Author: Zoe Lin Pal

100 years ago, the world was lost to the sea.
Glaciers, once frozen in time, collapsed into rising tides, swallowing cities whole.
Only a fraction of humanity remains, building lives on the edges of what the water has spared.
The ocean took everything.
And still, it kept secrets.

– – – – – – –

“Okay. I’ve got this.” Kelcee stepped onto the small platform, her weight unsteady. “Should be easy.”
Water sloshed against the bow as she shoved off.
Her fingers grazed the tooth at her neck—an ophthalmosaurus tooth, worn smooth with age.
Her father had given it to her the night he died.
Kelcee shook her head, forcing the memory down.
“Wait!” A familiar rat’s nest of brown hair stumbled into view.
“Marcell!”
He wheezed. “I’m coming…with you.”
“No! You said it was too dangerous.”
“I know.” His green eyes glimmered, bright as the sea. “But you were right. We don’t even know what’s out there. We’ve just…assumed it’s bad.”
Kelcee hesitated. Her father used to say that. “Hop aboard.”
“Thanks, Kels.”
She nodded, fumbling with the sail until the fabric flew open, rippling as it caught the wind. The sharp cliffs began to recede from view.
“So long,” Marcell murmured.
She plopped down. “We’ve got about four months of food. Well, less now,” she added dryly, huffing a strand of hair from her face.
Kelcee leaned over the boat to trail her fingers across the water. Her father had reminisced about uncharted islands thriving with tropical fruit and exotic animals. He believed there were still islands, places the sea hadn’t yet claimed.
No one believed him but her.
The water was calm. Too calm.
Suddenly, the boat pitched forward. Kelcee’s foot slipped, slamming into the mast. Saltwater sprayed against her cheek. “Oh, great.”
They screamed as lightning shattered the sky.
Wind howled as she scrambled for the sail, hands fumbling to secure it. Marcell clutched the side of the boat, panic clouding his eyes.
The boat lurched.
“Kelcee, get down!”
The wave hit.
She threw her arms over her head before everything flipped upside down.
Pain flared in her abdomen as she struck the tiller.
A hand clasped hers.
“We shouldn’t have come out here!” Marcell cried.
Green eyes.
Her grip slipped.
“No!”
All she saw was clouded night and falling raindrops on her already soaked face before a flurry of bubbles rushed to meet her.

– – – – – – –

Kelcee blinked against the sting of saltwater and froze.
The old world.
The yellow paint lining asphalt roads ran like faded scars, dim beneath the veil of drifting silt. Algae clung to the carcasses of silent buildings, while shoals of silver fish wove through rows of abandoned cars. A traffic light tilted sideways, its red glow long dead.
Life had claimed them.
Not the kind she knew. But something much older.
An ophthalmosaurus. Its long, slender rostrum was unmistakable. Its glassy eye fixed on her for a moment before slipping past. Kelcee let out a small laugh, bubbles spilling from her lips.
Impossible. Extinct.
Except it wasn’t.
Overhead, long-necked silhouettes drifted by. Plesiosaurs.
Smaller, armored creatures crawled along the seafloor.
Life from another era thrived within the broken ruins of her own.
Her father was right.
The realization hit harder than the water filling her lungs.
The ocean had taken her world.
But it had also preserved one.
Hidden it.
And she’d just found it.
Her thoughts halted.
Marcell! She looked desperately towards the surface.
A low, guttural growl reverberated from behind her.
Kelcee turned, chest cinched with dread.
A mosasaur.
Its jaws opened, big enough to devour her in one bite.
“Kelcee!”
She didn’t look away.