“And so I was saying to him, why couldn’t he come to mine? It shouldn’t be me who has to travel in the relationship!”

“Hmm.” Kelsie had no idea what this stranger was saying to her. Her gaze was focused on the calm waters. Too calm. They hadn’t had a rough patch for days, and Kelsie had grown to learn the hard way that as soon as things start going well, you need to be on your guard.

The waves swayed back and forth, and the thing whose absence she had been enjoying started again. Classical music danced in Kelsie’s ears, even though nobody was playing it. It was supposed to be soothing, but it only brought her terror. This was it. Something bad was about to happen.

Earth’s eerie soundtrack filled her mind, blocking out all other sounds. Her conscience was scattered, and she couldn’t focus. A variety of sound floated about her head: odd notes out of one of Beethoven’s Symphonies, snippets of trending TikTok audios, fragments of Wii music, and the backing tune of Rick Astley’s most famous song. Kelsie knew this remix. Boss music. Meaning there would be a catastrophe.

A splitting headache drowning out her thoughts, Kelsie didn’t notice the darkening waters until it was too late. “Code Red! Cannons!” she yelled, just as the creature below them struck, rising to its full height and sending the ship flying with the massive waves it caused.

They never reached the cannons.

The screams of the crew as they plummeted down into the raging seas, their last words raw in their throats, were a sound Kelsie would never forget. Five dozen friends, mentors and mentees, gone in the span of five minutes.

They all drowned. Every single one of them.

“Survivor’s guilt,” a young woman whispers to herself ten years later. A decade has dragged by, and she’s finally found the word to describe the hollowness in her chest, that never seems to pass.