Everything was dark. Elise parted her burning eyelids to find the world around her had disappeared, save for the smooth patch of pavement beneath her feet. Startled by the lack of safe footing, she stuck her arm out to find nothing but vacuum to greet her flailing hand. The air was too thin to breathe, every second of panic squeezing around her lungs with a vice-like grip. Beneath her desperate breaths, the heaving waves of the sea thrashed against their crumbling basin.

    As she teetered on the edge of her platform, the relentless tug of an unusual weight by Elise's side steadied her wavering balance. She flipped open her bag to find it overflowing with soft, sparkling white sand that whipped up into her face when she reached into its bulk. Small black pebbles rested in her palm as she withdrew her searching grasp, each one chipped and scratched as if plucked straight from the beach's harsh and exposed landscape. A stray rocky shard leapt from Elise's hand, and she convinced herself to follow its flight.

    There was no ground to catch Elise's foot as she stepped forwards. She barely let out a shocked cry before her face descended into a mound of sand, more than a few particles scratching the inside of her mouth. As she peeled herself from the beach floor, the harsh blue glare of siren lights burst in front of her, piercing her eye even through the shield of her hand. Though the ocean hid behind the powerful beacons, the crash of its riotous waves pounded against her ears.

    "Just like I said – she's a walking car crash." By Elise's side, Melody stood with her arms folded. Though icy rainwater soaked into Elise's shivering body, Melody's tidy hair and sleek striped jumper seemed immune to the surrounding downpour. The girl glanced at Elise's sand-crusted form and scoffed under her breath. "And she'll make you crash right with her, I bet. That's what she does. Trust me, precious."

    "What's happening? Where am I?" Elise asked, stomping into Melody's line of sight when the girl refused to acknowledge her questions. "What are we doing here?"

    Melody rolled her eyes and checked her nails. "I'd have expected someone so nosy to be able to figure things out for themselves," she said through a sigh. As Elise held her stare, Melody groaned and flicked her head towards the blinding siren lights. "Well, what are you waiting for? We both know you're going to run after her like a good little sidekick."

    Wiping the raindrops from above her eye, Elise looked along the beach to find a lone figure stood at the heart of the sirens, unfazed by the blazing beacons. Her emotions whirled around her heart into a messy, chaotic collision at the sight of Cadence's familiar form, yet there was no doubt which feeling won out. "Cade! It's me!"

    It was unclear whether any of Elise's words reached her friend through the rain, spray, and dazzling glare. She cleared her throat to shout louder, yet when she looked up again, Cadence was barely visible, her shape dissolving into a rush of darkness. Lifting her eyes to the void overhead, Elise froze in the shadow of a tidal wave that surged from the endless ocean. It climbed, it frothed, and it grew until it was more than large enough to wipe the beach clean. Then it fell.

    "Cade, run! Now!" Elise threw herself forward to catch her friend's hand, only for a violent force to close around her waist and drag her backwards. Winded and speechless, she watched the water collapse through the air, dwarfing Cadence's still form as it descended. Her friend vanished inside the wave's bulk, and Elise shut her eyes to shield herself from the inevitable destruction.

    "Oat latte, no sugar." A metal travel mug clanged against the table in front of Elise, rescuing her before the wave's devastating power landed. Over the sofa, her roommate jolted backwards at her violent awakening, looking down with a mask of uncertainty. "That is how you like it, right?"

    "Robin?" Against her efforts to sit up straight, Elise found herself thwarted by the unexpected weight of a blanket over her. It was thick and woollen, and its blossoming pink colour flourished against the sofa's dull fabric. It was also nothing like any blanket she remembered either of them owning. "Sorry, that's great, thanks. How long have I been asleep?"

    Taking a sip from his own mug, Robin perched on a kitchen barstool. "Oh, you passed out pretty much straight away," he said as he set his bag down on the floor beside his seat. "We didn't even get a chance to ask what'd happened or where you'd been before you flopped down on the sofa. When your eyes stayed shut, we figured we'd leave you alone until you woke up."

    Elise wiped the sleep from her eyes. "We?"

    "Are you warm enough?" From the other sofa, Natalie shuffled into Elise's view with her own black and pink-coloured travel mug cradled between her hands. "You were all wet and cold when you showed up, so I thought my blanket might help."

    "It's super comfy. I just hope I haven't ruined it with all my grossness," Elise said as she closed the blanket tighter around her body to fight the last dregs of chill locked in her clothes. Feeling the weight of both Robin and Natalie's gazes on her shoulders, she buckled and fell back against the sofa cushions. "You didn't have to do all this for me, really."

    With another sip of his drink, Robin left the barstool and rubbed his warmth into Elise's numb arm. "Oh, but we did. How could I leave my roommate when she clearly needs a coffee in her hands and an arm around her shoulder?" He settled beside Natalie on the other sofa, setting his cup down with a gentle, yet persistent stare at his roommate across the space. "Plus, the cosier you feel, the more likely it is you'll fill us in on what's going on with you. Slightly manipulative, sure, but I'm pretty sure you've got something to get off your chest."

    "Dr Robin Pawley strikes again. Sometimes I hate that you're so sweet," Elise replied with a smile that, while weak, was totally unforced. She mustered the strength to sit up again, then swivelled in her seat to stop herself falling flat. "It's not just one thing though. It's everything all at once. It's Florence's condition, my dad rolling up, the plagiarism stuff...and now Cade's mad at me..."

    "Uh oh. I think we found the sore spot," Robin said, pointing to the anxious flexing of Elise's fingers between the thin gap in her blanket. He smiled in an attempt to reassure her, yet drops of concern glimmered across the warm brown rings in his eyes. "Does this have something to do with you dropping off the face of the earth yesterday?"

    Though less than half a day's memories rested over the party, it felt like another phase of Elise's life after the turn in Cadence's mood. Dancing in public, crowd-surfing, and making out on a grotty party floor all seemed so natural, so right back then. Now, without her friend to lean on, Elise could barely imagine any of it, let alone repeat the feats. "Kind of. Sorry about that, again," she muttered as she held her fingers still against her urge to fidget. "We went to a party and ran into one of Cade's old friends, and things got...complicated. I said something stupid, pissed Cade off, and screwed things up between us. Again."

    Natalie stared at her shoes and fiddled with the hem of her jumper dress. "That sounds pretty messy," she said, her tone shaking. "I'm sure she won't stay mad at you for long though. Even best friends fall out sometimes, especially at parties. I think she just needs time to calm down."

    "And not to boss you about or anything, but maybe you both could use some time away from each other," Robin added, stroking the back of his neck with a shaky smile. "It just seems like you've been hanging out together a lot recently – every day, actually. I've never seen you stick to someone's side so much."

    "Cade's my best friend, Robin! She has been for years, in one way or another." Suddenly flustered, Elise freed herself from the heavy blanket and bathed in the breezy draught that poured through the flat's windows. "She's been going through some tough stuff lately, and I...really care about her. I want to be there for her, to help her."

    "I get that, I do. But everybody needs a day to themselves now and then, you know?" Drumming his fingers along his crossed legs, Robin weighed up his words before selecting the best ones to speak aloud. "You two were out of each other's lives for, what, ten years? To go from never seeing one another for that long to spending every day together is a lot to handle, so it's not too surprising that you've hit a bump."

    Inspired by the soothing, conciliatory tone in Robin's voice, Elise seized the reins of her red-hot thoughts. Last night's memories provided plenty of evidence for how much Cadence had changed both her life and her own self. Her attempt to split with her father, her lax approach to keeping Robin in the loop, and her confrontations with Matt had all come about through her friend's influence. Though the transformations took a stark toll, Elise relished every dramatic thrill that Cadence brought to her life. The dull pain that throbbed in her chest while they were apart made that clear.

    As she bundled her blanket against her chest, Natalie watched Elise's thoughts swirl through her eyes and sighed. "It's nice that you get along. I can't imagine meeting anybody I knew as a kid now, let alone being friends with them again. Just thinking about it makes me so anxious."

    The rain paused its vigorous assault on the misty windows, and the drift carried the sombre clouds far enough apart to release the waning sunlight. A lone, bold column of light fell through Natalie's hair, brightening both her and Elise's face with a rosy glow. "Sounds like their loss to me. You're a good friend," Elise said as she steadied her frustrated fidgeting. "It'll probably be fine. I guess I just feel like an idiot for screwing up with Cade after trying so hard to fix things, or for even caring at all."

    "You're allowed to care about people, Ellie," Robin answered, maintaining his reassuring smile. "But you're not allowed to forget about yourself in the process. That's a fast-track to burning yourself out."

    "And don't I know it. I should probably go and lie down on an actual bed for a bit," Elise said through a sigh. She rummaged through her bag for her phone and switched the device off, rising from the sofa as she did. A pale wave of confusion washed over Natalie's face, and Elise reached out to win the girl's attention. "Everything alright, Natalie?"

    Natalie's hands bolted her to the arm of the sofa in front of her. "Where did you get that?"

    Stunned by the shock of directness in the girl's tone, Elise reeled her hand back. "Get what?"

    "That!" Natalie rounded the sofa and snatched something up from the floor, holding it out for Elise to see. Crinkled and scorched, the fragment of colourful paper from the fishing hut lay in the middle of her palm. Shivers ran along the length of the girl's arm as she watched it unfurl. "This...where did you find this?"

    The paper's blackened edges twitched without a sound in Natalie's grasp, yet the memories of the fishing hut hissed and glistened in Elise's mind. "Cade likes to chill in the old fishing village. I found it with a bunch of other burnt stuff in one of the houses," she said as she avoided the prying gazes from both Natalie and Robin. "It seemed so personal next to everything else, and that caught my curiosity, I guess. I don't normally go around picking up rubbish, I promise."

    Closing her fingers around the scrap, Natalie grasped for the side of the sofa to steady her worsening tremors. "This isn't rubbish, Ellie," she whispered on a breath that trembled through the air. "This is my story, or at least what's left of it."

    "What?" Roaring waves lashed against the walls of Elise's heart. "Really? How do you know?"

    "I'm sure of it." Conviction coursed through Natalie's statement, and she pulled out a sleek pink notebook from her bag on the far sofa. Flicking through the book, she held out a page covered in glued print-outs and set the fragment alongside them. "My brain doesn't work well with big blocks of text, so I started highlighting my notes to make them easier to read. When I type things out, I change the colour of the font with every sentence."

    Elise compared the paper scrap to the girl's notes over and over, the similarity striking her core harder with every pass. "And these phrases...do you really remember your story this well?" she asked with a searching look at Natalie's face. "I struggle to remember pretty much anything I've written after I shut my computer down."

    "So do I, but this is a big moment. It's the first really intimate interaction between my main characters," Natalie said, shifting in her clothes as Robin's wide eyes fell on her. "It's also...one of my favourite scenes in the whole thing. I remember struggling over it for so long, then feeling so warm inside when I finally finished it. It sounds silly, but I was just so happy for my girls."

    "I think it sounds sweet. I totally get it," Elise said with a tender stroke of Natalie's arm. The subtle admission that queered the end of Natalie's sentence spawned a lingering smile on her lips, and Elise could sense Natalie's defensive wall chipping away to let her closer to the girl's innermost self. "And I do believe you, Natalie. It's just such a crazy coincidence – how did it even end up being burned in that hut?"

    As she eased her book shut, Natalie lowered her head and blinked away the mist that welled in her eyes. "I found the door on my locker hanging open about a month ago, and all my things had been messed up," she said, digging her nails into the knitted gaps along her woolly sleeve. "After freaking out for a long time, I saw that whoever it was didn't take anything but my story notes. As soon as the security staff knew nothing expensive had vanished, they stopped listening. They just told me to check I'd locked the door before leaving, like I didn't already triple-check it every time. They didn't care at all."

    Despite soaking in the sun's strengthening rays, Natalie's downcast face dulled further as she immersed herself in the pivotal moment all over again. Elise guided the girl back to the sofa, nudging Robin with her foot to do more than look lost over Natalie's shoulder. "You mean they didn't even bother checking for security footage or something?" she asked. She cast another sharp look at her roommate, and Robin took the hint to settle himself beside Natalie, his arm laid around her shoulders. "I can't believe someone just took your notes. That's so weird and...personal. It's like they targeted you or something."

    "Whoever 'they' were," Robin added as he stared into the corner of the room with a furrowed brow. "Those lockers aren't exactly bank vaults. Anybody could force one open if they wanted to, and this person definitely wanted to, for whatever reason."

    "You shared your story around the writing workshops, right, Natalie? Maybe one of them wanted to swoop in and steal the credit." The cast-iron shackles around Elise's heart loosened, and her mind cut through her nightmare's lingering fog to focus on her fledgling plan. "All we have to do is find out who broke into your locker. Then we'll know who published your story themselves!"

    Natalie fiddled with the neck of her top, her hands slinking into the safety of her sleeves. "I guess that could work..." she muttered under her breath. Red heat swelled the bags of her eyes, and blood-rich cracks shot around her pure blue irises. Suddenly, she gasped and buried her face in her hands. "But everything's already ruined, and I'll never get my story back now. I've lost my girls forever, and without them there's no point. I should just...give it all up."

    Taking a deep breath, Elise kneeled by the girl's feet and placed a tentative hand on her shoulder. "You've got every right to be hurt, Natalie. You put so much work into this story, and it's terrible that someone ripped it away from you." As she spoke, Elise wrapped her fingers around Natalie's wrist and squeezed a shot of comforting warmth into the girl's trembling frame. "This person might've copied your work, but no matter what, they can't copy your love for writing. That's all yours, and you shouldn't give it up."

    "Why not?" Natalie snapped, a flash of frustration cutting through her suffocating sobs. With a silent apology flushing across her cheeks, she clasped her hands together and rested her head on her fingertips, her voice taking on a prayer-like solemnity. "Someone pretended to be nice to me, then ripped a piece of my heart out just for one extra publication credit. I still feel sick every time I think about it. If this is what being a writer is like, I don't want anything to do with it."

    "It won't always be like this, okay?" Fighting back the lump in her throat, Elise held Natalie's arm still through her shivers. "This is just one freak, fucked-up situation, that's all. We'll get to the bottom of it together, and we'll get you your spark back, I promise."

    "Really?" A sudden gasp split Natalie's lips apart, and they refused to reunite as she wiped the hot tears from her eyes. "I didn't expect you to care this much about my story. Honestly, I still feel like an idiot for getting so upset about it."

    Tiny lanterns floated through the pools of Elise's eyes. "You're my friend, Natalie. Of course I care," she said, a small chuckle flaring her nostrils as she finished speaking. "Besides, you just watched me have a huge sulk because me and my friend had one little fight. I can't call anyone an idiot for getting upset about something they care about."

    Robin shifted in his seat, and he glanced over at the empty space on the kitchen counter. "Like their special birthday wine, for instance?" he asked, the hardening of his stern brow not matching the laugh he gave out. As he turned to face the side of Natalie's face, his usual awkwardness returned with renewed vigour. "You know, Nat, if you ever want to, you can bring your writing notes with you when you stay here. You can even leave them here during your uni days. I think Ellie has a spare drawer she doesn't use – right, Ellie?"

    "Oh? Oh, yeah, that's right," Elise said, catching the hopeful glint in Robin's eye before she shot his plan down. This was not what she had imagined when she thought of Natalie getting a drawer in the flat, yet her roommate's loved-up expression was too sweet and gentle to crush. "It's not the biggest, but it'd hold notes just fine. I can show you where it is, if you like."

    "I...guess I could use that," Natalie answered with a surprised touch to the base of her neck. "But you two have done so much for me lately, and I feel so bad. If I ever get in your way, just say something, and I'll make myself scarce right away."

    Elise shook her head as she motioned for Natalie to follow her into her bedroom. "Don't be silly. You're a lovely roommate, and I'm not just saying that because you lent me your cosy blanket," she said, winking into the nervous blush that coloured Natalie's face. Shutting the door behind them both, Elise smiled and ran her hand through her hair. "Plus it's nice to have another writer around. Robin's a good cheerleader, but he's not the most reliable test reader. 'Distractible' is the best word for his reading style."

    Keeping her hands by her waist, Natalie failed to hide her delight at seeing the jasmine-scented candles on the windowsill. "It's just like Robin to try, though. He's so sweet," she said, laughing to herself at some unspoked memory. Suddenly, the joy fled from her face as quickly as it had arrived. "Though I don't know if I'd call myself a writer. I haven't been able to write anything since I...heard about my story."

    "Make that one more reason to stick around here. We can bug each other to get back to the blank page," Elise answered through a laugh, releasing a slow, heavy sigh at the returning sadness in Natalie's eyes. "Where did you want to publish to? If you don't mind me asking, that is."

    "It's alright. I couldn't feel any sillier for trying in the first place anyway," Natalie said, settling on the bed with a shrug. "It was the Orchard. I figured if I went big first, it'd make applying to smaller publications less stressful. So much for that plan, I guess."

    "You can say that again." Though she answered, Elise's mind whirred with memories of her own rejection from the magazine. She sank onto the mattress beside Natalie and hugged her new unofficial roommate, shutting her heavy eyelids. "We'll get through this, alright? We'll show the Orchard what they're missing, both of us."