Yasu crouched, bare fingers trailing through pale sand. Heat radiated through the fine grains, almost too hot for his skin to bear, but he didn't move his hand away. Instead, he stared ahead at the unchanging seas covering the horizon.
In some ways, the water was quite pretty. Deep emerald undertones mingled with blues, especially where the sun reached them, and in the shadowed areas beneath the clouds, the colors became more mysterious with veils of gray settling upon the waves.
If this was another world with different circumstances, Yasu would have appreciated the view. He'd grown up on overcrowded shores, watching as the once beautiful oceans of his homeland became polluted and toxic. To be able to experience what the oceans might have been like centuries ago, before humans came along and ruined it all, was something of a dream. Or so he'd thought, when they first crashed into the Sands five years ago.
A bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face. It melted into the strip of cloth he'd tied over his mouth and nose, adding a small bit of dampness that would soon evaporate in the heat. The lids of his eyes lowered a little, and his hand abruptly clenched in the sand. Hot grit slipped from the cracks between his fingers, scraping past skin to fall free in a shower of gold.
"Yasu."
He twisted, looking up as a shadow fell across him. She stood there, barefoot in the sand despite its radiant heat. Unlike the others, she didn't hide from the sun. She only wore a thin dress, a shapeless bag that hung off her in an unflattering way. Yet it could not mar how her mahogany skin glowed, or how her dark eyes sparked with an inner fire. She kept her head shaved because of the lice that had grown rampant in the shelter, a practical solution compared to the other women who spent hours each day combing through their hair.
"Maya." He gave her a curt nod and returned his attention back to the sea. But the way his voice came out betrayed him, for it was as soft as the faint breeze coming off the sea.
She sat beside him, her legs tucked beneath her. In her hands, she cradled the silver vial he'd brought. One of her thumbs gently ran across the smooth surface. "Thank you."
He didn't say anything. But he looked at her from the corner of his eye and saw the wistful smile tugging at her lips. She wasn't looking at the seas, but at him.
Yasu went very still. He could feel the same tug in his chest, stronger than it had ever been, but he stayed rooted where he was. He listened to the distant wash of the waves lapping at the sandy shore. He felt the steady thud-thump of his heart, felt the oppressive heat surround him in an oven that squeezed the sweat out of his pores.
The Sands was a horrible place. People couldn't live here. They could only survive. Yet it was the only place left untouched by the seas. It was the last hope they had.
