The Tides That Bind Us [AfroFuturism]

Life's A Chore

Zaharah rolled over and squinted at the clock on her desk. Three am, the witching hour, her favourite. A time for inspiration, her mother used to call it. Or it was, back when the nights were shorter and her dreams longer.

She hadn't gotten a full eight hours since her last surgery. No matter what time she went to bed, five hours later she was awake and alert. At first she blamed the night terrors. Those times when she closed her eyes, and the waters rose over her head. Bits and pieces of metal would drift by, singing in high pitches like tortured souls – a little song called Your Whole World Is Going To Shit And All You Can Do Is Watch. And that was the worst part. The watching. The powerlessness. Having to sit and do nothing while everything was on fire and sinking into oblivion at the same time.

She shook the thoughts from her head and fished her phone from amongst the sheets. A message alert from Pharahdox blinked on her dash, a request for samples of her work. Still no reply from Dwight. She pulled up the app and her conversation with Cammi filled the screen, unplayed audio message at the bottom.

Her finger drifted over the little black triangle and she reached blindly with her free hand for her headset. Other things needed her attention, like the message from Pharahdox, unfinished paintings and assignments.

But Cammi had sent and left her some... intriguing things so far, and she wanted to unlock the secrets hidden behind the black triangle. Rip the bandaid off. She pressed play, and prolonged beep filled her ear, stretching for a few seconds before it hit a wall of silence.

Hello? Hurakan are you there?

Zaharah dropped her phone, and it fell smack on her face, but the pain didn't register.

Dad? Quelle? Anyone? A pause. Jade and I are all right. We washed up near some place called Denden Isle. We're at latitude 23.86 north and longitude 74.58 west. Just... let us know y'all are okay. Another long beep and the audio ended.

The silence buzzed in her ears, and darkness closed in on her, consumed the light from her phone, from the desk clock. It fell on her chest, a heavy weight threatening to crush her. She tossed the sheets aside and swung her legs out of the bed. The cold floor grounded her in reality, chased away the dread clawing at the edges of her mind. She could deny the video, but not that. That was her in the recording, her frantic quavering voice, an octave higher like it always got when she was upset.

But, like the video, she remembered none of it, and it didn't make sense. Jade wasn't with her during the accident. She'd known nothing of a Denden Isle until she woke up on it after the accident. Either this was a carefully doctored collection of sound bites. Or someone in this bitch needed to explain to her what's going on.

Zaharah rubbed her eyes. Nothing could be done about it at this hour. Control the things you can. She responded to Pharahdox's text with a link to her digital gallery and tossed the phone back on the bed.

The watercolour piece she'd started still sat on her desk, long dried and ready to be finished. She flipped on the desk lamp, set up her palette and brushes and fetched a clean tub of water from the kitchen. It was easy to forget the world when she painted, lose herself in the colours. Her hand carried the brush from the water to the palette to the canvas almost of its own volition. A little blue here, some pink there, add some grey.

Sometime during the process, Skorpi got up from his charging pad to watch. And she worked until the HID lights beyond the window brightened and slanted through the blinds, speckling her desk with drops of white light.

Zaharah set the brush in the tub and sat back to admire her handiwork. Or scowl at it rather. Too dark and yet too plain. A bottle with a crumbling island trapped inside. Gnarled hands rose from grey black waters to tear away chucks of earth and rip buildings from their foundations.