It was cold. The wind whipped through the air, tugging at Djai’s clothes and snapping his hair back and forth. He could smell salt and decaying plants, leading him to suspect that he was close to the sea. The ground all around him was sandy but he stood in a low depression preventing him from seeing very far in any direction. Ahead of him, rising above the rest of the sandy dunes, was a hill. The sun was setting behind it, casting the entire area into a stark silhouette that prevented him from being able to make out very much detail about the hill. It was the only place where the ground seemed more solid since there was a tree growing up at the top of the hill.

With nothing better to go off of, Djai began slogging through the sand towards the hill. His feet sank and slid through the sand. He’d only just noticed how odd it was that, considering how windy it was, he wasn’t getting any sand in his eyes. Of course, as soon as he’d thought about it, the sand began to be tossed up and thrown around in the wind. His eyes burned and stung as the fine grains stuck to his eyes and he was forced to stop and rub his eyes clear before continuing onward, now with his eyes squinted almost shut.

The hill grew larger and larger in his vision as he fought his way through the sandstorm. It was a relief to his tired legs and ankles when he felt the first step on solid ground. The hill wasn’t perfectly solid, with sand drifting along its sides wherever it found purchase. Those drifts were easy enough to avoid, and even the few times Djai did stumble into one it was never very large.

He’d hoped the sun would set behind the hill while he walked so he could see more clearly. Between the sand and the sun, he was practically blind by the time he reached the top. Sweat was beading on his skin and the sand stuck to it eagerly. He gave up trying to rub his brow clean since his hands were so covered in sand now that any attempt to brush the sand away was an exercise in futility.

Djai rested an arm on the trunk of the tree and knew at once something was wrong with it. The surface was too smooth, too cool to the touch, to be any sort of tree he had ever come across. He tried to get a clearer look at it, shielding his eyes as best he could from the sand and the sun.

With quite a bit of shock and confusion, he saw that the tree was purple. Not that the leaves were purple, but that the entire thing was purple. More than that, it was translucent as though made from glass or plastic. He tapped on it and decided it was most likely the latter of the two.

“Hello?” Djai whispered hopefully.

He waited. Could he be dreaming? Or could this be real? It was so difficult to tell these days. In either case, she could be here.

“Are you here?” he asked.

That’s when he saw her. Or at least he saw her reflection on the tree, staring at him. There was longing in her eyes. Djai felt it as well, though for a different reason.

“I know what you want,” he told her reflection, “But I can’t help you, no one can.”

She began to turn away, a tear on her cheek.

“No wait! Please,” Djai cried out. “You could stay with me, look,” he added and pointed out towards the setting sun where he could now make out the waves of the sea. “We could leave this place, sail away to wherever we wanted.”

The woman turned her gaze towards the sea and Djai could tell she was considering it. The longer she stood there, the calmer the winds became and the less painful the sun seemed to his eyes. Even his body ached less from the time he’d spent trekking through the sand and climbing up the hill.

“I can’t,” she said. “I have to keep trying.”

She turned and was gone before Djai could respond. The winds returned in full force and the sun’s brilliance burned once more into his eyes. He shut his eyes tightly, keeping his hand on the fake tree for balance. How long had it been since they’d been like this? He had no way of telling how much time had passed. Neither of them did, he suspected, although perhaps she knew and that was why she still refused to join him. Maybe hardly any time at all had elapsed. Maybe centuries had gone by.

Djai slumped down to his knees and felt the cool splash of water. It lapped over his legs and then receded. A moment later it returned, washing over him, cresting at his stomach before flowing away once more. He was so tired, as if he’d been walking for hours. He opened his eyes and the stars winked and twinkled above, surrounding the crescent moon in the dark purple sky. It was cold and the sea spray was quickly draining him of whatever warmth he had built up from the physical exertion.

Looking behind him, he could just make out the distant hill with the fake tree. As another wave rushed over his legs, this time reaching halfway up his chest, Djai pushed himself up and stepped out of the surf. She wouldn’t be there if he returned. He couldn’t have gone back even if he’d wanted to. That wasn’t how things worked. Not anymore at least.

Another wave crashed down on him, this time up to his neck. It caught him by surprise since he had stepped back from the shore but after recovering from his initial shock he realized he ought to have known better. The waves would keep coming he realized, always higher on him than before, regardless of whether he sat or stood. The next wave rose up high and Djai braced himself. It swept over him, throwing him backwards and tumbling him through the water. He was pressed down hard into the sand but it didn’t last long. Soon enough the water receded and he sucked in a fresh breath of air. Before another wave could come, he scrambled forward towards the waters edge and began to swim out to sea. As the waves crested he rode them with his body and was able to keep his head above the water.

Djai kept swimming, kept riding wave after wave, but each wave was bigger than the one before it. If this kept up he would soon be drowned by insurmountable waves. A dull acceptance of the reality of the situation began to set in. When the next wave came he didn’t try stay on top of it. The force of the water spun him about and drove him downward, deep into the crushing cold of the sea. His muscles ached and his ears popped as the pressure increased. The air in his lungs seemed to shrink and he knew it wouldn’t be long before he lost consciousness.

Still spinning out of control, his shoulder struck something solid. His head followed suit and he heard the distinct reverberation of metal. The water was too dark, too full of silt and debris from the churning ocean, for him to see anything, but as his hands quested outward he found the smooth surface of something definitely made of metal. Even more surprising was the handle he found. He gripped it just in time as the next wave crashed overhead and the downward force would have surely carried him away had he not been clinging on so tightly. He found another handle, and then another. What he’d initially thought to have been just few strange hand holds turned out to be a ladder and he used it to pull himself further along. With how much pressure there was, he had no way of knowing which way was up and which way was down. All he knew was that it must lead to somewhere.

At last he reached the end of the ladder. He felt around with his hand for something, anything else that would help him. His head was growing fuzzy and spots were flashing in his vision even though his eyes were shut tight. He’d been holding his breath for much longer than he thought he could manage, especially considering how much stress he was under, but nonetheless he fought to remain conscious.

Finally, he found what felt like an opening in the metal surface and he swam into it. Immediately his head burst out of the water and hot air greeted him. He gasped and shivered as he struggled to pull himself up into the metal structure. His arms and legs shook uncontrollably for some time while he lay there on the floor, soaking wet and barely aware of anything around himself.

When he felt strong enough to sit up, he slid himself over to the wall and began to pull off his wet clothes. The room was pleasantly warm and he hoped that his clothes would dry quickly. Although, the room was also quite humid so feared that his hopes would be in vain.

Shewas there. He could see her, again only as a reflection, in the puddle of water that surrounded him.

“How are you?” she asked with real concern.

“I’ve been worse,” he told her.

“You’ve also looked better.”

Djai shrugged. He had almost stopped shivering now that his wet clothes were off of him. The metal radiated significant amounts of heat and was incredibly efficient at warming him back up.

“I found us a boat, I think,” he said in mild gest.

“You don’t know how to operate it,” she replied.

“You could help me,” he said, and this time without any hint of humor.

“You know I can’t,” she said even though both of them knew that was a lie.

“Everything’s easier when you’re here,” he told her. “The winds, the waves, everything is calmer when you’re near.”

“I’m more than just your personal panacea!” she snapped at him. “There are other things I want, other things I need to do besides being near you.”

Djai hung his head.

“I know,” he admitted. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

She sighed and rubbed her face with her hand. They were both tired, he realized.

“Neither of us can stop this,” he said. “Not on our own.”

“You don’t know that,” she said without certainty. “But I do know that if I give up, if I join you, then it will definitely never stop.”

“Which is better?” he asked her. “Spending eternity apart like this, only ever having glimpses of what we could have? Or accepting how things are and at least having each other through it all?”

She stared at him for a long while this time. The weight of the struggle showing plainly on her face. Eventually she turned away again, shaking her head, and was gone.

Djai wanted to pound his fists into the floor, to shout and rage, yet all he managed to do was slump a little further down along the wall. Everything ached still and he was so tired. He seemed to be safe enough in this place for the time being so he allowed himself to drift off into sleep. In his dreams there was no relief from the curse that plagued him but at least there his body could rest. At least there he could dream of her and the way things might have been, or perhaps the way things had once been. Those were the dreams he sought after, the reason he still allowed himself to dream. For every thousand nightmares there was one shining, golden dream, and it was for those that he longed for, that he lived for.