The Tidal Wave That Seized My Walls - Chapter 12

They don’t teach you to pick pockets right away. When kids first learn to steal, they’re sent to swipe groceries. It was just my bad luck that the person I chose happened to be holding an iron skewer, hot from the fire. I got the food—but not before he knocked me down and pressed that searing metal into my skin.

The world beyond these walls? We just called it the outside. A place where the abandoned gathered—those struck by nameless sicknesses, orphans, deserters, runaways, anyone with nowhere else to go. I survived there. Didn’t sell myself to some old man with rotting teeth. Didn’t beg. I made it on my own terms.

Sandora looked gutted by the story. She stayed silent for a long time before asking, voice frayed:

“You don’t… resent me?”

Do you not hate me for every meal I ate, every lesson I learned, every scrap of love I was given—all things that should’ve been yours? That’s what she meant by resent.

“I don’t.”

From the moment she saw me, Sandora wore the face of someone already braced to surrender everything. Like she’d already accepted her ruin. Maybe if she’d been vicious—if she’d clung to her privilege, begged me not to take it—then my insides might have twisted a little…

But Sandora only wandered the halls with that face of surrender. No one had told her the end had come—yet she looked as if she had already seen it. I recognized that face. It was the same one I’d worn when I realized nothing I’d ever called mine was truly mine. So no, I didn’t hate her enough to kill her. I did hate her when she slapped me, though.

“Tomorrow,” I said, sitting up, “I’ll tell Grandfather.”

“What?”

“That I’ll apologize.”

Sandora shut her eyes and turned away. I knew that feeling too—guilt surging up, the urge to curl into a cave of self-pity.

“No.”

This time, it was Sandora who sat up abruptly.

“What’s the point of us banging our heads together like this? We’re not getting anywhere—we can’t even grasp the basics.”

“Then you go.”

“What?”

“I’d rather face hardship than humiliation. Being trapped in these walls until we’re forced to apologize? No thanks.”

Sandora shook her head, incredulous.

“I won’t accept an apology like that. I’ll make you kneel properly.”

“Excuse me?”

“You can’t even eat bread properly because of the cuts in your mouth. And you think words alone will make up for it?”

I scoffed deliberately, tossing my pillow aside.

“What, scared you’ll lose?”

Her eyes, docile just moments ago, sharpened. Sandora bit her lip and yanked the blanket over herself, turning away to face the wall.

“Let’s pretend you never said that.”

“Suit yourself.”

Sandora began making exaggerated snoring noises. I didn’t bother calling out the obvious act. Closing my eyes, I sank deeper into the bed. The night air slipping through the open window felt like it was whispering something—cool, restless, and strangely alive.

* * *

“Hey there.”

Sandora had lost it. I’d expected her to rise to my taunt with gritted teeth, not go completely off the rails. She’d refused the breakfast I’d laid out and marched straight to the field, flopping onto her stomach like a woman possessed. I choked on my bread watching her, nearly inhaling a crumb.

“You’re so pretty.”

She was talking—no, cooing—to a patch of grass, the same sorry blades she’d yanked out with glee days ago. Now she stroked them like they were made of gold. I clutched my stomach laughing, but she was dead serious, utterly unfazed.

After finishing my meal, I agonized over whether to join this madness. Then I decided to cheat. If Light was supposedly trapped even in these pathetic weeds, I’d study them without groveling.

Sandora, tireless, clung to a single blade like her life depended on it. I lay on my belly, squinting. At first glance, the grass all looked identical—but up close, one had three leaves, another four.

“Did you skip a meal?”

I flicked the three-leafed one absently. It swayed, tickled by the wind. Or maybe I was the ticklish one, gone delirious from staring too long.

Boredom breeds strange thoughts. The kind a five-year-old might have: The wind sings lullabies just for me. The grass is my friend. I caught a ladybug and set it on a blade, watching it scramble.

The sun dipped behind clouds, cooling our sweat. Sandora, now sunburned and stubborn, still whispered to her chosen blade. Without realizing it, I’d fallen into the same trance—poking leaves, studying bugs—like we were kids again, not rivals chasing magic.

No two blades of grass were the same. Some leaned pale teal, others deep jade. Some leaves tapered sharply, some curled softly. The moment I noticed, I named the one before me Three—three leaves, simple as that.

I muttered to Three. Asked where its family was, if they’d scattered to the wind, if it was just a seed that happened to land here. The more I spoke, the more it answered, rustling like it was giddy.

I dozed off dreaming of flight, woke under a sky now star-strewn. The wind had tucked us in like a blanket. Sandora slept beside me, still clutching a fistful of grass.

Then I saw it—the wind plucking a strand of hair from her lips. Not just air, but something with fingers. My toes curled.

And then—something grabbed my finger.

Three. Wrapped tight around me. Coincidence? It squeezed when I tried to shake free.

I sat up—and finally saw.

Under the silent black sky, just Sandora and me. Gray walls hemmed us in, but the grass? It pulsed. Glowed. Not just green, but gold, sapphire, mint—thousands of lights riding the wind to land on my skin. What do you want? they whispered.

The trees held constellations. The lake rippled with liquid stars. Even the soil pulsed red. Everything alive, flaunting their light.

“Sandora. Wake up.”

She blinked slowly. A tiny light settled on her cheek—her blade of grass had sent it. She giggled at the tickle, then opened her eyes.

“Wow.”

The wind combed through her curls. It was almost cruel we didn’t glow—like the stars had fallen just to dance around us. We laughed, and the lights spun faster, drunk on our wonder.

“It’s beautiful.”

Sandora gazed at me, her smile radiant. Without thinking, I smiled back. We played with the lights cupped in our palms—until our fingertips brushed, and suddenly, we were rising. My grip on her hand tightened in instinctive fear.

Only when the lights pooled beneath our feet did I realize—they’d formed stairs. They clung to our ankles as we climbed, stepping onto a bridge of light that stretched beyond the walls. Our linked hands became the only tether, guiding each other forward.

The stairway led us over the wall, past the distant cabin, down to the earth. The moment our feet touched ground, the lights erupted skyward like a celebration, swirling in jubilant dances. Sandora and I laughed, breathless, as they twirled above us.

Everything in this world holds light. That night, we finally understood.