A/N: So here is me starting a multi-chaptered story! What I like about Nagi no Asukara is not the story nor the characters in the slightest - instead it is the concept. The concept of people living underwater, and the Sea-God, and sacred fire, and Ena...and of course the beautiful sea village where schools of fish swim freely, coral and sea weed grow like house plants and forests, where the 'sky' is filled with boats and exotic sea creatures. It is so similar to the land we live on, but instead of the weather-man reporting humidity and winds, he reports salinity and currents. It's like a dream!
[-Chapter 1: WHEN ALL IS LOST-]
We all went to sleep, us sea people. There was not one left on the surface, apart from those who had given up the ocean for life. For five years, the land people forgot about us. Then I woke. I was alone. Not in the fact that every one in my house and street was sleeping, but that I was the only one left alive. I could see it, everyone's Ena, dissolved into the water. I was scared, so very scared. I checked every person, in every house. Even Chihaki, and Manaka... there was only one person missing in the entire village. Hikari.
I looked and looked, until the horror of the moment caught up with me. My panicked mind somehow reasoned that if Hikari wasn't on the sea bed, there is only one other place he would be. Up.
When I reached the surface, I was no more no more assured than before. Just like the sea village, the land village was also covered with white. How long had it been? A few months...a few years? How many? One, two? Five? Ten? Fifty? For me the Ofunehiki just happened. Would this familiar now be place be filled with unfamiliar people?
Would I find Hikari? How long had he been awake? Was he waiting for me?
I didn't realise how tense I was until I saw people that I knew: Akari-san, Miuna-chan and Sayu-chan, Tsumugu-kun and the rest of my classmates. Oh yes, they were older, but not that much. Five years is a long time, but in the grand scale of things, it's not long at all. But right now, my mind was focued singlely on one thing: they told me Hikari was on his way here.
My mind tuned out everything else they were telling me. I just smilled and nodded, my hand clenched, waiting, waiting-
'Kaname!'
I simultaneously turned and stood up at the voice of my best friend. There he was, standing at the open doorway, the sunlight outside creating a halo around him quite appropriately. He was wearing shorts and a loose T-shirt - somewhere at the back of my mind I found that strange because it was cold outside. Despite that, he was breathing heavily and had obviously run here.
He looked the same, the same as at the festival, the same as always.
'Hikari.'
Before I knew it, the few meters of distance between us vanished and Hikari was huging me tightly. As I returned the embrace just as desperately, I let all of my worries, pain, and terror abate away. In the relative calm, I tentatively asked him in a whisper:
'How long?'
He gently shook his head against my shoulder.
'Just a few days.'
With relief, I let my head drop on his shoulder.
'Thank God.'
Before we released each other, I didn't miss the teardrop which felt warm agaist my skin.
