The lagoon reflected a sky bruised purple and orange, the usual postcard perfection momentarily unsettled. Fetu sat on the worn planks of the jetty, bare feet dangling just above the water's gentle slap against the pylons.
Twenty-one years he'd lived on Funafuti, watching the tides creep higher each year, hearing the old men murmur about the islands sinking, but tonight, the unease felt different. It wasn't the slow creep of the ocean; it was a prickle on his skin, a wrongness carried on the breeze that ruffled the coconut palms.
His grandfather, Mateo, worked nearby, mending a fishing net, his movements economical and sure despite his age.
Mateo seldom spoke of the outside world, preferring the familiar rhythms of the island, but even he had paused earlier, listening intently to the crackling shortwave radio spitting out fragmented news from Fiji.
Strange sicknesses, borders closing, whispers of something deliberate, something unleashed.
"They talk too much," Mateo had grunted, shutting off the radio. "Big nations, big problems. Always." But his eyes held a disquiet Fetu hadn't seen before.
Fetu tossed a pebble into the lagoon. The ripples spread, distorting the reflected sunset. He worked part-time at the tiny telecommunications office, handling the intermittent internet connection and patchy phone lines that were the atoll's umbilical cord to elsewhere.
The past few days, the connection had been worse than usual, messages garbled, news sites flickering with error messages. It felt less like technical failure and more like a deliberate strangling.
His friend, Tavita, came jogging down the path, kicking up sand. "Anything?" Tavita asked, breathing hard. He always seemed full of restless energy.
Fetu shook his head. "Just the usual static. Fiji radio went dead an hour ago."
"My cousin in Nauru, her messages aren't going through," Tavita said, his usual grin absent. "Something's wrong, Fetu. Really wrong this time."
The unease solidified into something colder in Fetu's gut. Nauru was relatively close, another isolated pinprick in the vast Pacific. If they were cut off too...
Mateo finished his work, coiling the net neatly. "Worrying won't mend nets or catch fish," he said, his voice rough but not unkind. "Come. Your mother will have food ready."
They walked back towards the small cluster of houses, the path lit by the moon rising over the palm trees. The air smelled of woodsmoke and the faint, sweet scent of frangipani, familiar comforts that now felt fragile.
He saw neighbours talking quietly in front of their homes, their faces illuminated by lanterns, their low murmurs ceasing as he, Tavita, and Mateo passed. The usual evening laughter and children's games were absent. A hush lay over the island, thick and waiting.
Dinner was subdued. Fetu's mother, Mele, served baked breadfruit and fish, but her movements were tense. She kept glancing towards the dark windows. His younger sister, Lani, usually chattering, picked listlessly at her food.
"Did you hear from Aunty?" Mele asked Fetu, her voice barely above a whisper. His aunt worked as a nurse at the small government hospital.
"Her phone isn't connecting," Fetu replied. It wasn't entirely unusual, the network was unreliable, but tonight it felt ominous.
After the meal, Fetu walked Lani back to her room. She clutched his hand tightly. "Are the stories true?" she asked, her eyes wide in the dim light. "About the sickness making people monsters?"
"Just stories, Lani," Fetu said, trying to sound reassuring. "People get scared, they make things up." But the fragmented reports he'd glimpsed online, before the sites went dark, spoke of terrifying transformations, violent insanity. He tucked her into bed, forcing a smile he didn't feel.
Later, unable to sleep, Fetu went back outside. The moon was higher now, casting long shadows. He walked towards the shoreline on the ocean side of the narrow atoll. The waves crashed against the reef, a constant, powerful sound.
He saw flickering lights farther down the beach – people with torches, searching for something. Or perhaps just watching the horizon, hoping for a ship that wasn't coming.
Then he heard it. A cough. A wet, racking cough that didn't sound human. It came from the dense scrub near the beach. Fetu froze, straining his ears. Another cough, followed by a low, guttural moan that sent ice down his spine.
He backed away slowly, his heart pounding against his ribs. He didn't know what was making that sound, but instinct screamed at him to get away, to hide. He turned and ran back towards the house, the sound seeming to follow him through the rustling palms.
The next morning, the island awoke to terror. It wasn't a rumour anymore. Old Man Salesi, who lived alone near the eastern beach, was found dead in his fale. But not just dead. His body was… wrong.
Twisted. Skin pulled taut over unnaturally sharp bones, his jaw locked open in a silent scream that seemed to stretch the flesh.
Worse were the small, hard, whitish growths erupting from his skin, like barnacles of bone.
People gathered, keeping their distance, faces pale with shock and fear. Fetu's aunt finally managed to get a call through, her voice strained, breaking. "It's here, Fetu," she'd choked out before the line went dead again. "At the hospital. Three patients overnight. They… they change."
Panic, swift and consuming, took hold. The fragile order dissolved. Families barricaded themselves in their homes. Others rushed towards the government building, demanding answers, demanding escape.
But where could they go? They were adrift in the middle of the world's largest ocean. The supply ship wasn't due for weeks, and who knew if it would even come now?
Fetu found Tavita near the jetty, frantically trying to fuel an old outboard motor attached to a small fishing boat. "We have to get out," Tavita said, his eyes wild. "Maybe Fiji… maybe Samoa…"
"Tavita, we don't know what's out there," Fetu argued. "The radio silence, the messages… it could be worse everywhere else."
"Staying here is death!" Tavita gestured towards the village, where a thin plume of smoke was rising – someone burning possessions, or maybe something else. "Look! It's falling apart already. People are turning."
Fetu thought of Lani, of his mother, his grandfather. Leaving them was unthinkable. "I can't just leave them."
"Bring them!" Tavita urged. "There's room, barely. We have to try!"
Fetu ran back. His house was shuttered tight. He pounded on the door. "Mama! Mateo! It's me!"
The door opened a crack. Mele's face was drawn, terrified. "Fetu… your grandfather…"
He pushed inside. Mateo lay on his sleeping mat, breathing in shallow, ragged gasps. His skin had a greyish pallor, and Fetu saw them – the tiny, horrifying white nodules beginning to sprout on his hands and forearms. Lani huddled in a corner, crying silently.
"He just started coughing an hour ago," Mele sobbed. "Then… this."
Fetu felt sickness rise in his own throat. Mateo, his strong, unwavering grandfather, succumbing to this horror. He looked at the calcifying growths, understanding the terror in his aunt's voice. They weren't just dying; they were becoming something else. Something alien. Something stone.
"We have to go," Fetu said, his voice hoarse. "Tavita has a boat. We have to take Mateo."
Getting Mateo to the jetty was a nightmare. He was weak, delirious, occasionally lashing out with surprising strength. His skin felt strangely hard beneath the surface. Mele and Fetu half-carried, half-dragged him, Lani trailing behind, her small face a mask of terror.
The village felt deserted, doors shut tight, an eerie quiet broken only by Mateo's harsh breathing and the distant sound of panicked shouting near the government house.
They reached the jetty. Tavita had the motor sputtering. Two other families were already crammed into the small boat, their eyes wide with desperation. There was barely space.
"Get in, quickly!" Tavita yelled over the engine noise.
As they tried to lift Mateo into the boat, he let out a terrible, rattling groan. His body convulsed, arching backward. The white growths on his skin seemed to pulse, growing visibly, merging, covering his arms like a crust of dead coral. His eyes rolled back, and a thick, chalky fluid trickled from the corner of his mouth.
"Leave him!" someone in the boat screamed. "He's too far gone! He'll infect us all!"
Mele cried out, shielding Mateo. "No! He's my father!"
Fetu looked at his grandfather, at the monstrous transformation happening before his eyes, then at Lani, trembling beside him. He saw the raw fear in the faces of the others in the boat. Staying meant watching his grandfather become… that. Staying meant condemning Lani and his mother.
"Mama, we have to," Fetu pleaded, his voice breaking. "There's no room… he wouldn't want…" He couldn't finish the sentence.
Mateo let out another low moan, a sound less human than geological, like stone grinding against stone. The decision was made for them. With agonizing slowness, Mateo's limbs began to stiffen, locking into place. The calcification was accelerating, consuming him.
Tavita gunned the engine. "Now, Fetu! Or we're all dead!"
Sobbing, Mele scrambled into the boat, pulling Lani with her. Fetu gave one last look at the figure on the jetty – no longer his grandfather, but a rapidly hardening statue, a grotesque monument to the horror that had arrived.
He jumped into the overloaded boat just as Tavita pushed off, leaving the calcifying form of Mateo behind on the dock, facing the empty lagoon.
The journey was hell. The small boat pitched violently in the open ocean beyond the reef. Salt spray soaked them, stinging their eyes. They were terrifyingly exposed, a tiny speck under a vast, indifferent sky.
Fear was a constant presence, tightening its grip with every hour that passed. People vomited over the side from sickness and fear. Resources were minimal – a few bottles of water, some dried fish Tavita had grabbed.
Hours bled into a nightmarish day, then another night. They saw no other boats, heard no radio signals. Only the endless expanse of water.
On the second day, one of the children from the other family began coughing, that same wet, rattling sound Fetu had heard from the scrub. Panic flared anew. Accusations flew. The child's father tried to protect him, but the fear was too strong.
Under the cold light of the moon, while Fetu and his family huddled in horror, the child and his desperate parents were forced overboard by the others, their pleas swallowed by the waves. Fetu closed his eyes, bile rising in his throat. This was what they had become.
He felt a strange tingling in his own fingers. He dismissed it as cold, as exhaustion. But later, when he glanced down, he saw it. A tiny, pearlescent white bump near his knuckle. Smooth, hard.
He quickly hid his hand, his blood running cold. He didn't tell Mele or Lani. What could they do? Throw him overboard too?
By the third day, hope was a distant memory. Their water was gone. The sun beat down mercilessly. Tavita slumped over the useless outboard motor, his breathing shallow. Fetu saw the tell-tale white spots blooming on Tavita's neck. Mele was withdrawn, staring blankly at the horizon, while Lani whimpered softly, her skin hot to the touch.
Fetu knew they weren't going to make it to Fiji or anywhere else. He looked at his hand again. More bumps had appeared, forming a small, hard constellation on his skin. It didn't hurt, but it felt utterly alien. He felt a peculiar stiffness creeping into his joints.
Land appeared on the horizon – a low smudge, perhaps another atoll. A collective sigh of relief went through the few remaining conscious occupants of the boat. Maybe there was sanctuary after all.
As they drifted closer, aided by a weak current, the silence of the place became apparent. No smoke, no movement on the beaches.
The boat grounded gently on a coral-sand beach. The island was hauntingly beautiful, untouched jungle pressing close to the shore. But it was deathly quiet.
Fetu, feeling the stiffness spreading up his arm, stumbled out of the boat onto the sand. Mele followed, helping a weak Lani. The other remaining passenger, a man whose wife had succumbed the night before, simply sat staring, unresponsive.
Fetu looked down at his arm. The white growths were larger now, like clusters of tiny, sharp pearls erupting through his skin. They merged, forming patches of hard, unyielding material. He tried to flex his fingers, but the joints were locking, calcifying. He felt it in his legs too, a slow, inexorable hardening.
He looked towards the jungle. And then he saw them. Figures, half-hidden among the palms and dense undergrowth. Statues. Human forms frozen in postures of agony, or simply standing, waiting.
Their bodies were encased in the same white, coral-like substance that was consuming him. Some were fused to trees, others half-buried in the sand, becoming part of the island itself. This wasn't sanctuary; it was a graveyard, a gallery of horrors.
Lani cried out, pointing. Mele turned, her eyes widening in understanding and despair. The man in the boat finally looked up, saw the figures, and let out a long, low wail that ended in a choked cough.
Fetu felt the process accelerating within him. His breathing grew shallow as his chest hardened. Movement became difficult, then impossible. He could only watch as Mele knelt beside Lani, stroking her hair, tears streaming down her face.
He saw the first white spots appear on Lani's cheek. Mele looked at Fetu, her expression one of utter heartbreak, before pulling Lani close.
He tried to speak, to offer some comfort, but his jaw was locking. The calcification crept up his neck, silencing him. His vision began to narrow, the world greying at the edges, but his consciousness remained terrifyingly clear, trapped within the hardening shell of his own body.
He was becoming another statue on this dead island, rooted to the spot.
His last sensation was the gentle wash of the tide around his ankles, the water that had defined his entire life now creeping up his stone legs. He couldn't move, couldn't scream, couldn't die.
He could only stand there, conscious, aware, as the relentless biological tide turned him into a monument of loss, forever facing the empty ocean that had brought the end.
He was a silent, calcified witness on an island of the dead, another piece of coral on Tuvalu's final, submerged reef. The sun beat down, warming the unyielding surface that was once his skin. He remained, aware, immobile, eternal.