The sea rose in the night and never went back down. By dawn the mountains were islands, and the cities everyone remembered were just rumors now. Iyla rowed to her father's old boathouse, where her brother Sefu was already waiting. They hadn't spoken in three years. But the will named them both, and it named one thing: the diving bell. It hung from the rafters, heavy brass and green with age. Folded inside it were a waxed map and a single key.

Before either of them could speak, a boat thumped against the boathouse door. A man in a patched gray coat climbed in, smiling too wide. "That bell is the last working one on the coast," he said. "Name your price. I'll pay in fresh water and fuel." Iyla and Sefu looked at each other for the first time in years.

Sefu nodded slowly. "Water and fuel for the bell. Deal." But Iyla saw the man's hands shaking and the hunger in his eyes. "Wait," she said. "Why do you really want it?" He admitted the truth: his whole village was sinking, and the bell was their only way to reach the supplies below.