Solid Rock

Afrofuturism. Memory. Mystery. Survival.

Year 2650: Some things don't wash ashore by accident.

By the time the coast opens, folks don't even pretend they're not waiting for it anymore. The news moves through the cities like a quiet prayer finally answered because we all know it won't last. At most a few weeks if we're lucky, sometimes less, before the temperatures drop or spike beyond reason. Then the shoreline becomes something untouchable again, edged with ice or heat or whatever new version of imbalance the earth decides to remind us of.

Still, we go because we remember, even if the memory isn't ours.

I've seen the pictures enough times to feel like it is. Grandma sitting in the sand, her skin catching sunlight, a melanin reflection in pure form. Grandpa standing ankle-deep in water that was actually blue, not this darkened teal that moves like it's thinking about something. They looked free in those pictures, not scanned, not monitored. No fear measured for what might be inside of them. They were just there.

Peace doesn't come easy anymore. It doesn't sit still long enough to trust it. Yet family is still family, and friends are still friends. We've learned how to exist beside each other in the middle of everything that's broken, holding on to the small understanding that we are part of what's left. Not just people, but a remnant, a Bloodline, one of the last groups still walking around with something in us that the infection hasn't figured out how to touch yet.

One step into the portal brings a brief pressure behind the eyes, like your body is catching up to itself, and then the coast is in front of you.

They line us up as soon as we come through. Bags first, then hands, then eyes. The scanners move slowly on purpose, like hesitation might reveal something the machines miss. Nobody talks much during that part because you can feel it in your chest, that quiet fear that doesn't need to be named. Every now and then the line breaks with just a shift, a pause, a hand on someone's shoulder, and suddenly they're gone.

There are no explanations, no goodbyes, just absence.

We've all seen what happens when it spreads, and we've all seen what people become when it takes hold, so nobody argues. It still doesn't make it easier to stand there and wait your turn, knowing how quickly everything can change your life.

We step through clean, all of us, and it feels like something releases inside my chest that I didn't realize I was holding. Relief has become one of those things you experience quietly now.

The sand stretches out ahead of us, the artificial trees sway in a way that almost feels intentional, like it's trying to reflect something back into the sky. The water moves beyond it, darker than it should be, carrying that same deep teal that never quite settles in the eyes. They say it's because of what they pour into it. The ships sit far out, barely visible, releasing whatever mixture.

Amara doesn't wait long. She drops her bag before we even get fully settled and takes off toward the water like it's calling her by name.

"Wait," I call after her, already moving. "Did you put your lotion on?"

She doesn't even turn around.

"I don't need it. The sun knows me."

There's something about the way she says it that makes it hard to argue, like she believes it enough for both of us. By the time I reach her, she's already ankle-deep, letting the water move around her legs.

Taji comes in behind us with a football tucked under his arm, already scanning for space.

I've never seen the ocean like this before, not in person at least. When I was younger, days like this didn't exist for us. My memories aren't made of sand and water. They're made of classrooms with empty seats that didn't get explained, faces that changed too quickly, and of people who were there one week and gone the next. They were either taken or turned into something in between that nobody ever fully described.

We run around, throw the football around to neighbors, fall back first into the water then come back out, letting the hours stretch themselves thin until our bodies start to feel it.

By the time we slow down, the sun has shifted just enough to soften everything.

We make our way toward the edge of the beach, where the crowd thins and the noise fades into something more distant and manageable. There's a stretch of rock near the perimeter, just before the boundary markers start, and we settle there, letting the quiet sit with us.

I crouch down near the shoreline, picking up small stones and turning them over in my hand the way I've seen in old clips. When I finally toss one, watching it skip across the surface before disappearing, there's a small kind of satisfaction in it, something simple and familiar.

I reach for another.

This one feels different before I even lift it. It looks like a rock, the same general shape and size as the others, but there's a sheen to it, something just beneath the surface that catches the light wrong. When I try to pick it up fully, my arm stalls halfway through the motion.

It's too heavy.

Not heavy like dense stone or something soaked through, but heavy in a way that doesn't make sense, like the weight isn't matching what I'm holding. I adjust my grip and try again, and it barely shifts, forcing tension up through my shoulder.

Amara notices before I say anything.

"What is that?"

"I don't know," I answer, still focused on it.

She steps closer, crouching beside me and reaching out to test it for herself. The moment her hand meets it, her expression tightens, curiosity sharpening instead of fading.

"Why is it so heavy?"

I shake my head.

"Let's leave it."

That should've been the end of it, but Amara doesn't move like that. She studies it for another second, then stands, already turning back toward where she dropped her things.

"No. We're taking it."

Before I can argue, she's moving, grabbing her bag, the pink one she refuses to replace no matter how worn it gets. Pulling it open and stuffing pieces of artificial coral inside like padding.

"Help me lift it."

Together we manage it, barely, guiding it into the bag with more effort than something that size has any right to demand. She zips it halfway, then looks at me.

"You carry it."

I don't even question that part. I take the straps, pull it onto my back, and immediately feel the difference, the weight settling in a way that presses deeper than it should, like it's not just sitting against me but pulling through me.

We start walking, and at first it's manageable, strange but manageable. Then, a few steps in, something shifts, not in the bag but in the space around it. There's a resistance that wasn't there before, subtle at first, like walking into a light incline you didn't notice from a distance.

I take another step, and it gets stronger.

By the time we've put real distance between us and the shoreline, it feels like I'm dragging something that doesn't want me to move in the direction I'm taking it. My legs adjust without me thinking, leaning forward and compensating.

I glance over my shoulder, back toward the water, and the pull tightens, not random, not passive, but directional.

They don't tell us much about the war, about what's changing beyond what we can see. We are blind to what's being tested, or what has already gone wrong. So we learn how to look for ourselves.

What's in that water, and how long has it been reaching back?