Alvar stood on the side of the ship staring out over the water. The sea was calm and the sunrise made the sky glow with a warm orange hue. In the distance, huge trees could be seen rising through a layer of sea fog. They had left the Gulf of Kapoor only 2 days prior and they were sailing south to the land of Aiya, the land of the dead, to dump bodies into the great ocean trenches. Alvar thought of his sister and the few fleeting memories he had of her. He thought of how beautiful she had been with her red hair and green eyes. He remembered how they had danced together in the water in their home-town Quain and how they had played between the rocks. He remembered how she had disappeared and pretended to be a siren before dragging him under the waves. He had remembered how he had screamed and then laughed. The sea around Alvar grew rough as he gazed into the distance and he remembered the tsunami. He remembered how everyone had run in fear and how his sister had grabbed his hand as the water rushed towards them. He had only been 6 and she had only been 10 when they had been engulfed by the tsunami and sucked into the sea. Now, in present days, when Alvar closed his eyes he was back in the deepwater of the ocean. There was only darkness and silence but he knew that somewhere close by was his sister and that she would stay with him until they were both safe. He felt free of all the bounds of the world around them and almost like he was frozen in time. Every night Alvar would drift in that water as nothing more than part of the sea.

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Then he would wake just as he had done after the tsunami. On the slave ship, scared and alone. Alvar was now 12 years old and he had woken up every day the same. Every day he would wake up in his hammock and look to the side. For a moment he would glimpse his sister there, a ray of sunlight resting upon her as she moved silently in the invisible water. Then the rocking of the ship and the creaking of the wood would melt the vision away to reveal another slave lying on a hammock. Every morning, a tear would leave Alvar’s eye and drop onto his tattoo that marked the life he now knew.

He would never forget Amber and the sea that had held them both so gently in its arms.