Page 4 of Lana Pecherczyk

Vague images, fleeting glimpses, and feelings of swimming in an ocean trying to swallow her whole.

“Two feet and a heartbeat,” she rasped, willing herself to focus. “I’m alive.”

But not in Perth. Not near the Swan River. Squinting against the harsh light, she surveyed the foreign landscape. White sand stretched to meet a turquoise ocean. No yachts. No Elizabeth Quay. No familiar city skyline. Instead, the beach gave way to a rolling, grassy hill.

A seagull’s cry pierced the air. Large, flat rocks baking in the sun were scattered across the shore. The sky above was impossibly blue, the air crisp and clean.

Maybe I drifted downriver somehow, she thought, grasping at logic. Wherever this was, the nuclear winter hadn’t touched it.

She needed to tell her husband.

A crow cawed overhead, and the memory slammed into her. Jeff on a boat—without Blake. She glanced down at her rusty phone. Had he really sailed off into the sunset, leaving her stranded while the world was ending? Frantically, she tapped the screen, pressed buttons, and even tried speaking to it. “Oi, Siri. It’s me, Blake.” No answer. “Where the bloody hell are you?”

Silence.

Only her haggard, mascara-streaked reflection stared back.

Everything came crashing down. Tears stung her eyes. Emotion threatened to choke her. She swallowed hard and hit the phone with her fist. “Don’t do this to me, Siri. Come on, you bugger.”

A clash of voices drifted over the grassy embankment. She tilted her head, focusing on the sound. A crowd. Thank god. Someone might have a charger. Maybe Jeff made it out, too. Maybe that yacht business was all a weird dream because he would never leave her alone when the world was?—

No.

The world was still here. That in itself meant something was wrong with her memory. They’d joked about an apocalypse, and the fallout was all anyone spoke about on social media. But her father always said Perth was the most isolated city on Earth. If any place survived a nuclear winter, it would be them.

The world hadn’t ended. Her dad and brothers were somewhere laughing. Her husband hadn’t said she lacked substance. He hadn’t sailed away.

That was all a continuation of the same weird dream. It had to be.

But what if it wasn’t…

“Charger,” she mumbled, then coughed up more hot, thick goop. “Ew, gross.”

Wiping her mouth, she staggered up the embankment. Keep walking. Keep moving. Two feet. But her heart was sluggish. Her limbs were heavy. She just wanted to go back to sleep, to take it easy on one of those warm rocks, like the mermaid farther down the beach.

Blake stopped. Blinked.

What?

She blinked again. Was that … a … “Yeah … nah.”

It couldn’t be a mermaid. Must have been a brain fart. Because if it were anything else, she had hit her head too hard or accidentally swallowed a gallon of salt water.

Blake slowly turned around.

There, lounging on a rock, was a beautiful woman with iridescent skin, her blue-green tail dipping lazily into the water. Long, wet, coppery hair covered her perky breasts. Her delicate eyes were closed as if daydreaming, one arm dangling over the edge, fingers twirling idly in the water.

A scene plucked from a fairytale.

“Not real,” Blake mumbled.

She rubbed her eyes, breathed fresh air, and looked again. Hysterical laughter bubbled out when she saw nothing but ocean, sand, and an empty rock.

“It’s just a mirage,” she told herself.

A flying crow looped around, drawing her eye before disappearing over the embankment. Following the bird, Blake continued up the slope. A vast, glimmering citadel came into view as she crested the top. The ocean tunneled into estuariesthrough a patrolled citadel gate where soldiers in embroidered red and gold uniforms checked all who entered.

Her jaw dropped at the millions of tiny, swarming balls of light trapped inside the citadel’s glass fortification wall. Outside it, unmistakable cries of hawkers came from a bustling marketplace. Colorful canopies and carts glimmered with reflected light from the trapped, buzzing orbs nearby, shielding people from the glare.