The water kept rising. The sirens kept wailing. Somewhere above them, he could hear people shouting, running, the sounds of evacuation continuing without them. But the stairwell was emptying. The last of the students had climbed higher. The teachers had gone with them. The floor beneath them was emptying out, the chaos moving upward, leaving them behind.
Soon there was no one left. Just the two of them, and the water, and the silence that had settled between the waves.
Lily leaned her head against his shoulder. Her breathing was uneven. He could feel her trembling.
"Remember when I broke my arm?" she asked.
The question came out of nowhere. It was so ordinary, so human, that for a moment he forgot where they were.
"Which time?" he said.
"The first time. At the park. I was trying to climb that tree you said was too high."
"You fell out of it."
"I fell out of it." A small smile touched her lips. "Mom ran across the whole field with her coffee still in her hand. She didn't even realize she was still holding it until she tried to pick me up."
He remembered. His mother's face, pale with panic. The coffee spilling across the grass. The way she held Lily so tight she almost made it worse.
"She made you promise never to climb trees again," he said.
"She made you promise to watch me better."
"I did watch you."
"You were looking at your phone."
He almost laughed. It caught in his throat and came out as something else, something close to a sob. "Okay. Maybe I was looking at my phone."
The water was closer now. He could feel it against his shoes. Cold. Patient.
"Do you remember the beach?" Lily asked. Her voice was softer now. Tired. "The summer before Dad left. You built that sandcastle. The big one with the towers."
"It was terrible."
"It was perfect." She shifted against him, her hand finding his. "You spent all afternoon on it. And then the tide came in and washed it away. And you just stood there watching it. You didn't even get mad. You said it was okay because you knew how to build it now."
He squeezed her hand. "I was nine. I didn't know anything."
"You knew that things end. And that it's okay when they do." She paused. "I didn't understand that then. I cried for an hour."
"You cried for everything."
"I did not."
"You cried when that stray cat ran away from you."
"That cat was mean."
"He was just scared."
They were quiet for a moment. The water was at his ankles now. He could feel it soaking through his shoes, cold and heavy. He didn't look at it. He looked at her.
"Lily."
"Don't." Her voice cracked. "Don't say it's going to be okay."
"I wasn't going to."
"Good." She swallowed. "Because it's not okay. And I don't want you to lie to me. Not now."
He nodded slowly. "Okay."
She looked at him. Her eyes were wet, but she wasn't crying. Not yet. "Remember when you used to sneak into my room after nightmares? You'd sit on the floor next to my bed and tell me stories until I fell asleep."
"You told me to stop when I was twelve."
"I lied." A tear slipped down her cheek. "I always slept better when you were there."
He reached out and brushed the tear away with his thumb. His hand was shaking. He didn't know when that started.
"I'm here now," he said.
She smiled. It was small and broken and real. "I know."
The water was at their knees now. The cold was spreading upward, seeping through their clothes, making everything heavy. Above them, the building groaned again, a long, low sound like something waking up.
Zane looked toward the window at the end of the hallway. The glass was cracked, webbed with fractures. Through it, he could see the sky. Gray and endless. And beyond the sky, rising above the rooftops, a wall of water.
It was coming again. There was no running from it. No climbing high enough. No place left to go.
He didn't tell Lily. He didn't have to. She was looking too.
Her hand tightened around his.
"Zane," she whispered.
He turned to her. Her face was wet, but she wasn't looking at the wave anymore. She was looking at him.
"Tell me something," she said. "Something true."
He thought about it. The wave was close now. He could hear it, a low roar building in the distance, growing louder with every second.
"I'm scared," he said.
She nodded slowly. "Me too."
"I don't want to lose you."
"You won't." Her voice was steady. Stronger than it should have been. "You're right here."
The roar was getting louder. The building was shaking. Water was splashing up around them, the first spray of what was coming.
He pulled her closer. She leaned into him, her head against his chest, her arms wrapped around him like she was trying to hold him together.
"I love you," he said. His voice broke on the words. "I never said it enough. But I love you. You're my sister and I love you."
She was crying now. He could feel it against his shirt. "I know," she whispered. "I know, Zane. I love you too."
The wave filled the window. The glass shattered. Water poured toward them, dark and endless, filling the hallway, blocking out the light.
He closed his eyes. She closed hers. He held her as tight as he could, waiting for the cold, waiting for the end.
The impact never came.
Something changed. The air shifted. The roar of the wave, so loud it had drowned out everything else, suddenly sounded different. Wrong. Like it was being pulled apart.
Zane opened his eyes.
Light. Everywhere. White and gold and soft, filling the hallway like morning breaking through clouds. The wave was still there, but it wasn't moving. It hung in the air, frozen, suspended, and in the center of it stood something that didn't belong to this world.
It was a body made of light. Human-shaped but not human. It glowed from within, warm and constant, and as it moved, the wave parted around it like water around a stone. The smell of lilies filled the air. Sweet and clean and familiar, though he couldn't say why.
The light moved faster than thought. One moment it was in the wave. The next it was beside them. Arms of light wrapped around him and Lily, lifting them like they weighed nothing. The wall behind them shattered. Not from force, but from presence, as if the light had simply decided the wall shouldn't be there anymore.
Wind rushed past them. The building fell away. The water fell away. The whole world became a blur of gray and white, and then—
They were somewhere else. High up. A skyscraper, half-ruined, its windows blown out, its steel frame exposed to the sky. The city sprawled below them, drowning, dying, but here, in this empty floor, there was only silence. Only the two of them, and the light.
Zane tried to speak. To thank whoever—whatever—had saved them.
But the light was already fading. Shrinking. Pulling inward like a dying star. For a moment, it lingered, a soft glow in the center of the room, warm and gentle and so, so sad.
Then it was gone.
And Zane was left holding his sister on the floor of a broken building, the smell of lilies still in his hair, his heart still pounding, his mind still trying to understand what he had just seen.
Lily stirred in his arms. "Zane?" Her voice was small. Frightened. "What happened?"
He looked down at her. At her face, still wet with tears, still alive.
"I don't know," he said. And for the first time, the words didn't feel like a confession of failure. They felt like the beginning of something else. Something he didn't have a name for yet.
Outside, the water continued to rise. The city continued to drown. But they were alive. They were together.
And somewhere in the light that had saved them, in the smell of lilies that still clung to his skin, there was a question. A mystery. A truth waiting to be found.
He held his sister tighter and waited for the world to stop shaking.