At first, he thought it was a trick of his mind.
The dark line on the horizon didn't move, but it didn't disappear either. It floated there like a half-open eyelid in the distance. Samuel rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, careless. They burned. Everything burned. His body, his empty stomach, his throat like sandpaper. But his eyes… they remained fixed on the silhouette.
"No… it can't be just that," he muttered, hoarse.
He had hallucinations before. Voices, smells, drifting memories. But never such a clear image, so sharp, so stubbornly present.
The sea was calmer than ever. Smooth as a mirror. And that calm, for the first time, seemed like an opportunity.
He crawled inside the raft, rummaged through his things. Nothing useful. Only the knife, the notebook, the soaked coat. But the tarp—yes, the cover tarp—was still tied down at one end. With clumsy movements, Samuel managed to untie it, dragged it to one side, and tied it like an improvised sail over the emergency structure.
He didn't know if it would work. But it didn't need to work much. Just a little. Just enough for the wind, however faint, to push him toward what might be land.
He bent down, his body trembling, and cut a loose rope. He tied one end to the knife and held it up like a primitive rudder. It didn't do much, but it helped him imagine he had control. And sometimes, imagining is all that's left.
Hours passed.
The sun rose and fell. The sea remained silent.
But that line… that line on the horizon slowly began to take shape.
It wasn't clouds. It wasn't a reflection. It wasn't a trick.
They were trees.
Green. Dark. Tall.
And below, the clear line of a beach. Thin, white, like a luminous scar between the sea and the vegetation.
Samuel let out a dry, broken laugh, breathless.
"It's land! It's land!" he shouted, though there was no one left to hear him.
He knelt on the raft, his arms trembling to hold himself up. He cried. Not dramatically. Not with wails. The tears fell slowly on their own, sliding down his scorched skin. They tasted salty, but he no longer cared.
The makeshift sail barely billowed. The wind did its part.
The sea did too.
The current pushed him in the right direction.
And for the first time in days, Samuel didn't have to fight against anything.
Just wait.
As he got closer, the island became more real.
The sound of waves breaking against the shore.
The distant song of invisible birds.
The scent of the air changing: less salty, heavier.
Earth.
Wet.
Alive.
He was so close he could smell it.
When the keel of the raft gently scraped the sand, Samuel could hardly believe it.
He looked down. Sand. Solid sand.
He fell to his knees inside the craft. Took a deep, deep breath, as if trying to fill not only his lungs but his entire body with this new air. This air that no longer belonged to the sea.
He let himself fall to one side. The water reached his waist. He stood up, staggering. Every step was a victory. The last meter he walked with arms open wide, like someone passing through a sacred doorway.
And when his feet touched solid ground, he knelt down.
Not out of faith.
Not for ceremony.
Simply because he was alive, and the ground no longer moved beneath him.
He looked at the sky. The same as always. Blue. Clear. Unchanging.
But now, everything had changed.
Samuel Rossi was standing.
Alone.
Hungry.
Dehydrated.
But alive.
Facing an island he didn't know, didn't understand, but which offered him the only promise the sea could not give: a chance.