Jostled and elbowed out of the way, Page fought against the current of bodies pushing past him in all the roads he took towards the spire. The shaking hasn't stopped and only seemed to intensify with every second. In one of the alleys he had been, an entire section of a building crumbled, sprawling on the ground and taking some civilians down with it. Once the dust cleared, Page didn't stay long to see what became of the people trapped underneath the rubble. He couldn't, anyway.

Minutes bled, stretched, and thickened. But they also compressed, squished, and shortened. It could have been hours or seconds—Page wasn't sure anymore. He wasn't certain of a lot of things since he exited the woodworkers' district.

Overhead, the doves haven't left him. Their fluttering wings and distinct calls accompanied his every step and the amplifying cloud of screams and rumbles arising around him. Panic gripped his throat and never let go. His breaths turned erratic as his legs pumped him forward. What if he got crushed by one of these houses? How would Dara know where he was and what happened to him? Would Page spend the rest of his life in the Underworld screaming and begging for Dara to know that it was a swift death, a graceful end, and totally not a violent, excruciating torture?

Page shook his head. None of that was going to happen. They would survive this, just as they survived so much over the years. As Dara's father used to say—tribulation lasts only a fraction. A fraction of what? It was the same question Page asked his father when he overheard the lesson being uttered to a young Dara. Page's father looked at him with a sort of apology he never got until now, and said, "I do not know. The Academy sits on a hill I can't reach."

As Page grew older, he realized Dara's father meant that tribulation, suffering, and lean seasons happen and last only for as long as they did—a fraction of a moment. Of time. Likewise, seasons of bounty, joy, and victory carried the same trait.

Even life was temporary. Page wasn't enough of a skeptic to deny that.

He cleared the district's constraints. From here, only the wilderness and the unpredictable rise and run of rocks and overgrown bushes awaited him. Debris pecked at Page from the unreachable heights, and a little more of quivering, the entire mountain might tumble towards him. A curse flitted out of his lips as he urged his steps to lengthen and his breaths to even out. The spire peeked from the cliff's edge, filling Page's gut with the rarest glimmer of hope. Even as he squinted, he couldn't see if Dara was there. Why would he be? This was probably a stupid detour and what would eventually get him killed.

By the time he reached the top of the spire, sweat dripped down his face and back in non-stop torrents. Maybe it was because of the fear and dread curled into tight knots in his gut. He rolled over the spire's edge, feeling the crunch of grass and premature rosemary bushes underneath him. When he pulled his weight up, it was almost as if the shaking hadn't reached this high up. But for how long?

The sea was violent beyond the spire. Standing at the edge of the island and overlooking the wide unknown all this time had never really inculcated in Page's mind. Now, he looked down at the raging waves, the churning foam, and the rising tides as if it was a rabid beast unleashed. A behemoth. A leviathan. The gods did this. They sent a beast from the depths. To do what?

The answer laid itself bare when a loud crash resounded from the ground. Page's heart clenched. The city...

The waves crawled inland, devouring everything standing in its way—be it rocks, buildings, people. Even from afar, dying screams and curses against the gods of heaven reached Page's ears. The spire shook, even for a bit. A deep groan rippled from the sea. The sailor's words bled back into Page's mind. Howling. And now, it would be shrieking.

This was...

Page turned seaward and froze. Dara stood at the lip of the opposite edge, the one closest to the angry abyss. A little prod from a passing breeze, and he would topple over. With his throat constricting, he burst off the other edge. "Dara!" he called.

Dara turned at the sound of his name. Their gazes locked. The spire shook beneath their feet, the waves finally succeeding in appealing to the immovable giant. Down below, the ocean reached the outer ring of the city. The capital to the west, despite being built on an elevated hill, wouldn't be safe should this continue.

"Tell me this," Page started, bracing his knees when he closed the distance between them. He straightened and pointed at the blustering chaos below. "Did you foresee this? Have you always known this would happen?"

A sad expression crumpled Dara's face. He turned away from Page and stalked back to the spire's lip. Page wanted nothing more than to haul the man away. Dara shouldn't be taunting fate too much. The gods wouldn't appreciate it. "The visions came a month ago," he answered. In the cacophony of waves clashing and the entire island crumbling, it was as audible as a whisper. "I would want to prevent it, but I am just one man. There is nothing we can do but to relish what little time we have left."

"What would happen after this, Dara?" Page stepped forward, spreading his arms to steady himself. The spire wasn't as stable as it was when he came earlier. "Just...tell me. Don't be so cryptic about it."

Dara chuckled. Who has the nerve to do that in the middle of a disaster? "I am an oracle, Page. It's my job to be cryptic," he said. Page opened his mouth to get to the point, but Dara pushed on. "I love you, Page. That is my answer."

Page's jaw hung open, his entire body freezing in place. This wasn't the time for this, wasn't it? On the same front, it was the same moment Dara promised to give Page an answer. Just...

"I love you," Dara repeated. "But our time has run out."

Cracks appeared on the spire's floor as if on cue. They webbed from the space between him and Dara, snaking towards the edges. Dara never moved from his spot, gazing with a terrifying hint of acceptance and sadness at Page.

Come here, Page would have said, beckoning Dara to follow. We can survive this. Come with me.

The words haven't even formed at the base of his tongue when the spire split in half. The latter half sped for the ocean, taking Dara along with it.