The endless blue of the drowned world had a way of bleeding the hope out of a person, day by day. For weeks, Lyra and Senna had navigated their sun-bleached skiff across the swollen ocean, finding nothing but jagged rocks and the floating debris of the old world.

When the island appeared—a gentle swell of vibrant green against the horizon—Senna let out a breath she felt she’d been holding for a month.

They paddled into the shallow, crystalline waters of a protected cove. A few people gathering shellfish on the beach paused to wave, their expressions bright and welcoming. As the skiff ground against the sandbar, a middle-aged man with a warm, weathered face waded out to catch their mooring line.

“Welcome,” he called out, effortlessly tying off the boat. “It’s been ages since we’ve had visitors. I’m Elias.”

“Thank you,” Senna said, stepping onto the sand, her legs trembling slightly after weeks at sea. “We’re just happy to find dry land.”

Lyra stepped out behind her, her eyes scanning the beach. The people looked healthy, their faces unlined by the usual starvation or panic that plagued the sea drifters. They were dressed practically in canvas trousers and faded cotton shirts, though Lyra noted vaguely that they all seemed to wear the exact same shade of pale grey.

Elias offered to show them around. The island was beautiful—flat, grassy, and dotted with ancient, sprawling oak trees. The girls followed him, stretching their sea-weary legs in the quiet afternoon air.

“I don’t see any houses,” Senna noted, looking toward the interior of the island. “Is the village further in?”

“Oh, we don’t build houses,” Elias said. He kicked a loose stone out of the path, his tone entirely conversational. “Early on, we found that construction just led to arguments over who got the ocean view, or whose plot had the best soil. It caused a lot of unnecessary friction. We share the land entirely now. We sleep wherever we happen to be. It’s quite peaceful.”

Lyra exchanged a brief glance with Senna. In a flooded world where people fought bitterly over scraps of floating plastic, a community that simply chose to share the ground they slept on felt like a rare, quiet miracle.

As the sun dipped below the water, the community gathered in a large circle on the grass for the evening meal. Wanting to contribute, Lyra brought over the small silverfish they had caught that afternoon.

“That is incredibly generous,” Elias said, placing a hand over his heart. “We’ll add it to the evening share.”

He carried the fish to a flat stone in the center of the circle. From a wooden box, he produced a filleting knife and a small, antique brass scale.

Lyra watched as Elias carefully removed the meat. He placed a tiny sliver on the scale, checked the weight, and then shaved off a translucent fraction of an ounce before placing it on a wooden platter. He repeated this process for every person in the circle. When he reached the spine, he used the heavy heel of his knife to crack the delicate bones into uniform half-inch pieces, adding one to each pile.

A woman handed Lyra and Senna their portions, along with a slice of bread. Senna looked down at her hand. The bread was cut so thin the firelight shone through it. She placed it on her tongue, where it dissolved instantly into a damp, starchy film. She looked over at Elias, who was eating his identical sliver with a look of quiet satisfaction.

Night fell, bringing a sharp chill off the water. The islanders simply lay down on the soft grass, chatting amiably as they pulled their grey shirts tight against the cold.

Lyra shivered, sitting cross-legged in the damp grass. “Elias,” she whispered to the man lying a few feet away. “I understand the houses. But why not just a canvas tarp? A communal roof to keep the dew off?”

Elias propped himself up on one elbow. “We discussed that at length. The problem is the moonlight.” He gestured up at the bright, silver orb in the sky. “A roof casts shadows. It would mean some people get to sleep in the moonlight, while others are forced into the dark. It wouldn’t be fair to the ones in the shade.”

Senna looked up at the moon, then over at the sprawling canopy of the nearest oak tree. “But the tree,” she said quietly.

Elias blinked. “Pardon?”

“The tree.” Senna pointed. “It’s casting a shadow right now. The people sleeping on the edge of the circle aren’t getting any moonlight at all.”

Elias looked at the tree. He looked at the deep shadow pooling over the sleeping forms on the perimeter. His pleasant expression slowly dissolved into a look of profound distress.

“Oh my,” he whispered. “How did we miss that? That is a glaring inequity.”

He stood up, dusting off his trousers. “Excuse me, everyone,” he called out. His voice wasn’t angry, just deeply apologetic. “I’m so sorry to disturb your rest, but our guests have pointed out a severe environmental imbalance. The oak tree is hoarding the light.”

A murmur of genuine concern rippled through the sleepy crowd. People began to sit up, shaking their heads in dismay. Within minutes, two men returned from the woods carrying a large, rusted crosscut saw.

Lyra and Senna sat back, pulling their knees to their chests as Elias and a woman approached the massive trunk. Elias took one wooden handle; the woman took the other.

They pushed the blade forward. They pulled it back.

Then, they let go.

“Next pair,” Elias said calmly.

A man and a woman stepped up. They took the handles, pushed, pulled, and stepped away. Another pair took their place.

The rhythm was a stuttering, agonizing hiss of metal against bark. Push, pull, stop. Push, pull, stop. Lyra watched the blade. After thirty minutes of constant rotation involving twenty different people, the saw hadn’t even breached the outer layer of bark.

Senna leaned closer to Lyra, her voice barely a breath. “Why don’t they just let two people cut it?”

“Because then those two people would be doing more work than the rest,” Lyra murmured, her eyes fixed on the rusted metal teeth. The cold of the damp grass was beginning to seep into her bones.

They didn’t sleep. They sat in the dark, listening to the rhythmic, broken scraping of the saw.

When the sun finally crested the horizon, the tree was entirely undisturbed, save for a shallow white scratch on its trunk. The islanders, looking tired but morally satisfied, began distributing identical thimbles of morning dew.

Elias walked over to the girls. He looked exhausted, but his warm smile had returned. He glanced out at the cove, where their skiff bobbed gently in the morning tide.

“Good morning,” he said. “I was doing some logistical thinking during the logging rotation. We have a slight issue to resolve regarding your integration into the community.”

Lyra’s hand drifted slowly toward the strap of their duffel bag. “What kind of issue?”

“Well, you possess a vessel. The rest of the community does not. It creates an imbalance.”

“We use it to travel,” Senna said, forcing a polite smile. “We could help you build one? There’s plenty of wood… once the tree comes down.”

Elias chuckled, a soft, patronizing sound. “I appreciate the offer. But building a boat for everyone would take months of unequal labor. And even then, it’s just the two of you sharing one boat. True fairness means everyone has the exact same access to the exact same resources.”

He gestured behind him. A few islanders were strolling down to the beach, carrying handsaws and a long tape measure.

“We voted this morning to divide your vessel into ninety-two equal pieces,” Elias explained, his eyes bright with the elegant simplicity of the solution. “We figure it makes a nice souvenir of your visit, and everyone gets their fair share.”

Lyra looked at the islanders casually measuring the hull of their skiff. She looked at Elias’s calm, perfectly reasonable face.

“Elias,” Lyra said softly. “If you cut our boat into pieces, it won’t float.”

“Well, no,” Elias agreed. “But it will be fair.”

Lyra didn’t say another word. She grabbed Senna’s wrist and bolted.

They kicked up sprays of sand as they sprinted for the water. Elias let out a startled sound. “Wait, where are you going? The shares are already allocated!”

A few islanders turned at the commotion, making a move to intercept them. But as one man surged forward, he realized he was outpacing his neighbor. He abruptly stopped, waiting for the others to fall into a synchronized line so no one exerted more effort in the chase.

Lyra hit the water, shoving the skiff off the sandbar with all her weight. Senna scrambled over the gunwale, grabbing the oars before Lyra had even pulled her legs inside.

They rowed. They didn’t look back at the beach, or the people standing in a perfectly straight, equidistant line at the water’s edge. They pulled the oars with a desperate, uneven, furious rhythm, their lungs burning until the island was nothing but a green smudge on the horizon.

Senna slumped over her oar, panting in the salty air. She reached into her pocket, pulling out the translucent, mathematically perfect sliver of breakfast bread she had been handed that morning.

She stared at it for a long moment. Then, she flicked it into the churning grey water.