time. My only time. I know you felt the same today.” He paused before speaking again. “And when I was there, there were four of us, two others with Maleko and me.” 

“I’ve heard this, Papa,” Layla interrupted. “You’ve told me all your stories.”

“Then, little guava, you know why we never went back.” Ahne stopped then, and a heavy aftertaste of his words came to Layla’s ears. His voice had lost its melodical drift it usually had, the tone came to her like a damp heat. Just like that, the feeling was gone, but Layla couldn’t help but see Ahne’s face melt into the quiet sand and become Maleko. He talked like he was different, but the words he spoke were the same to someone like Layla. Someone really different. She thought she understood her father, how he walked the line but never stepped off - how he may have tried to relate to Layla who knew a little too much of what she shouldn’t understand. But now she wasn’t so sure. She realized Ahne knew there was something off about her, something in his daughter’s head that wasn’t in anybody else's. But he didn’t know what, and Layla wanted to keep it that way. Maybe Ahne saw her twist and churn in her hammock at night, reaching her hands at an ocean in her dreams. Or he noticed when he mentioned the wall, her eyes would become glazed and silent. He wanted to know Layla, completely, and he masked it with his own attempt of difference. He would never know. He couldn’t. Layla loved her father more than everyone, but he was the same as the rest. She was the one who was alone on this island. 

“Papa?” Layla said abruptly. Only a few seconds had passed, but it had felt like days in her head.

“Yes, my little guava?” 

“Before it gets dark, Pacico and I want to go shell hunting. I was going to ask you earlier, before we talked.” It was a sudden change in conversation, and seemed to lighten the air. 

“You don’t want to hear the rest of the story?”

“I told you, I’ve heard it already.” She smiled.

“Alright. But your mother doesn’t like it when you go out at sunset, you know,” Layla’s father replied. 

“Please, Papa, please! I know my way around the island, and it’s still light.”

Ahne turned his head, and looked at the sun. It consumed the horizon, and met the earth in purples, reds, and yellows.

“You can go,” he then replied. “But I want you back by the time the sun is gone.” Layla smiled at her father, and he smiled back. A moment passed between them, and Layla left in a hurry so as to let out her worry and guilt.

It took Layla just over ten minutes to reach the wall. She was on the eastern side of the island, now the light was flatter and piercing shadows of dead trees or rocks cascaded through the air. She took a different route than she had during classes - farther, but circling outside the village so it would be harder to be seen. When she walked, she always took the widest turn at the end, farthest away from Classes Hall and Maleko’s house. The route was more scenic, anyway. As she walked, there was a glow of the earth and sky that only appeared at dusk - through it Layla could see the figure of Pacico as she approached the coral. He was holding something, and when Layla got closer she noticed he was scraping the sand off of some conch shell. He always did those sorts of things. When the sound of Layla’s footsteps got closer, he lifted his gaze towards his friend. He had brown eyes, like everybody else, but he was different in his light colored hair, and similarly white skin. A mutation, probably. He wasn’t albino - Layla was mostly sure - and the village said he just hadn’t been shaded by the sun at birth. He was different, like her. Layla admired people who were different.

“I found this on the way here… but it was so buried in the sand and dirty that I had to take it with me.” Pacico pointed to the conch shell, it was nearly clean now.

“The wall isn’t very far ahead,” Layla responded. “We’ve gotta get there before it’s dark.”

“Who says that?”

“Me, Pacico. It’ll be too dark in there soon, probably. Plus my Papa said I have to be home by dark.”

“Your Papa’s always tellin me what to do now,” he raised his arms. “Now cause of him I dropped my shell!” Next he bent down to pick up the conch.

“You said you didn’t like coming here, anyway. Whats it matter?”

“I told you I like the dunes. Not the wall.” He stared at her.

“It doesn’t matter Pacico. Besides, it’s getting cold anyway.” With that Layla looked to the crack in the coral wall she stood in front of. It started on the outside as a thin opening in the coral - barely a few feet high. Once they climbed inside, however, it expanded and bubbled up, as a little pocket of air amongst the rock. It would be dark when she went in. Papa would have been suspicious if she had lit a candle before she left, though. And she wasn’t sure whether the wall would like a flame.

“Whose gonna go first?” Layla asked. It should probably be her, she thought. But there were so many things that could happen, so much she didn’t want to be known. So of course she wanted it to be Pacico.

“I don’t know. This was your idea.”

“Well your bigger, Pacico. And stronger. In case there’s somethin in there, it should be you.”

“Doesn’t matter if I’m bigger than you!” Pacico cried. “I’m still not big at all!”

“Well what could be in there, anyway? There’s no monsters.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Oh c’mon. Just look through the crack.” Layla told her friend. Pacico knelt down and placed his head on the ground, trying to look inside. After a moment he huffed and stood up.

“Fine. Maybe there’s not,” he said. “But I think we should flip the shell for who goes in first.” He displayed the conch to Layla, it was relatively round, but one side had a deep scrape that ran it up and down.

“I want the scraped side,” she said, and pointed to the side facing her. Without saying a word, Pacico threw the shell up. It landed with a dull thud in the sand, and when Layla looked down she saw the scrape looking right back. 

“I guess it’s me, then.” Pacico said. Layla gave the slightest of a smile as he laid down again and began to push himself through the opening in the cave. It was probably about two feet tall, easily crawled through but hard to see. Even if she had been on her knees, she might not have seen it, especially with the evening air pushing at the dark walls of coral. 

“Do you think it will be too dark in there?” Layla asked Pacico.

“Probably. But it doesn’t matter.” he said matter-of-factly. His voice was muffled, and sounded almost as if it was far away. A few moments later, his feet disappeared inside the depths of the dead coral, and Layla could faintly hear him stand up on the other side. 

As she knelt down, Layla examined the grooves in the sand before crawling into the coral herself. There was no life in them, and they were dry and sifted through her fingertips. She massaged her hand against the ground, and some of the grains shone and stuck to the oils of her palms. When she knelt her head and began to climb through the wall, little whirls and prints formed where she breathed, slowly fading away as she entered the cave. There was Pacico, standing as little more than a silhouette. His light hair could still be noticed, as could the expressions on his face. As Layla’s feet slipped through the entrance, she stood up, with the rim of the cave only a few inches from the top of her head. It was peaceful in here, she thought. Once they were both inside, the two of them quietly admired the eerie serenity.

“Pacico?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you ever wonder what’s on the other side of the coral? What’s really there?” After she spoke, a tense stillness settled in the air. Layla quickly regretted saying anything. How could she have revealed herself so obviously? She threw her eyes to the cave’s ceiling in worry, the stalagtites gave her a smug look. 

“You asked me that earlier!”

“Well, I’m doin it again,” Layla responded.

“I don’t want to talk about that. I don’t know why you would wanna either.”

“Cmon. It can’t be that bad. It’s only you and me. Nobody else has to find out.” Layla supposed now that she had said something, she had to act on it. Or at least convince Pacico she was comfortable, comfortable to even think about the ocean, so that he didn’t upend her.

“No. You know what they say, Layla. You can’t think about those things. I -”

“Pacico!” Layla said, in a loud whisper that resonated through the dark. “Come on. We have to talk about something here. And I thought you didn’t like people telling you what to do.”

“Fine.” he responded shortly.

“So?”

“So what?”

“Do you ever wonder what is there? It’s the same question, don’t pretend like I didn’t say it.” Pacico rolled his eyes in response, and lowered his head to his knees for a moment before answering.

“Sometimes. I don’t want to, though.”

“Why?”

“It scares me.” Pacico sat back down, and moved a little closer to the entrance. 

“Well Pacico - it’s only water,” Layla said.

“That’s what you think,” he responded. “And besides, it’s not like the water we drink. My Mama says it's black, and oozy. And poisonous.”

“Maybe - I don’t know. I think about it sometimes, too.”

“Then think about other things.”

“I can’t. It’s like if you couldn’t ever pick up any shells.”

“Well I don’t think I could live without shells,” Pacico said, “but at least I’m not thinking about the ocean.”

“I dream about it, you know. It can’t be all that bad.”

“Those are nightmares, not real dreams. I have nightmares too, sometimes. Just not about that.”

“They’re not nightmares, Pacico!” Layla cried. Her voice carried with the walls of the cave. “I don’t remember my nightmares - but I remember my dreams. And I dream about the ocean.”

“Layla,” Pacico teased, almost laughing. “I know you don’t do that. Not really. You can’t.”

“And what if I do? I could be making it all up,” Layla said. She wanted to keep her form, but panic began to permeate through her. “Or even worse, I could be telling the truth.”

“Well hope you're not. It’s bad, Layla. It’s all bad. You don’t dream about things like that.” Pacico sighed. They were the same age, Layla thought, but he was too young to understand.

“Just don’t tell anyone,” she said. He nodded in response. It was quiet then, the only noises were the careful scrapes of Pacico’s fingers as he cleaned his shell. They hadn’t been inside the cave for long, but Layla knew the vibrant oranges of the sky were already turning to deeper blues and purples. The cave was getting darker as well, the thin shades of light from the outside were beginning to fade into the earth - it was about time to go home.

“I think we should head back now,” Layla said to Pacico.

“Me too,” he responded shortly. The dynamic of their conversation had stopped at the wall, in word and in setting. Pacico did not touch the coral, or any of the barnacled rock crinkled around him; his feet stood in the sand like a statue. The shell was hanging limply between two of his fingers, and his hair seemed to stand arwy from the awkward static between the two of them. Yes, it was time to go. 

Pacico crawled to the entrance of the cave and began to push his way out. Layla had to move to the opposite wall to make room, and as she slowly maneuvered along the rocky surface, she noticed something. A strange sensation went through the soles of her bare feet - the sand she was standing in was wet. It wasn’t very noticeable, perhaps only a few inches from the edge of the wall, but her heart skipped a beat. She wiggled her feet - the sand was firm, and cold. It did not kick up dust or crunch underneath her feet, though. It was different. She did not say anything; Pacico was almost out of the cave. How could the sand be wet? It had never been like that before. The drinking water they had on the island was carefully conserved - none was to ever drop onto the ground. It was foreign to her. She would think about it later, when her head was clear.

A few moments later, Layla had crawled out from the cave, and left the coral wall. She and Pacico lived far from each other, so they had parted ways as soon as they saw the sky. His blonde hair had been matted and clumped with sand when she last saw him; she knew her’s was too. It was a strange sight when she ran her hand through her scalp; hundreds of small grains shook away, and then dove for the ground like they couldn’t wait to rejoin the earth. The dry earth, but for one piece inside some part of a coral-cave. 

Layla knew that the wall was close to the edge of it all, though she never found the ways of what worked beyond it. No, there was something there, something she had never known. Something that scratched at her brain, filled her with what might be and be there. She would daydream of it, and laugh at herself. What did it matter? She would never tell. She couldn’t -  it was her secret. There was a small part of her that always wished she could call out and say to Pacico ‘The sand is wet, there is something close, the ocean is close.’ It couldn’t be that way, though. When she looked back to the wall, it was a bloated mass. Rotten. Uncomfortable. How could she want something so ugly? To touch such a sin? To shiver in its walls, and feel the deep dark alone that she had become? Layla spit on the ground and went home. Maybe she was already alone.

That night Layla went home quiet, and when she slept, she did not dream. She had arrived back slightly after dusk, but her father had not said anything. Usually there wasn’t much talking after dark, only sleeping. In the middle of the night, there were storms. Or a storm - Layla could not tell which when the sighs of the wind awoke her. Grasping torrents of air they were, singing when they blew, singing about how they wanted to come inside, away from the rain. Nobody was afraid of the rain, except maybe the wind. It was sky water, not earth water, and it came only as a gift to their needs - whether to drink or to aid in the solemn quiet of the night. In those times, the pitters and deluges of rain would drive the villagers to sleep. Tonight was no different, and in the sequence of the storm Layla soon fell back to bed.

The next morning, when the clouds parted, a pale sunshine was the dawn. When Layla stepped to the cold ground as she always did, she gazed outside and nothing had changed, as it never did. Her uniform surroundings had only changed from the humidity in the air, and a thin blanket of morning mist around her. Nobody this morning was outside their homes, doing things like smoking guavas or stoking breakfast fires - their furnaces ran wet and the village stayed inside. There would be no classes. Instead the day would be spent collecting rainwater and tilling the sand paths of the island - wet days were work days, there was no time to learn. Water would be lowered from gutters on roofs, divied up into beakers and stored in whatever place. The houses would be checked, and the walls reapplied with sap or silt. A storm was a dangerous thing, and steps needed to be taken. But not by Layla. She would have to find something else to do.

Inside, Layla’s parents dangled their feet over their hammock bed, humming some tune together that almost matched the groans of the grass knots that were tied to the wall. Layla lay in her own hammock, and watched the ceiling as she thought about lots of little, unimportant things. She would play a game with herself, sometimes, in her mind, where she imagined her thoughts could fly around the room, but could not leave. The only way to escape was to imagine the closest, most intricate detail she could, and stare at it until her mind couldn’t bear it anymore. After a while, the thing she stared at would become so distorted and unfamiliar she could not recognize it, and would look away. Then it would all start over, back at the start. 

As the day rolled on, Layla stared at the ceiling and did nothing at all. Time moved differently when she did that. Sometimes it would swing by and only wave, other times it wanted to talk. It didn’t matter. When she stirred in her hammock, and heard the people outside talking, she only noticed the little things that made her sleepy. She saw the dim ruts on the ceiling, the hair over her eyes. She saw the sand. And when she dreamed, she saw the faces of the clocks peeled away and stuffed into time’s back pocket - they were thin and blank and unused. She knew as she lay there her parents had up and gone to work, off to fill their hours with whatever they could. Then the plants and the crabs did the same, and the sun watched them all as he travelled across the sky. When eventually Layla stood up and stretched, the room was dark and the day was over. 

Soon after, Layla had finished dinner. While cleaning her plate, there was a pattering of footsteps along the outside of her home, met with the dusty clap of a hand against the wall. A rough hand, used to alert its presence. Ahne got up from his seat, and drew the straw mat back to the cold face of Maleko. Back to collect the crab basket, probably. Layla’s body quickly shifted to the corner of her hammock, her knees pressed together and her shoulders became stiff. Maleko would not talk to her. He wouldn’t even talk to Ahne. But there was something different in his face this time, a hideous sneer that sat just underneath the skin, one that knew something nobody else did. It was hidden to Ahne as he greeted Maleko, but to Layla there was a piping flare that shone through his eyes. 

“Maleko!” Ahne said, with a hand against the wall. “Here for the basket?” There was a slight nod in response. When Papa stepped back to reach for the basket, Layla saw the full body of Pacico’s father in the doorway. She immediately looked past him, putting her eyes on the sight of the trees. They were straight and tall, soaking up the darkness of the onsetting night. All the sand, all the dusty guts of the earth that were spit up and sprouted from the ground. While they stood there, they were still and silent like her. What Maleko wanted, as he stood in the doorway, was to spur some movement in her, make her want to jump and run away. But Layla could only stand there. When she looked back at him, his gaze was fixed, and the sneer was showing in complete. What did he know? Or what did Layla do? She hoped Pacico hadn’t told him anything, but the fiery glare of pure, unintended knowledge said something else. He scared Layla.

It was only a few seconds later that Papa had retrieved the basket; it was stubby, greasy, and empty. Maleko did not accept it, however, instead he backpedaled out the doorway with a hand stretched halfway out. Ahne followed, and soon the two were obscured from Layla’s view. Her heart beat faster, and the doorway seemed empty, like the unfilled setting that two opposing men were supposed to fill. 

She heard the two begin to quietly talk outside, mumbling and exchanging phrases that felt uneven and muted. Layla did not hear any words, but the tone of their voices told her something was up. A moment passed before Papa returned inside, Maleko had left.

Ahne sat down and said nothing, which was odd to Layla. His torso was rigid and his body told a story of what Maleko had told him. But nothing was said. After a while, Layla’s mother left in a hurry, leaving Ahne and Layla alone to split the tenseness of the room.

“Papa,” Layla said abruptly.

“Yes, dear?” Ahne said the words quickly and passively, like he didn’t want to speak.

“What did Maleko want?” She readjusted her body to face him, relaxed her tensed shoulders. 

“We were talking. That’s all.”

“Well,” Layla pushed. “Maleko doesn’t talk. So it had to have been important.”

“No, my little guava,” Papa responded. “Just talk about crabs.” With that, he turned his head away and looked to the door, the outside covered by the straw mat. Something was different about him now, Layla thought, that wasn’t there before. That’s never there at all. A tenseness, an aversion. To what? To her? When Ahne looked back, she saw it. Just for a second, his eyes bled, with menace and raw, pent away fire. Like Maleko had spread the flame to him through word, and lit Ahne’s soul with whatever he had said. It was soon gone, but Layla’s stomach dropped and her insides churned with what she had seen. Maleko did know something, a secret. And it had infected Layla’s father. Whatever it was, it had to be strong, and that led her to believe it was about her. Because for nobody else would Ahne lose himself. If those were the words, she knew he would never let them go. He could put on a face, or not believe it, but somewhere in him would always be the senseless sneer Maleko had. What could the words be? What did only Pacico know? Because he was the only one who really knew her.

“Okay,” Layla coughed with a chalky mouth. Nothing else was said. Ahne eventually left, maybe to find Layla’s mother. She lay in her hammock with a headache that came from doing nothing, and a wave of unease slowly seeped up into her. Her not-voice was coming. What have I done? She asked herself. One part of her did not know. The other refused to say that it was the coral wall. The only thing that Pacico could tell, the only thing Ahne would hate. She told herself they would never find out about that. They could never find out. So instead she searched for something else she could have done, or something else that could have happened. Nothing came. Layla was the only thing that moved, the only thing that would be bold enough to do something her father was willing to destroy. The words had to be about her, and it had to be that. Even if there were a thousand other explanations, the not-voice knew that she was the bad. In a hurry, she stood up, silence in the air and chaos in her head, to go to the coral wall.

When Layla arrived at the coral wall, to the same spot as the day before, something was different. She had walked slow around to it, careful as to not be seen by wandering eyes in the night. Where she and Pacico visited should have been thin and concealed inside layers of material - but when she appeared from afar, she saw the entrance to be gnarled and widened out, as if something had washed it away. What before was a smooth, low opening had become an uneven spiral of rock that looked rough enough to make her bleed. She would still climb inside, though she suspected it to be different as well. The thought came strangely to her. Different. It was a blessing at this moment, she would realize, as it took her mind off her thoughts. This was something worth investigating. 

She approached the opening in the wall with a new uncertainty. She gently touched the sand with her toes before walking, and she walked slowly, examining. Whereas before she would have had to lay down and crawl into the cave, now she barely dipped her head as she entered. The space inside was much lighter than the night before, and Layla saw with a clear eye the cracked and broken fragments of coral that lay at the cavern’s base, and the collapsing sections of the wall. There was a shallow glimmer at the floor as well, at least an inch of standing water had leaked from somewhere - Layla knew not from where. With a weary foot, she stepped in. Her foot did not melt, or rot her skin as Pacico had said; Layla’s heart pounded and her mind raced as nothing happened, nothing at all. The water was warm and murky, and it slowly grew deeper as she progressed on.

Now with the water level mid-way up her shins, Layla stopped at the dimly lit hind wall of the cave. It had a deep, harrowing crack that ran from the floor to the ceiling, and then spidered inward deeper inside. Layla touched a hand to it, and the small, dead pores were wet, but not alive. It was like a rock that was filled with air, light and brittle. The crack in the wall ran deep, it had to. To the left of the crack was a rough angle in the wall, cutting inward, thinning the surface. Lying stagnant on the floor in front were broken and mashed bits of material, sharp and blackened. When Layla pressed her hand there, the wall eased and bent with her pressure, there were several small pops from within. The wall was weak here, she could overcome it. Perhaps the storm had washed or broken some of it away. Or maybe the wall had been this weak forever, and the only constraints it held were bound to the mind. It did not matter. It was weak now. Now. Time for something to be done. Layla pressed harder, and harder against the wall, projecting everything she had onto all she could. There were more pops, and then the dissolution of rock and compounded dirt against its grade. The sound was like the popping of a fuse. She was not thinking now, only using her small body to carry out a reflex of curiosity. Slowly, the wall began to fold into itself, and Layla’s feet sunk into the mushy sand-ground as she fell forward. A sudden burst of moonlight and wind and salty, cold air overtook her senses. She pivoted her shoulder and landed hard on the coral, which was now lying on a foreign ground. The shoulder stung, and she rolled on her back and opened her eyes, releasing her face from a wince. There above her was a dark blue sky, and not a ceiling of coral. Layla quickly turned around, and saw full force the sight of the sea, and an open ocean that extended forever in the distance.

Her eyes widened with any emotions - fear, confusion. All thoughts left her mind, and what was left was a cyclone of mindless emotion as she stared, at everything. Where she lay was a slight bank, with the rounded backside of the coral wall to her left, and the water to the right. It appeared to be shallow there, some sort of pool - that broke out into the greater expanse of the deep, blue water that was everything else. She stood up, slowly, and all the blood from her sides rushed to her head, and rushing to her vision was more. There, a small ways across, was the other island, Aluwai, that rose above the water as a twisted snake made of soil and sand. Furthest from her the land rose to a cliff, the head of the snake, and its neck was the folds of stone beneath. The island wrapped like a crest around Layla, with the cliffless end slowly thinning and falling to a point as the surface fell beneath the waves. This was the tail of the snake, and its back was dotted with lines of trees and short, fertile grasses that covered the ground, kinds Layla had never seen before. The island was captivating, so much so that it was only when Layla’s wandering sight ran aground did she notice the intricate beauty of the sea it stood on.

The two islands had encased some of the larger ocean to form the smaller pool Layla was closest to. She laughed to herself as she saw what it really was, but she laughed not because it was funny, but because it was sad. There was fear in her, she didn’t understand much about the ocean, or why the village was afraid of it. It was beautiful, though. The water in the pool was turquoise and almost clear, it didn’t look very deep in most places. A few times through it she saw little creatures, with no arms and a slick back that could glide under the surface. It was fascinating, how something could live and survive in something like that. Where the land ended the tension of the water was kept to dazzling little ripples and swirls, causing barely more than a clapping sound against the beach. This was why it was beautiful - and sad in how Layla was the only one to have seen it. That was why she laughed. 

Layla eventually looked behind her, and saw the dimness of the cave she had entered from. There was nobody there, on either side, but her. The cave and the beach, two different worlds, she thought. And I have just breached them.

Wasting no time, she began to walk around the back of the sand, staying close to the wall, but with her sight stuck to the edge of the beach. Her feet acted as sensors, and if they encountered anything new, Layla’s heart would skip a beat out of fear. Most of her wanted to go down to the beach, to touch the water and satisfy everything. But a small part held back. There was a reason she had been warned against this, after all. But maybe it was too late, and it would be worse not to go in the water. Emotion was cutting through her reason again, and the euphoric thrill of divergence was soaring through her veins. She had done it, seen what she wanted to see and prove to herself what the village could not. That was right, Layla assured herself. It would be worse to not to go.

The ocean met the sand perhaps twenty feet from the wall. When Layla approached it, she could hear it clearly - it was like an echoey fizzle, that would rise and fall as the ripples got closer and farther away. She let the tide wash over her foot. It was cool and fresh, but when the water withdrew, her foot became cold when it touched the air. To her, she was standing at the edge of the world, there was nothing else besides these two islands. How bad could the ocean be? Layla stepped farther and farther from the beach, and eventually when the tide withdrew her feet remained in the water. She went farther again, to her knees, to her hips, the memorizing veins of the water surrounding her now. Wish, wash. Wish, wash. 

Suddenly, there was a pull at her feet, and an invisible leg struck her in the ankles, and she fell, and the tide kept pushing. Why did it do that? How did it do that? Now she strained every muscle in her small body to fight the current. She knew she could not let the water go over her head, but around her it was everywhere. It was a trick, the ocean had tricked her into walking in. It was evil. She was wrong. Layla waved her arms under the heaviness of the water, and pivoted her head just enough so she could gage her sense of direction. The ground was there again, and the pull was slighter. Layla quickly left the water as she was carried back to shore, collapsing her soaking body onto the beach.

The water had carried her a fair way down the bank. It had swept her away, chewed her up, and then spit her back out. Why did Layla done what she did? She could not totally be sure. She should have known better, than to trust herself. But then again now the fear of being consumed by it was already fading. Inconsistency was what it was. Layla in her heart still knew she was right, about it all, but her mind had not weighed the scales just yet. The two were always caught out of balance. Her emotion began to try to convince, why was her heart right, why was the village wrong? The ocean was alive, she knew that now, and it had not liked her. Maybe the water itself wasn’t, Layla could still drink and play in the water, and it would not mind. No - it was the essence of the sea that was alive, the soul of all the creatures within and below. The ocean is harsh, unforgiving, and cruel. Anything that lived in it first had to master it and hold it at bay, and in return they would become part of it. This was why Layla was afraid, why everyone was afraid. They had not mastered its vices, and surrendered themselves to the sea, controlled it. For this the ocean hated them, and it carried them away and pushed them into its depths until they would rise no more. The ocean was alive, and Layla had to meet it, know it, if her curiosity was to be cut. She was scared, but now as she lay wet on the sand she knew this. One day she would know the sea, and then she would help everybody else know it as well. As she got up from the beach, soaking, she felt a purpose that wasn’t real back at home.

For five nights more it rained on the island. They were hard storms, great billowing plumes of rain and thunder that would keep Layla awake in her hammock. A few times when she stared at the ceiling and listened, she thought her home might fall beneath the poking arms of the torrents. But by mid-morning of the five nights the storms would pass, and then the people would emerge from their homes and stretch and look at the hazy sky before eating cold and cleaning up. It was like the ticking of a gear, the cycle never stopped. The water tins of the town ran full, and the sand mites and crabs would emerge from underground to bask in the wet air, and then on the stovetop. Now, the village was brimming, but still the gear of work never stopped. From it all, there had been no classes, not since they visited the wall, and in that Layla would find time to go to the beach.

  The first day she went back, Layla had observed the shoreline, looked for its depth, its pull, its temperature. Everything. To understand it all she first needed to understand the outside. She had traversed the beach and seen how the longer she stayed, the closer the tide would get to the wall, and the more sand it would engulf. She noticed too the height of the waves as they fell farther from the shore, and the higher the wave the greater the current. They were all patterns: rough, organic rhythms to which she could study and predict. And if she could predict the ocean, then she would know it. On the second day too she had submerged herself in the water, felt it around her, and then emptied her lungs and perceived herself floating to the floor, and then propelling herself back to the surface. By the third day she had begun to teach her limbs to move with the water, only in set motions, without chaos or uncertainty. The water liked that, and it was then she could move through it, and when her feet released from the sand she could remain adrift, floating in an inverted sky of wavy blue. The learning came slowly, but now Layla was familiar to her friend the sea, and when she came to the beach she was greeted with warmness, and normalcy. Today now was the sixth day, and what had been a fantasy just a week ago was now a part of her.

The downside to it all was Layla had not spoken much to Pacico. Normally the two of them would meet almost everyday - at the class center, or at her home.  The past week, however, they had spoken little, it was hard to overcome the drones of the village laborers, and Pacico too had to work. It made Layla sad, but when she thought it over, she valued her time at the water more. It wasn’t right, but the sea was like an addiction now, she did not care. Pacico could not know her secret. Nobody could, not yet.

Such thoughts came to her in flurries as she walked a tree line near the shade. She was taking her route to the wall, a different route then usual - one that was longer but said that she would be alone. She walked leisurely, absorbing the silence around her. Layla had told her parents that she was helping collect crabs for food, and that is why she would arrive home later. They hadn’t questioned anything. When she thought about it, she imagined her parents didn’t expect her to find any crabs. She was just an innocent child, incapable of doing things like that. Layla’s father in particular had seemed eager for her to undertake little tasks, she could think of many reasons why. There was a pit inside her that knew he was thinking different. When he talked now, he was distant, his green eyes seemed dulled and diluted by the emotion held beneath. He did not stay at the house as much, and the communicator had fallen quiet. She had noticed too things disappearing within her home, pots and clay spoons, or spare hammock strings. Meaningless, small things, probably taken so Layla wouldn’t notice. It was like a slow move, a gradual ebb away to something else. Maybe he was happy Layla was off doing something. Or maybe he was glad she was gone. The first night, after she got back from the beach, all that Ahne had done was put her to bed. No questions of where she had been, no words. It was as if he didn’t care. 

In the distance, though the mirages of the midday sun, there was a figure walking closer to Layla. They walked in a casual manner, with a dragging of the foot that only came from looking around too much. As they got closer, Layla saw the light hair and recognized Pacico. He did not seem to be following her, but their paths were poised to cross.

“Layla!” he said, and quickened his pace to meet her. He had several shells in his hand, as he always did, and his face was matted with sand.

“Where are you going?” he followed up, “I’ve never seen you walking over her before.”

“I’m going home. I was looking for crabs.”

“Crabs? Here? They’re not usually over here,” Pacico said. “You're not usually over here either. Did you find something?” Layla said nothing to this. 

“What is it?” Pacico asked.

“Nothing.”

“No crabs?”

Layla paused for the briefest second, and played along. “No, no crabs. Haven’t found any at all. And it’s been an hour.”

Pacico went quiet for a moment, and then sighed. “You know my Papa hunts crabs,” He kicked up a bit of sand in front of him. “I coulda helped you. Your prolly doing it wrong.”

“How, Pacico? You just gotta plug up the holes in the sand and wait for ‘em to come home. Even my Papa knows that.” Layla tried to sound sincere, she supposed she was good at talking quick.

“No, no! You got it all wrong.”

“How?”

“The best crabs are under the trees. Or in the grasses.” He waved his arms and dropped a shell. Layla gave the slightest of a smile. Pacico knelt down, and began to examine the trunks of the junipers that lay along the sand path. Every once in a while he would sift his finger through the protruding roots, or overturn some dead leaves.

“Well they don’t seem to be out now,” he said as he stood up. “But you have to do it like that.” Layla nodded in response, and they both moved into the shade.

It was quiet between the two of them then, Layla was saving face. She felt as if a force was pushing and prodding her away from him, but she wasn’t entirely sure why.

“Pacico,” Layla said hesitantly, with a quiver in her voice. “I’m gonna go home.”

“Why?” he responded. “You’ve barely talked to me lately.” He stared her in the eyes, but he couldn’t find anything there. He wasn’t as good at reading people as Layla.

“Tired. And my Papa wants me back to help work on things.”

“Things? Like what?”

“I dunno. He didn’t tell me.” Layla averted her gaze.

“Aren’t you not supposed to work? You're a girl. Short too.”

“Don’t you have to?” she retorted with a quick breath. Pacico squinted, but dropped the subject. He did have to work, and she already knew what Maleko would do if he didn’t.

“How about we go to the tree line later, or the dunes? When it’s cool?”

“No.”

“What?” Pacico said. “You love that place. And I told you I’d want to go back there.”

“I’m not going today.”

“Why not? Cmon.”

“It’s nothing. I don’t want to talk about it Pacico.” She turned away and crossed her arms. 

“Well that’s just the thing,” he responded, with a fast annoyance seeming to rise in his voice. “You don’t want to talk about it with me. We talk about everything together. We used to.” He walked back closer to Layla, and got close enough that she could hear the osseous clanking of shells against each other in his hand.

“It’s been a week, Pacico.”

“A week too long, I guess.” He shrugged.

“Stop! We can talk about it later. I just want to go home right now.”

“You don’t mean that. Why don’t we go somewhere?”

“No.”

“Why not? I haven’t talked to you since last week! Not really talked, at least.”

“No Pacico! I’m sorry.” Layla began to walk away, buds of tears forming in her eyes. This was her friend, a greater friend than any material thing, especially for a dangerous one like water. But he could not go to the tree line. He could not know, or see any of it. He had already broken her trust, and the dunes were different then they had been a week ago.

“Fine. Don’t tell me,” said Pacico. “You can go hunt some more crabs.” The two of them walked away from each other now. Maybe not hurt, but annoyed at the least. The two of them did not fight much, if at all. There was nothing to fight about, in lives as boring as theirs. What was left were petty, childish bouts like this. Layla knew she could not tell him the truth, but maybe the truth was not what he wanted. It didn’t matter, though. Nobody would listen to her if they heard what she was doing, even if it was harmless. So instead she played along and fought a simple fight that had no use being said. The problem with the good things was that the bad things meant more. Pacico was going home. Layla was not.

A little while later, Layla was standing at the entrance to the beach, half covered in a dull illumination of the coral cave, and half covered in sun. She had noticed, as she came more and more to the cave, that she would notice the smaller things, little differences that had not been there before. Those differences were oftentimes the cracks and gives in the coral, ones that had started off thin but now were lines that gouged into the wall like talons, claws capable of bringing it down in its entirety. Layla probably could bring it down, too, if she wanted. But she did not. There had to be a barrier, she thought, between the two worlds. What she worried about was the other things, things that didn’t care about the barrier, or the village. She thought of the storms, mainly. The storms had come to the sky more than Layla had ever known. 

When she stepped onto the beach, Layla was greeted with the same salty wind and hissing of the waves. The novelty of it had gone in a way, but the feeling of wonder had not, she hoped it never did. It was a feeling that soaked her mind more than her soul, made her think. There was a great expanse of nothing in every direction, she thought, nothing but two little islands breached to an underwater rock. Maybe she was alone here. Or maybe there were other people beyond the waters of her world, that she could talk to and ask about new things. Maybe they were very tall, or slept during the day, or did something else that she wouldn’t understand. There wouldn’t be any coral there, all of the people would sit at the beach and watch the sun set in peace. She would find them, one day, and tell them of her life at the village. Then she could tell her secret all she wanted. Yes, she would find those people across the sea, and leave everything else behind. Except Papa and Pacico. Maybe they could come.

Layla walked a short while down the beach, to a bulge in the shore. That was where the distance to Aluwai was smallest. She was going to swim to it, across the little strait that separated the two islands. She had never done it, but new things came easier to her now, and she knew what she was to do. She had practiced, many times, swimming parallel lines to the shore, or circles above sandbanks, cutting the water like a wheel with her arms and legs. Swimming across the strait couldn’t be much different. The surface was smooth and tranquil, and past the tide Layla was certain it would be still. The distance looked to be no more than the length of a few trees - she knew she could cross it. What lay on the other side she was not so sure of.

The water was cold and translucent, with clouds of sand faintly being seen floating every which way below the surface. The bottom was steep, and it was not long before Layla’s feet no longer felt the ground. The tides were low now, so she would have more of a beach to cling to. It was the patterns. She knew them now. She knew the descending sea floor, and she knew the way the current would take her, so she let it push her further out to sea. A hint of fear went through her for the slightest of a second. She was not strong enough. She was not ready to go out this far. But gradually the shoreline current faded, and Layla was left treading water, walking on the peaks of a mountain of blue. Out in the open, the currents were larger and flatter, less of a pull opposed to a constant frequency of little imperfections in the water. Layla found herself bobbing up and down, in a circle, maintaining control. 

She wasted no time and began to paddle her way through the water to the other shore. Here, she received no help from the water, it only wanted to carry her around and down, it could not possibly understand direction. It was not long before her limbs began to burn, and her ears were clogged from the constant bobbing of her head. She was close, between glossy eyes she could see a blurry image of the opposing shore. But the strength of her swimming was weakening. Time seemed different in the water, not like it was slower, but like it was never progressing. It was just repetition after repetition of the waves, there was no time out here. She did not know the ocean, not yet, maybe not ever. It didn’t like little village people, that is why it had made the coral wall. Layla gasped for air. Pitter, patter. Pitter, patter. There was no time in the sea. She could not let the water go over her head. No time. Cycles, cycles. A push of the arm, an ebb of the undertow. She could not let the water get over her head. Then she may not resurface.

At last, the strength of the current returned, and Layla flailed herself forward over the waves, searching for somewhere to put her feet. The land had returned, and the shapeless mob of the ocean thinned into dirt and silt and sand. She fell onto it in exhaustion, the water still rapping against her legs. She had done it. Before Layla looked to the new land she walked upon, however, she first gazed behind her, at her home. Nobody that she had ever known had done what she did. The coral wall across the water was no more than a shell blotting out the world. It looked thin, and short. At some points the coral rippled down and widened before falling under a beachless shore, other times it disappeared among the necks of steep dunes. The hole Layla crawled through was hidden from her view, even though she knew that the small opening was wedged between two hills of sand. One day, maybe, the whole wall would collapse, and the village huts of clay would run full with little sea crabs and fishes, and every day Papa and Pacico could stand with her by the water. But that would never happen. Did she want it to? Maybe then, if it did, she wouldn’t want to leave. Or maybe she still would. Loneliness - real, existential loneliness, could not be cured by being happy.

Layla stared behind her for a long time, her young mind thinking about things that may or may not be. Her neck hurt. She turned back around, and walked up to the beach of Aluwai. Her feet squelched as they suctioned up the sand, and her ankles grew cold when they were exposed to the air. She felt no new curiosity towards the island she stared at. Now, it was closer, but the same features were there. This beach was short and rough, inclining almost immediately. Everything around her was green - grasses and trees and thriving coils of shrubbery dotted the landscape. The trees were low to the ground as well, with dark, crispy looking leaves and thick stumps that knotted each other together. The only sand was the beach, and the only dirt was the fertile rot that splayed from the entrails of the trees. If the ocean was alive, then so too was Aluwai - but it was a different kind of life. Layla knew it was not like her home, which was dirty and low to the ground. It was something else - not something Layla hadn’t seen, but something that pleased her.

There were no paths or grooves in the ground to guide Layla as she traversed up the island. It was untreaded land, at least to her people. Little birds and lizards remarked their surprise as they moved past her. They kept their distance. As she moved farther from the beach, the land got wider and enclosed her vision. She could not see the water anymore, only contours in the hills that showed when the land rose and fell back into the shore. The island was not too big, but the land was not flat either, like Layla’s home. She found it funny how this place had a name, Aluwai, the island to which she must not go, but her own home was nameless. Or at least she had never heard a name for it. She supposed that if there were no other villages to confuse it with, then it didn’t need a name. Layla’s world was so small that nothing had a title, there was only one of everything. Aluwai would have made a better place to live. It was plentiful, with lots of different things, lots of things to be named. Even the hills Layla could see four of - some rippled and struggled to rise, and one rose steeply to the left, probably ending at the snake-headed cliff Layla was able to see from the water. She decided to name the cliff Glass, because of all the gleaming water it overlooked. Layla would walk to the top of Glass, and that was where she would look upon the sea.

It was a longer walk than Layla thought it would be. At times the short grasses would accumulate into tall, stalky weeds, and her legs would tire and itch from walking in them. The ground became rockier as she climbed higher as well, often the smoothness of the ground would be interrupted by large stones, some outlining the edges of the island as it thinned to a point. Eventually Layla came to it, the highest point of anywhere she could see. This was the top, the top of her world. The ocean had once again become visible, but instead of water it looked to be a blanket that spread forever in every direction. Whereas on the beach it was light and clear - able to be looked through and observed, what she saw now was not. From this high up, the surface was black and opaque, with the textures of the waves being replaced by a planar rink of blankness. There were clouds on the horizon - murky plumes that blotted out the sun and formed the skyline. Those were clouds that Layla had never seen, not even in storms. They had erased the line of the horizon, and discolored the air to make it appear like dusk. It would have explained why she did not see them when she was lower to the water. A flutter of heart and a feeling of fear infested itself once again in Layla’s stomach - but this was a fear she had not experienced in a long time. It was not a fear like she had had when she first stepped foot on the beach - that was an anxiety, a worry of the unknown. A worry of what she didn’t understand -  this everyone in the village had. But this fear, as she stared at the ominous clouds in the distance, was an animalistic, primitive dread, a fear of material things that could harm and hurt. Her fear of the water had been psychological. She could stop and think and convince herself she was not afraid. But that was not the case now. Layla could pause and ponder the source of her angst for as long as she pleased, but it would still come, because the things that caused it did not care if she was afraid of them or not. Those clouds in the distance were the things she thought of. It reminded her of when she was very small, and thunderstorms would come in the middle of the night. She would cry and ask Papa to make them go away. He would respond with the simple phrase that he couldn’t, but that they would be gone by morning anyway. In this type of fear, one could only avoid it - because if they had to face it, they would lose. 

Layla quickly began to walk down from Glass, barely keeping balance as she rushed through the grass and in between the rocks. She did not need to be in a hurry, nothing was going to catch her yet. She just wanted to go back home, for now. As she descended, the air felt fake - the sun shone but it was not bright. A grip of conviction overtook Layla. The qualms of her morality stiffened and told her she could not stand to go back and be quiet. The clouds were coming, and they were big and awful and ruinous. How could she stand aside and not let them know what was there? Then the conviction left her in a hurry, and she was left realizing she couldn’t. Because they would never bother believing her, and would only know her secret. And that couldn’t do. She could never tell them, never.

When she arrived back at the beach, the wind was stronger than it had been just hours ago. It howled past Layla’s ears in such a way that made her cover them, and her eyes in a way that made her squint from the blowing sand. It was so strong Layla felt as if her clothes could be ripped from her body - she needed to cross the channel fast. She wasted no time sinking into the water and beginning to paddle back home. 

The water was rough on the way back, but Layla made it all the same. There were bumps and fast collisions within the sea as she swam, but the shore became close again before she realized they were there. Instead with wet eyes she had watched with tenseness as the wall became closer again, and the sight of it became worse.

When she was on Aluwai, she was far away. She could not see it. And when on the beach, she never cared to look behind her, see the wall as how it was. But once stumbled ashore, her breath was taken as she saw a mangled and dirtied excuse. The stone was collapsing in on itself, strewn among and across everything else. The cracks in the basalt rock ran deeper and deeper, running all around and away from where Layla could see them. And the hole she had come through, on the first night, was so large she could see the roofs of village homes behind it. 

What had become of that wall? 

It was dying, in front of a little girl. One tear slid down her face. She was feeling a sadness overtake her, and she did not know why. This place she wanted to leave, the sand and the dry and the hot of it all. Was it her that did this? It could not be so. Still, she cried. She didn’t want to know why, it would take too much to find out. Instead she fell to her knees and faced her entire life in front of her. 

Layla stood like that for a while, and thought about what it all meant. She barely blinked, and her mind moved slow and in a slight shock. Eventually with a chill running down her spine she arose from the sand and began to walk across the beach. Even after a lapse of composure she still felt sluggish, and her clothes were still soaked. The worst was yet to come. The sky was blue, and through the wall she saw a dry sand and a quiet village, but a storm from the south would change it all soon. It didn’t matter. 

When she stepped through the entrance to the cave, beams of sunlight shone through what had once been a dark interior. This allowed Layla to see partially through the hook in the shape of the cave-wall. There was the uniformity of the trees, and the sameness of the sand. When she looked again, she saw on the other side too was Pacico, with his eyes in shock and his face fixed in a state of unsettlement. Layla could see his gaze travel across the broken outside of the coral wall, and then place themselves on the cave, besetting into the sight of her. She quickly rushed out of the cave to confront him.

“I don’t understand,” he said, and pointed to the wall. He raised a weak finger, and his blonde hair fell over his eyes, as if to cover something up. Layla said nothing in response. There was nothing she could say.

“What is it?” he said again, and now when his hair flew up his face was the same color. 

“I don’t know, Pacico,” she responded, in the quietest words she could have spoken. She hung her head, but the shame was sitting on the floor. Pacico muttered and stammered in himself for a moment, and couldn’t seem to find what he was trying to say. Eventually, he went quiet.

“Tell me. Tell me Layla,” suddenly out came a vicious, half-snarl from Pacico, and a grimace overtook his face. He came closer, moved silently and circled Layla like an animal. Nothing could save her from what he knew now. It was all right there.

“The wall,” she said. “Something happened.” 

“No. That’s not what I mean. Not all of what I mean. I want to know what that is,” his voice quivered when he said it. When Layla turned to see what he meant, she saw his face transfixed past the coral, at the beach. Just the sand, as it sloped down to the bank, and the sky with the distant ocean in the landscape. Layla quickly turned back in fear, for herself now. Her heart broke and fell to her feet; with a cold, degenerate glance she saw Pacico advance towards her. She could not be saved now. She was caught, done. 

“Pacico, you don’t understand. It’s not bad, none of it is.”

“What is it! That’s what I asked.”

“It doesn’t matter what it is,” Layla said.

“Yes it does!” Pacico replied, and his father showed in his words when he spoke. “Tell me!” 

“I can’t.”

“You can’t. Liar. Because if you were telling the truth you wouldn’t mind saying. Because if it didn’t matter, then you would be able to say. You're a liar, Layla.”

LIAR.

“I’m not a liar!” Layla screamed, and pushed Pacico to the ground. She did not mean to do it. It was blind anger. After he fell, Pacico looked Layla in the eyes, his face covered with sand and tears.

“You told me earlier you were going home. After.. After crab hunting? And you came here. You know what that means.”

“I can’t, Pacico. I can’t do it.”

“Did you do it?”

“What?”

“Did you cross it Layla? Did you?” Pacico’s anger piped out like a whistle: thin, loud, and airy. Through it though Layla heard a boy in pain, a boy who felt betrayed. There was a deep, and real lacing of sorrow in that voice. She turned her head and cried again, hot tears that made her feel congested and swollen . She balled her fists, but felt nothing, and said nothing. 

“You did! Didn’t you? You couldn’t have Layla. You didn’t.”

“Pacico.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, and spit on the ground. She cried out, and Pacico pushed her back. She fell back with a quiet scream, and sand filled her mouth. 

“Stop it, Layla. Stop it.”

“Pacico!”

“No. Stop. You know what this means Layla,” 

“Just listen to me,” she said. “I need to -”

“Didn’t you hear me! Don’t talk.. You can’t trick me, Layla. Leave me alone.” With that he stood up, and walked away. He said nothing more, and Layla stayed quiet as well as the rift between them grew larger and larger. She wasn’t ready, she hadn’t been ready. Layla knew Pacico would react the way he did. That is why he never could have known, why none of them could. And it would only get worse. Things didn’t always happen the way she wanted. This was not her head, Pacico was not a box she could fly around. Things could have been different, but nothing could come of it now. Nothing at all.

Pacico was her friend. He was someone good, that she cared for. But the difference in the color of his hair still left him the same as the rest. He was also a talker. She had no doubt in her that he would run and tell this story, all the way down the line until his lungs gave out. The village would have a decision to make soon. A simple decision, made by simple people living simple lives. People that were deeply set in their ways, and had too much of nothing to do. People she wouldn’t be able to convince once the decision was made.

After sitting there for a while, along next to the cracked and broken husk of the coral wall, Layla wiped off the tears and began to walk home. She kept the tree line, she had left her cork shoes at home - and the sun still shone like nothing had happened. Her knees buckled when she walked, the sandy back of her body made a pitiful sight there walking through the brush. The sun was hotter than ever before. With a stumble, Layla eventually slumped back to the sand, and rays of heat ached on her delirious mind. She was absolutely exhausted, but the heat hurt and burned all the same. 

What had she done?

Where was her not-voice now? Where was the worry of what could be? When she looked up, Layla’s eyes locked with the sun, and she burned and teared up. In a moment, when she thought of the beaches and the waves, she grinded her teeth with disgust. She had done that, only her. Maybe the water never liked her after all, and she had gone away with it just to throw the rest away. She had to get home, though. There was nowhere else she could lay to rest.

Layla was at home by herself for a while. Thinking, or sometimes not even doing that. Normally her small family only slept and ate at the small hovel of their home, it felt like little more than a shell of clay when it wasn’t filled. She would not leave, though. Not for a while at least. Were dreams still dreams if she did not want them any longer? She did not want to sleep today, because her dreams would be of the sea. When the fuzzy ground became thin, she saw the peaks of blue and far fields of a grassy isle. She remembered the glee and sweet warmth in her body when she went. But she did not want it any longer. What was wrong, deep in her that could make her feel that way? Maybe she felt like her secret wasn’t there if she just stayed still. 

“Layla!”  She looked to her left and saw nothing there. Then when she closed her eyes a guilt tripped her up so she opened them again. Her reflection stood in the door, for a second and then it was gone. The not-voice it must have been. The hair was blonde and the eyes were green as grass, and she held a smile and a stormcloud in her hand. When it winked and disappeared, the cloud grew big and foggy around her. It crashed and Layla shook her head to rid the illusion. Would that come to pass as well? 

She watched her left again when she heard a rustle. She wasn’t strong enough to tell them the storm, that mass of death-clouds that came and passed, like it always passed in some way or another. But with a nimble eye she saw it was only Layla’s parents entering through the door, riding the eves of dusk.

  They appeared detached as they entered their home, quiet in their mannerisms and careful in their whispering words that they traded between each other. The two of them did not speak to their daughter when they pushed aside the straw door, instead they idled at the entrance and stood with turned backs. The sight of her restless parents barely phased Layla, they had been this way now for days. It did interest her what they were fiddling with in front of her, though. The utensils, the wooden trinkets and things, they were all gone. It looked like they were talking about something important. Could it be her? Layla thought flippantly. No. Pacico wasn’t that fast. He would be brought home and wringed out by Maleko before he could tell anyone anything. So now, she could rest. Before they knew, before she was shown to everyone. It was like a peace before death, or a calm before a storm.

Papa eventually turned around and faced her, quiet and still. At least he still could. Layla’s mother stayed where she was.

 Ahne had changed this past week. His work during the day was hard, and Layla knew it would make him stiff in the joints, and the sun was hot so to burn his skin when he was out. But his ways were slower, and his movements around Layla ruled caution and contempt. He would talk, and the song was gone from his voice, and his eyes were pale from a chilling of the heart. He would view her as a malice, someone sick of mind that he could not talk about too loudly to anybody else. Just his child, but no longer his daughter. 

“How are you? ” Papa said, walking up to his daughter, who lay curled in a ball at the head of her hammock. His tone had a surprising softness to it, but he kept a frown and sharp jaw. His hands lay at his sides, and he stood all the way up, making Layla raise her head to look him in the eye. He gave the slightest smile, but it quickly ran away from his face. There might be something there, maybe some remorse, but her Papa never should have needed it in the first place. It was a bittersweet feeling, Layla thought. 

“I feel fine,” she lied, and avoided eye contact. Or maybe she wasn’t lying - she could not be sure any longer. 

“Layla, dear, you seem off. Are you sure nothing is wrong?” Her mother said, from across the room. The sentence was monotone, and dry. It was like she was reading a script. Her back was turned, and she was handling something, half paying attention. 

“No. Nothing is wrong” Layla said. In response, her mother gave barely a nod, but said nothing else. It was Papa, however, that came closer and squeezed her shoulder, smiling as he hugged his daughter. It dropped her heart and shocked her. She smiled for just a second, and then stopped. Even the hug seemed forced, and nothing good ever came of pretending to care. 

“I’m glad,” he said, before leaning in closer so Layla’s mother could not hear his next words. “And I’m sorry.” He pulled away, and stepped back a few steps. The phrase scythed through her, hurting her soul and reflecting through a devastated eye. Never would she know what he meant, but a million ways to try went through her. That phrase was the acknowledgment of care, and a rejection of whatever is stood for. Pacico was right. She knew what it meant. 

“I love you Papa,” she barely croaked, with a tearless cry that nobody would know.

“Good,” he replied. “Never change, Layla. Remember that. Never change - and never leave us.” Ahne then stood up, almost too abruptly, and strode off quietly with her mother in his gait.

Soon after her parents departed, Layla coasted into a light sleep. She fought it, and she knew the dreams would come. It was all the same. But she had been awake for hours, dealing and dealing with herself. She saw the not-voice many more times appear before her, in each one she was different and gleaming with what she fell for. She saw the walls fill with water and fish, and drain and die many times. Each time she smacked her head and closed her eyes, they faded less and less. She wasn’t having conscious thoughts anymore, just shards of emotion that would sometimes manifest as a memory or word. She knew the trends of what she could no longer feel, but nothing came really. It was from this that as the evening waned away and the light became dim, she still did not move or stop at all. An end only came when the not-voice snapped her fingers, and her eyes closed and did not open for a while. She had fallen back onto her hammock, releasing the stress in short, staggered breaths. Not for long. Guilt knew no master. Did Layla make it all happen? What had come and happened, she could not understand. The dreams, they were trickling into her… cracking her to pieces. No. It didn’t matter. It didn’t. Everything had meaning, but the meaning of that thought was immaterial. And whatever the meaning of what came next, Layla fell asleep.

When she awoke, it was abruptly, and in the middle of the night. The air was dry, and outside she heard no storm, only a heavy wind. It was odd - her home was too dark, and the air too warm and the walls too quiet. Outside, on the roof, she heard the wind, stronger than she had ever heard it before, but inside, nothing. Usually, in the night, she would hear gusts of air or drops of rain that would enter through holes in the floor or filters in the straw doorway. Only a little, but enough to notice and make her cold and kept afraid of the outside. Now, however, it was as if the walls were sealed. No breathing of her sleeping parents, or casual creaks of a hammock. So, Layla arose then from her own, and went to light a candle.

The candle was small and made of grass, and in its dimly lit circle she saw what she had thought in the dark. There was nothing around her. What was left of the dinner dishes and palm-grass pillows were messily left alone, the eerie night consuming them. It didn’t require much inspection to know both of Layla’s parents were gone as well, their hammocks so still they could have never been used. Layla for a moment wondered where they could be, but deep down she felt as if she already knew. 

She abruptly turned around, and then again, and flailed her hands so an ember pressed into her skin. Was the whole room dark? Where was the light, the moon? At the edges of her vision, there were dark shadows that pooled and intruded into her home, they had no right. She couldn’t be the only thing in this hut, this half-built home? It couldn’t be. Layla kept turning around and around, one more time. They had to be here somewhere, she thought.

She rushed to the corner of the room, ran a finger down the edge of the wall and patted the floor. No, nothing there. In a hurry she realized that her parents were hiding behind their pillows. Of course! She lifted them up, and threw them to the floor. No, nothing there either. Layla looked under the hammocks, to the ceiling, and in paces she walked erratically around her home. It couldn’t be. She was alone? Where was Papa? He left her here… they knew. They all knew. No, wait! She heard Ahne call out to her, right behind. She whirled around, there he was! Under the pillows again. She overturned them from their spot on the ground, then furrowed her brow. No, they weren’t there.

No. Enough. Layla snapped herself up, and jerked the candle, asserting reality. She was doing it again. Dragging herself into the dredges of her own mind, because of something she did and something she broke, and something she did not know.  Something. It was always something. Something to -

Stop. 

She brought herself back again, steadied her head. She would not let herself descend into some kind of paranoid madness. She knew nothing about anything - whether anything was true or whether it wasn’t. Papa was just gone for a while, he would be back. He did not know. He couldn’t. 

Layla was then disrupted by something, a noise. It was a different one than she had been hearing, not the wind, and not the nothing. It was almost like the quick patter of a footstep, the dull thud that resulted from running on sand. Normally, she wouldn’t have heard it, but this was no normal night. Again. The same footfall, a few feet away from where it was before. And then, something else. The rustling of a leaf, or straw, or something. She couldn’t tell. It was ever so faint, barely audible even in silence. There was no grass or leaves attached to her home, Layla realized. Whatever the thing was, the noise against her walls, wasn’t right.

She began to investigate. She began to walk around again, the candle in hand, examining, slowly and carefully this time. The wind continued to howl outside, it sounded as if it could knock over trees or collapse homes. Layla thought about the wind, and thought about the other storms she had known. It would be hard to sleep - not only because of the rain, or the thunder, but because of the things that it controlled. She remembered how the straw doorway would wildly flap during the night, being blown all over the place and barely staying gripped to the doorframe. It would keep her up. But that was not the case now. When she shone the candle to the door, the straw appeared to be locked in place, or irregularly woven or pressed into itself. It wasn’t right. She got closer to the door, and ran a finger across it. There was some sort of substance there, like dead leaves mixed with dirt and sand. But why was it there? Layla began to press against the fixed doorway with her shoulder. She heard a slight shift, but then nothing - like something elastic that gave before giving right back. She kept pushing, harder, harder - and there was the same movement. She thought back to the wall, the fragility of it as it came apart with the force of her will, but not now. It was like a bitter revenge of the island - Layla had violated its borders, destroyed its coral and leapt out of its protection, and it was returned with locking her up in the damp and dark of her own home. The island had spoken to its minions, the villagers, and said “lock her up! Secure her!” And they had carried out its will and entrapped her in a casing of the island’s flesh. Maybe her mind had not deceived her, Pacico told… they all knew. It was all true. She was not their friend, their daughter, any longer. She was someone who had done something bad. And even if it wasn’t really, it didn’t matter. Layla pounded against the doorway, and began to scream, but it felt like nothing came out. The conclusions in her mind came back, faster than ever, and so quickly her thoughts became a static void of distress - so quickly triggered by such an arbitrary thing. She continued to kick and punch the straw, and nothing moved, and her fingers bled. Nobody could hear her. The truth didn’t matter if nobody heard it, or even if they did, would listen. Layla was trapped, whether it was for what she thought or not. She could not go anywhere. Just like always. Her bleeding and straw scraped knuckles slid down the doorway one final time, and Layla collapsed to the floor in a heap of everything.

For what seemed like many days and nights Layla lay alone in her home, closed off and cold in the dark. No time may have passed, or all of it plus a little more. Many times Layla saw things around her, in her senses that would vanish when she looked. She saw great mountains and beaches, and coral and people in the sea. She saw birds and fissures of grime draining beneath her feet. And most of all, she saw herself, reflected and staring - reminding her of all she no longer wanted. At a point she knew she may be insane, laughing and crying while pressed into the door, trapped from the base of her brain to the end of the world. Did Papa love her still? She had chosen the ocean over him, after all.

While in a moment of calm, Layla had awoken with a clearer head than she thought. She had risen in the night, with a commotion seeming to stir everywhere around her.  It had to be just before sunrise; the air was cool, and a silky sky revealed the first reds of dawn. The sky was complex and alive, and beautiful. It was strange - she normally couldn’t see the sky from inside, not with the door closed. She confused herself for just a second. Then she realized the door wasn’t there at all. In a half-confused, groggy state, Layla began to look for the straw mat of an entrance - and when she looked down, she came to a startling realization. Instead of the matted, grey floor there were inches of standing water that sloshed against the walls; the door was there, swimming in a violent and crumpled swirl.

She immediately snapped to full attention. Something was wrong, very wrong. All feelings of drowsiness left her in a second, her body was afraid. As she came to her senses, the context of her surroundings became known. There was a storm, but not like one Layla had ever heard. The rain came in solid blasts, and the wind howled so loud it meshed with the nonstop claps of thunder - it was the full rage of a funneled and water-fusioned sky. When she looked back to the doorway now, her eyes were immediately blinded by a violent mist, as they were forced shut Layla could make out the sight of a solid wave as it collapsed over her home and tore out the walls. Layla was thrown from her hammock, and her ears were cleansed from the air by a muddy film of brown floodwater. Even from there she could hear the groan of her roof and the chunks of clay that began to fall from it. She needed to get out. Out of her house, out and away from everything.

Layla threw herself onto her feet, and began to run out of her collapsing home, taking quick and laboring strides so not to be caught in the current. As she stepped outside she could not help but gasp as she heard the screams of her village friends as they were carried away by their worst nightmare. Palm trees lay broken and splayed everywhere on the ground, forming deadly channels that would carry anyone away to anywhere. When she looked to the homes around her, she saw them to be no more than shambled wrecks - barely resembling anything at all. This was a monsoon raised from hell, sent to destroy everything in its path. A grip of horror overtook her, and her perceptions came in flashes. Everything she had ever known was gone. Washed away. This is not what she wanted. Where was her family? Where was Pacico? Where was safety? Where was the ocean that she knew? 

She looked behind her, and the dead house and falling waters began to fade away. They groaned and creaked and went into the ground, or some vanished into the air. She saw again the dark walls of her home, and the burning of the candle on the floor. When she stepped to the door, it was still blocked, and the straw matt fixed. Layla was just a prisoner to herself, drumming the quiet fight in her head. When she glanced at her hand, she shook hands with her sanity. It told her they could meet further on up the road, when a silly thing like guilt or worry wasn’t in the way. Layla looked to her left, there was her not-voice. It winked when she slapped her head and looked around. No leaving this time.

“What are you doing here?” she asked the not-voice. She supposed she had never tried to talk to it, not really. When she spoke, its eyes gleamed up and the skin glowed.

“Oh, I don’t know,” it responded. “What do you want with me?” 

“I want you to go. I can’t hardly stand it anymore - you caused all this.”

“No, Layla, it was you,” the not-voice said. “Who do you think I am? What I’ve done and did, all of it’s fast and big and alive. You say you hate me, you don’t want me. But I love you Layla, and I am you.” After it spoke, the figure shimmered but stayed, Layla pondered everything. 

“Is any of it real?” she slowly asked the voice, asked herself. The five words croaked when spoken and leathered her tongue. The not-voice then seemed warm, and embodied like it was one with her being. Layla had done too much, she told herself - the real self, still inside her head and not out in the room. The part of her that was Layla, and not the dirty messy part that had crossed the water. That girl wanted more, always more and could not be content. That part of her was the other, or at least she thought. The not-voice in front of her looked just so similar, and acted as she would and loved and played with what she did. The difference was Layla was a part of the village, and the not-voice was a part of her. 

“What I am is real to you,” the voice responded. “And what you did with me as well. You're not crazy, Layla.” 

“And you're not really there!” she cried in response. “Everybody knows my secret. What have we done, what have we caused?”

“Caused? Well I don’t think we’ve caused anything.”

“That storm, the wall. The clouds. It was us, it had to be,” Layla told. “The ocean doesn’t like village people, and we made it hate us more. And the village does too, and everything else is us. And I hate you because of it.” 

“Look around you!” the not-voice said, and Layla’s ears hurt and rung. “The village is there, they made you think like this. You don’t even know if they know.”

“I do.”

“Then let them! You’ve got to get out of this house.” With that, Layla looked behind her, and then hung her head and blinked many times before looking back. The not-voice had gone. She slapped her head once more, and she saw things all around her fade away one last time. 

There was a man clinging to a rock, back in the storm. He had many cuts along his bare back, but he slowly left and became a hammock again. 

There was a bird atop the coral wall, eating a fish and letting out a great cry. When it flew away, only clay walls remained - and near the door a ray of sun. Layla relaxed one final time, and knew all those things she had seen were gone. The inside of her home remained the same, but now it was vivid and real. Layla walked to the straw matt door once again, and saw in the corner a hole. 

After a moment or two, Layla had widened that hole in the door, and peeled back the side of the mat so she could see. Across her vision now was a thick, leafy jumble of things, full enough so she could not yet see past. With a steady hand she ripped away at the mat once more. Folding and overlapping it, eventually it left and was gone. Had it been that easy? She supposed it didn’t matter - Layla felt collected and level. The not-voice had gone, or maybe been woven back inside her. 

It seemed like the plants blocking the door were large, stocky leaves - wide and thick with fingered ends that looked sharp. At the ends of them were green and soft looking branches, oriented up and down and through and across the entrance of her home. With care Layla began to move and position these, sometimes ripping or snapping them off with her fingers. She started to climb through, throwing weight and her body against it. There was pressure that wavered and bent, and she sank into the branches. It felt familiar, this was just like the wall. Poking, pushing. Away and through to something else. 

Soon Layla had immersed herself into the leaves, and they itched and scratched, getting into her mouth and through her clothes. She kept moving and shuffling on, and broke a hand free. Then the other. She fell to the ground on the other side, hit the sand on her shoulder. At once she glanced behind her. There was her home, barely visible. A palm tree had crashed and fallen to the entrance, just enough on the left so it hadn’t collapsed it all. Still, there were dents and pieces of debris laden along the roof and ground. The arms of the tree spun on the roof and blocked the door. The ends and roots were suspended in the air, far away from her. Did it fall on its own? Or … no, it didn’t matter. 

Next Layla looked to the village in front. The day was young, and the sun shone high in the center of the sky, there were no clouds. The tops of the homes surrounding her looked wet, as well as the leaves on the fallen tree. Maybe it had stormed the before. There was no commotion or movement around her, though. She looked around. No village work, no people at all. All around Layla was quiet. She scratched her head, and wondered for a moment. That was when she looked beyond, to the coral wall. As her eyes laid upon it, they widened. There was nothing there. What remained were struggling spires of rock, or slumped remains of dead coral. But in complete, the coral had gone. That barrier, the lonesome black peak of difference. Gone and washed away. Now then she saw the ocean from where she stood. All of it, in the distance was Aluwai. In the sun, that water again looked cool and powerful - filled with beauty. Her heart rekindled to the sight of it, she was calm and alright. She began to walk to it, closer and closer. The sound of the beach became more and more as she strode, when at once she gasped. Looking out at the sea was a man, a villager, below the sun and taking it all in. She couldn’t see his face, but she knew they were teary and full. She saw him raise his hands, and then fall to his knees. As Layla watched with wonder, the man stood up and walked towards the sea.