Ethan Cross woke with salt in his mouth and blood in his hair.
For a long second, he didn't move.
The sky above him was a hard, blazing blue, and every breath scraped his throat like sandpaper.
Then memory slammed back.
The cruise ship.
The screaming.
The wave.
He forced himself up and looked around.
Wreckage littered the shoreline—splintered wood, torn luggage, broken seats, life jackets half-buried in wet sand. Bodies lay scattered across the beach, twisted by the sea, silent under the sun.
His stomach turned, but he swallowed it down.
Shock could wait.
Grief could wait.
If he wanted to live, everything could wait.
"Water…" he rasped, voice cracked.
No answer.
Only wind and surf.
Ethan stumbled forward, knees shaking. He checked one suitcase, then another—clothes, makeup, useless junk. He kept moving, faster now, scanning like a machine.
A bottle.
Half full.
He unscrewed it with trembling fingers and drank too fast, choking as water ran down his chin. It tasted warm and plastic and perfect.
"Thank God…"
He wiped his mouth, breathing hard. The sun was high. Heat shimmered off the sand. If he stayed exposed, dehydration would kill him before nightfall.
That was when he heard it.
"…help…"
Weak. Far. Barely human.
Ethan froze, then turned toward the sound.
Again—faint, broken.
"Help…"
He ran.
Around a ridge of black rock, he found her half-buried in sand and seaweed, one arm pinned under driftwood. She looked to be in her twenties, pale and shaking, lips dry and cracked.
"Hey. Stay with me," Ethan said, dropping to his knees.
Her eyes fluttered open. "Don't… leave me…"
"I'm not leaving."
He shoved the driftwood aside, freeing her arm. She cried out but grabbed his shirt with surprising strength.
"My name's Lena," she whispered.
"Ethan."
He gave her a careful sip from the bottle, then looked back at the beach, at the dead, at the broken world they'd washed into.
No rescue ships on the horizon.
No helicopters.
No miracle.
Just sun, salt, and silence.
Lena followed his stare and began to cry quietly.
Ethan's jaw tightened.
"We're going to live," he said, more to himself than to her. "But from now on, we do what keeps us alive. No hesitation."
Behind them, waves dragged more debris onto shore.
Ahead of them, the island waited.