You don't remember the war. But you will always remember the wave that ended it.
You faintly remember clutching a stuffed doll to your chest. Someone is shaking your shoulder to wake up. The room is dark. You open your eyes to see that it is your mother. She looks worried. Before you can say anything, the doors burst open, and servants flood inside with even paler faces. They tell you both to dress yourself and flee while you still can. All across the gleaming city of Antium, people are holding their loved ones close or in a panic to move farther inland before it's too late. Away from the sea. That is all they tell you over and over again.
Away from the sea. Away from the sea. Like a silent prayer, the words followed them through the halls. As if saying them enough times could somehow make them true. Enough to keep the ocean at bay.
"We're safe this far inland, your nanny tells you with a reassuring smile. "We're far away from the coast, but still, it never hurts to be careful." She smiles when she says it. And you trust that smile. She is a kind old walrus who has cared for you for as long as you can remember. You've spent countless afternoons hiding beneath the dining table together, building forts from tablecloths and playing with more toys than any child could ever need. You think her fearless. It is her eyes that you have looked to for warmth almost every day this past year, while mother has not been herself, refusing to eat or even come out of her room. Yet today something feels different. Your nanny keeps smiling for you. But her eyes say something different instead. Every few moments, they glance toward the windows. And despite all her promises that everything will be alright, she looks afraid.
And that makes you afraid.
Your mother dresses you both in nightclothes, not wasting precious time you don't have on extravagance. She packs quickly, taking jewels and wealth, and anything she can to help start a new life. She may not have much to live for anymore. But she will live to ensure you do. Her only daughter. You're tired and groggy and still not understanding of everything around you that is happening. All this chaos. You ask question after question as you rub your weary eyes. Why are we awake? Why is everyone scared? But she can't waste time on an answer. Bored, you wind your favorite music box of two birds and watch as it plays its soft simple melody, arms folded atop a nightstand while the adults work. The last sliver of happiness as the world burns around you. The gentle song is soon drowned out by air raid sirens.
Your mother drags you by the arm in a final desperate dash for life itself across a grand hall to reach the shuttle in time or at least the bunker with more soldiers than you've ever seen before accompanying you both. As you sprint, still half dazed from being roused, you can see the familiar towering stained glass windows of past emperors staring down at you both. Towering, larger-than-life men who resemble your father.
Their eyes seem to follow and glare at you as your mother pulls you by the wrist. Their serious faces frighten you. But not as much as the loud noises do. You wish it would stop.
Suddenly, you are all knocked to your feet as an even louder sound like thunder rattles the world beneath you and sends cracks to seep throughout the white marble walls. It rattles your very bones. You hear the air raid sirens begin to blare even louder in the distance. You stare, confused and frightened, beyond the cold glass monarchs as they shake from the impact out across the vast icy city landscape, which pales in comparison to what is coming. Far away, a lone speck is dropped from a passing plane and is swallowed into the sea. Hardly anybody sees it.
The air raids go silent. There is no point any longer.
Beyond the harbor, the sea slowly rises.
For one impossible heartbeat, the sky itself is gone.
The wave rises higher and higher on the horizon. Until there is no horizon.
Nothing like it has ever been seen before on this planet.
Your mother and the soldiers rush to shield you with their bodies and wings but they don't reach you in time. The brief moment before you are cast in this final darkness, you just stare in confused awe at why this is happening. Why it had to happen. You watch frozen in place as the wall of water swallows your entire world and blankets everything in darkness, before finally hitting its intended target. You feel. Scarred.
It all happens so fast, yet to you it seems eternity as all time freezes and your world crumbles around you. You remember clutching your stuffed doll so tightly its stitched wing nearly tore loose. The wave is etched into your memory forever, and there it will remain forever still. You and your mother were both sent here for your own protection she tells you, but even here is not safe. She has realized this only too late when nothing can be done to stop it.
You remember dropping the doll.
You hear your mother scream your name for what she thinks is the last time as the water rushes in through the windows to engulf and food the palace halls you've played through a thousand times like a torrential dispassionate beast, filling every room, every bedchamber, every crevice it can reach as your music box is carried out to sea still playing it's last song with no one to hear it. You remember the fear etched on her face as she flies towards you, her hand outstretched, begging you to take it.
You remember the ceiling collapses in on itself and falls. You remember the sight of your maid throwing herself toward you and shoving you aside. A heartbeat later, a falling pillar crushed her instead of you. Her last words told you to look away from the window. You don't listen. You regret that choice. In one final cruel act, the sheer impact sends the broken stained glass shards of your family legacy to hurl through the air towards you like a thousand reflective knives. You can see your own fear staring back at you.
It is the last thing you ever see.