Prologue
The pier was alive with noise.
Music spilled from speakers mounted above the stalls, slightly distorted by sea air and distance. Bright flags snapped gently in the wind. Lights—still on despite the daytime sun—flickered across game booths and food stands, painting colour onto weathered wood.
Further down, a Ferris wheel turned slowly against the sky.
Its gondolas rose and fell with patient rhythm, like it was breathing.
Everything felt like it was part of something bigger than it looked.
A small boy ran through the crowd.
Blonde curls bounced with every step, catching bits of sunlight as he moved. His pale blue eyes were wide—not scanning, but absorbing everything at once. There was wonder in the way he looked at the world, like every stall, sound, and flicker of movement was something worth memorising.
He weaved between adults and families, barely slowing as he passed them. Laughter and voices blurred around him—too many to follow, none important enough to hold his attention for long.
A game stall caught his eye. He slowed.
The stall was vibrant with colour, rows of prizes hanging too high to reach. A bowl of wrapped candy sat near the counter like it was waiting.
But his attention wasn’t on the candy.
Further back, a small plush figure hung near the top of the stall, swaying slightly in the breeze—bright colours, exaggerated shape, like it had stepped out of a cartoon.
For a moment, he just stared at it, as if confirming it was real.
Then he reached into his pocket.
Slowly.
Awkwardly.
His fingers fumbled inside the fabric, searching, hesitating, as though he wasn’t used to the idea of finding something there on purpose.
After a moment, he pulled out a coin.
It caught the light briefly—a dull, golden warmth flashing across its surface.
Worn.
Smooth at the edges.
Then it slipped immediately.
Clink.
It hit the wooden boards and rolled.
He froze.
Then chased it.
The coin spun ahead of him, catching light as it moved between gaps in the weathered planks. It slipped through the flow of feet and voices, heading toward the edge of the pier.
The boy ran faster.
Closer.
Too close.
The coin hit the wooden boards and spun toward the edge of the pier.
Instinctively, he pounced—
With the reflexes of a cat and the elegance of a falling sack of potatoes, he hit the deck with an audible thud.
Low. Quick. Awkward.
He slowly opened his hands, revealing the coin sitting right on the edge of the pier.
Holding it carefully in both hands, he lifted it, watching the glow along its edges as it caught and reflected the light.
For a moment, that was all there was.
Just the coin.
Its surface wasn’t smooth. Not completely.
Lines curved across it—tight, deliberate, looping over themselves in a pattern that almost looked like a wave—
—until he looked closer.
Then it wasn’t a wave at all.
It folded inward.
Circling. Turning. Never quite settling on where it was meant to go.
He turned it slightly between his fingers, following the lines without really understanding them.
And then—
His gaze drifted.
Past the coin.
Over the edge of the pier.
Where a deep blue shimmered with a light of its own.
Below him, the ocean moved in steady, patient ripples. Deep blue folding into itself without urgency. The sound of the pier faded, replaced by something quieter. Steadier.
He stared, unmoving—almost lost in it.
Then something struck him from behind. Hard enough to break his balance.
His hands slipped. His body tipped forward—
and the world simply gave way.
For a moment there was only air—no sound, no ground, no direction.
Just falling.
Time stretched as he spiralled, the pier pulling away above him in broken fragments of light and shadow.
And then he saw it—
a silhouette at the edge, looking down.
Someone small, like him.
A smile on their face—not wide, not obvious, just enough to feel wrong in a moment like this.
He fell.
Quietly.
As if even the world didn’t want to interrupt what was happening.
Then—
The ocean met him with a sudden force.
At first, it hurt—a sharp impact of pressure knocking the air clean out of him, his chest tightening as his body jolted against the sudden resistance.
But it didn’t last.
The pain began to dissolve almost immediately, breaking apart into something heavier and slower, like the world itself was losing its urgency. His breath scattered into the water around him, and even that felt distant, unimportant.
Instead, there was warmth.
Something soft.
Like being wrapped in something vast that didn’t need explanation.
The sound above faded first, muffled and distant, until it no longer felt like it belonged to him at all. Then the weight of his own body loosened, as if the ocean had started carrying it for him, and finally everything else—thought, direction, meaning—slipped away in stages.
Only movement remained.
Slow. Fluid. Unresisting.
Above him, the surface fractured into light, distorted shapes of the pier bending and wavering as figures leaned over the edge, reacting, shouting into a world he could no longer hear properly.
He drifted lower now, not falling anymore, but sinking—comfortably, quietly—as if the ocean had decided there was no urgency in letting him go.
Shapes moved above the water.
Then—
One broke through.
Cutting through the surface, diving down toward him as the world softened at the edges.
But it was already fading.
Sound thinned first.
Then light.
Then everything else.
Until there was nothing but weightless silence.
He awoke to voices.
Sand against his skin.
The world returned in fragments—blurred faces, shaken movement, urgency without shape. Words reached him, but didn’t quite connect, breaking apart before they could settle into meaning.
A crowd stood around him.
Too many voices.
Too many people.
None of them forming anything he could hold onto properly.
Then—
A familiar figure broke through them.
Not suddenly, but decisively—like something stabilising in the middle of noise. Her presence pushed through the confusion before dropping to her knees beside him.
She pulled him into her arms immediately, holding him tightly as if the act itself was enough to anchor him back into reality.
And for a moment, it worked.
He didn’t speak.
He couldn’t tell where one voice ended and another began.
Something felt heavy in his hand.
He looked down slowly, as if it belonged to someone else.
A coin.
Clenched in his fingers.
Real. Solid. Certain.
But even that didn’t fully hold him.
His gaze drifted past it instead.
Beyond the people.
Beyond the noise.
To where the blue stretched out beyond everything—calm, endless, unbothered.
Watching.
Waiting.
Still quiet.
Like it had never changed at all.
