Chapter Four: "The Sea and the Shore"
He opened his eyes slowly.
The light seeped through his eyelids as if dragging him from a heavy sleep into a harsher reality. Its warmth was strange—orange tinged with gold—gleaming in a sky that seemed unusually clear. But this warmth did not welcome him. It only sharpened the pain that seized his body, as if the sun's rays were reminding every wound of its place.
He felt the roughness of damp sand beneath his face. It was cold, wet, like a blanket of stones dipped in seawater. The sea wind struck his face like repeated slaps, waking him more than he wanted. The smell of salt was heavy.
He did not move at first. He lay still, listening.
The sound of waves breaking slowly on the shore. Strange birds chirping in the distance, their voices unlike any birds he knew. Not the cry of seagulls he was accustomed to on the shores of his homeland. These were deeper, longer, as if carrying meanings he could not grasp. And the whisper of the wind, as if carrying vague words he could not interpret.
Everything here seemed different. Everything seemed… strange. So strange that he wondered for a moment: Am I still alive? Or is this what death is like?
— "Where am I?" he whispered to himself.
The word emerged from his throat hoarse, barely audible, as if his tongue had not spoken in a long time. His throat was dry, aching, as if the word had carved its way with difficulty through a desert of thirst.
He raised his head with effort. Every muscle ached, every bone groaned, even his breaths seemed to pass through tiny knives. He looked around.
No one.
An endless shore stretching in both directions. A sea withdrawing and returning in silence, as if breathing. Soft white sand, touched only by his footsteps. No trace of a boat, no wreckage, no people. The place was empty, as if the world had stopped here alone, as if everything he had known before was merely a prelude to this emptiness.
Fear crept into his chest like cold smoke, pressing on his breath until he nearly suffocated. He tried to recall what had happened. The boat… the storm… Fouad's voice screaming his name… the wave rising… and the darkness swallowing everything.
Then he woke suddenly.
He clenched his fist around the sand, its grains sticking to his salt-damp hand. He whispered bitterly to himself:
— "Was everything I lived through just an illusion? Just a long dream?"
But his body refused this explanation. The pain was real. The wounds were real. The exhaustion was real. The dryness in his throat was real. The sand beneath his fingernails was real. It was not an illusion, nor a dream. It was something else. A reality he did not understand.
He sat up slowly, his chest rising and falling heavily. He looked at the sea for a long time. It was calm now, as if it had swallowed nothing. As if it had stolen nothing from him. As if the waves that had overturned the boat, that had swallowed Fouad and the passengers, were merely a distant memory that did not concern it.
He turned behind him. No one. Fouad, the passengers, even the small pieces of wood that should have been floating. No trace of anything. Only a silence that weighed on the ears—a cold, harsh silence, the silence of the sea that does not care.
— "Am… am I the only survivor?"
The words stuck in his throat. The thought was heavy, like a rock settling on his chest. And Fouad? Had Fouad drowned? Had he disappeared like the others? Had the sea kept his friend in the depths and cast him out alone onto this unknown shore?
He did not know. He did not want to know. Because if he knew, if he confirmed it, what would he do with that certainty?
He took hesitant steps along the shore. The sand swallowed his feet easily, as if wanting to pull him in. He stopped at the water's edge, where small waves broke. He bent down, searching for any trace. Anything. A piece of the boat, a shoe, a shirt, a water bottle—any evidence that what had happened was real. Any evidence that Fouad had once been here.
But there was nothing.
As if the sea had decided to swallow everything and leave him alone to face its emptiness. As if it were saying to him: You are the only one. Only you.
He swallowed hard, his heart pounding wildly. He looked at the waves receding and returning, receding and returning, in an eternal, unchanging rhythm. He thought of Fouad—his laugh, his silence, the hand he had reached out to him in the final moment.
Had he truly reached out to him? Or had that been part of the dream as well?
— "I can't… I can't be alone like this."
His feelings were mixed. Deep sorrow for those he had lost, confusion about what had happened, terror of this unknown place. But deep down, there was something else. Something light, strange, that he did not want to acknowledge. Happiness. A stupid, foolish happiness—for being alive. For still breathing. For standing here, on this shore, beneath this strange sky.
He was ashamed of this feeling. But it was there.
But the sea remained silent. No answer. Only waves breaking on the shore, whispering to him that he was alone. Only sand stretching endlessly, confirming that he was a stranger.
He raised his head to the sky. The sun was rising slowly, scattered clouds gleaming with golden threads. The view was beautiful. So beautiful. But it was frightening at the same time—a beauty that did not belong to humans. A beauty of another world. A world that knew nothing of his sorrow, nor his fear, nor Fouad.
He turned toward the forest.
And here, his anxiety deepened.
The trees were colossal. Their trunks wider than any building he had ever seen, stretching upward until they nearly touched the sky. Their leaves were massive, broad, some glowing with a faint light, as if they held part of the sun within them. They were not merely trees. They seemed alive in a strange way. As if they were breathing. As if they were watching.
The air emanating from them was heavy—a mixture of damp earth and suffocating humidity, as if mold and dew gathered in the same moment. As for the birds' sounds, they were unfamiliar. Fragmented melodies, closer to language than to song. As if the birds here were speaking. As if they were warning. As if they were saying something he could not understand.
He felt cold seeping into his very marrow, despite the sun's warmth on his face.
— "What forest is this? Where am I, for heaven's sake? Am I in a dream again?"
He tried to laugh sarcastically, to lighten the weight of fear with a mocking chuckle:
— "Perhaps I've come to an island from a fantasy novel… can this be real?"
But the laugh did not last. It turned into a heavy sigh. It was not a fantasy island. It was not a film. He was here. Alone. And he did not know what to do.
---
He began walking along the shore.
He was searching for an end—a cave, a river, any sign of life.
But the shore stretched on mercilessly. As if he were walking in an endless circle. At some moments, he thought he saw footprints ahead. His heart raced; he quickened his pace. But as he approached, the tracks disappeared. As if the sand had deceived him, or as if the tracks had never existed. Or as if something had erased them moments before he arrived.
Perhaps someone had passed this way before him. Perhaps there were other survivors. Perhaps Fouad was…
He stopped thinking. It was useless. Thinking did not bring back the dead. Did not bring back the drowned.
He stopped suddenly when he spotted something small glinting at the water's edge. He bent down and picked it up.
It was a smooth stone, strangely shaped. In its center was a thin line, like a letter or a symbol. But it belonged to no language he knew. Not Arabic, not English, not French. Something strange, ancient, unlike anything he had seen in his life. As if it were written in a language from before humans existed.
Nothing here seemed familiar. Neither the sea, nor the sand, nor the forest, nor this stone.
He examined it for a few seconds. Then he felt a shiver run through his arm. As if the stone itself were pulsing. A faint, deep pulse, as if it had a heart. As if it were alive.
Sudden fear seized him. He threw the stone quickly, as if he had grabbed a burning ember. He stood staring at where it had fallen, his heart pounding. He heard it hit the sand, then nothing. The stone returned to its silence.
— "No… not the time for riddles. Not now."
He sat on the sand for a while. He watched the sea and the forest together. The sea had taken everything, and the forest hid everything. All that remained was to choose one. The sea was harsh, but familiar. The forest was mysterious, but perhaps it held food and water. Perhaps it held people. Perhaps it held death.
Suddenly, his stomach growled loudly. He remembered he had not eaten in… he did not know how long. A day? Two days? More? Hunger began gnawing at him from within, his head grew heavy, his hands trembled not only from cold.
The choice became clear. Staying here meant waiting for a slow death. Hunger would wear him down, thirst would kill him, the sun would burn him. Entering the forest was a risk. But perhaps he would find food or water. Perhaps he would find people. Perhaps he would find a way back.
But… what if he found something else? He thought as he stared at the shadows stretching between the trees. What if there were monsters? Or something worse?
He remembered the creature he had seen in his dreams. Or in his hallucinations. Or in a reality he did not understand. That being with its red eyes. Had it been real? Or had it been part of the long dream?
He swallowed and stood slowly. His legs trembled, but he stood. The sea wind blew from behind him, as if pushing him forward. As if telling him: Do not turn back. There is nothing to return to.
He turned to the sea one last time. He spoke to it as if it could hear:
— "You took everything. I have nothing left but this path."
Then he took his first step toward the forest.
A heavy, hesitant step. But it was the only beginning he had.
---
He had nothing with him but his dead phone, a small knife he had hidden in the folds of his clothes, and some coins stuck together after being soaked in seawater. In this place, all of these things had become nearly worthless. The phone did not work, the coins bought nothing, and the knife was too small for what he might face.
Yet he clung to them as if they were the last threads connecting him to the world he had left behind. As if letting them go would sever his final connection to Fouad, to his mother, to Mukhtar Mahmoud, to home.
But the truth was that he was alone. Merely a stranger on an unknown shore, wavering between fear, hunger, and despair. The sea had taken everything, leaving him only this dark path ahead: the forest.
His first step inside the forest was heavy.
The trees were not ordinary. They were true giants. Their trunks stretched upward until they touched the sky, their interwoven branches strangling the light, plunging the place into perpetual twilight.
Each breath he took was heavier than the last. The air was saturated with suffocating humidity, the smell of damp earth mixed with a faint scent of rot, and another smell… the smell of things he did not recognize. As if the forest breathed the scent of thousands of years.
He felt as if the forest was holding its breath with him. As if it were waiting. As if it were testing him.
Then the sounds began.
Sounds unlike any he had heard before. The wind's whistle was not ordinary. It was more like a strange melody, as if the wind were trying to sing. And every so often, he heard vague whispers, as if someone were speaking behind him and then disappearing. And a distant scream. A scream that belonged neither to human nor to any animal he knew.
A strange, deep sound that sent indescribable chills through the soul. As if the forest were in pain. As if the forest were angry.
He stopped for a moment and placed his hand on his chest. His heart was beating fast, but he was not afraid. He was only… present. Present in this strange place, in this moment unlike any he had lived before.
Was this forest alive? Was it watching him?
It was not a passing feeling. He felt dozens of eyes staring at him from among the branches. Each step forward brought stranger details. Massive twisted roots had emerged from the ground like petrified serpents, some seeming to try to grasp at his legs. Glowing mushrooms shone in blues and purples, changing intensity each second, as if they had their own pulse. And small gleaming eyes flickered in the shadows, disappearing whenever he approached. Small, swift creatures he could not see clearly. But he knew they were there. Watching. Waiting.
At one moment, he felt he was being watched not only by the shadows, but by the trees themselves. As if they were conscious beings. As if they were testing him. As if they were waiting for something from him that he did not know.
Yet despite the terror, there was something wondrous about this place. He felt as if he were inside another planet—a world resembling the dreams of his childhood, when he used to watch science fiction films. But the difference was that he was no longer merely a spectator. He had become part of the story. Part of a world he did not understand. Part of a riddle whose solution he did not know.
Hours of walking passed. His feet ached, his throat was dry as a desert, his stomach groaned like a hungry animal. He thought of water, of food, of anything to stop this thirst. He thought of Fouad.
Had Fouad suffered like this before he died? Had he felt thirst? Had he felt fear? Or had death come swiftly, treacherously, without him even feeling it?
Then he saw it.
A strange tree, different from all the trees around it. It bore fruits resembling pears, but their color was not constant. Each time he changed his angle of view, their color shifted between green, red, and gold. They glowed, pulsed, called to him. As if saying: Come. Eat. Live.
He approached slowly and reached out his hand. He hesitated. Should he eat it? Or leave it? What if it was poisonous? What if he was dreaming? What if it was part of the long dream?
But his stomach gave him no time to think. Hunger was stronger than fear. He took a small bite.
The taste was sharp at first, as if stinging his tongue. Then it turned to a subtle sweetness, as if the fruit were teasing him. Warmth spread through his throat, then his chest, then his entire body. For a moment, he felt himself returning to life. As if something was stirring inside him.
It was not familiar. But it was not poisonous. Or so he convinced himself.
He devoured one whole, then another. Then he sat beside the tree to rest. And as he leaned against its twisted trunk, he began to think.
How had he arrived here? Was he dead? Or was he in a place between life and death? Was Fouad here too? Was he searching for him? Or had he drowned somewhere else, in another sea, in another death?
Everything was stranger than he could bear. More than his mind could comprehend. The forest, the trees, the sounds, the fruits—everything was beyond anything he knew. He felt as if he were in a novel. A film. A long, endless dream.
But drowsiness overcame him. His eyelids were heavy, his head grew heavy, his body demanded rest. He had not intended to sleep. He only wanted to rest his back. To close his eyes for a few minutes. To regain his strength before continuing.
But his body betrayed him.
He closed his eyes. The last image he saw before sleeping was the shadows of interwoven branches above him, and the faint light filtering through them. The last thought that crossed his mind was: Will I wake up? Or will I remain sleeping forever?
Then nothing.