The distant wave towered like a massive wall toward their lonely boat. Despite rowing for dear life, the vessel barely moved. The wind held its breath, offering no push forwards - just an eerie silence. Though the sky was calm and clear, the sea moved with a will of its own, directing its intimidating powers in their direction. Perhaps it was punishing them for sins no one remembered.

They could do nothing but twist rope around their arms to secure themselves to the boat, watching the wave approach, waiting for the hungry sea to swallow them whole.

Above, the sun stretched glittering arms across the surface, burning their already reddened skin, blinding their eyes, and smiling down innocently as if none of it mattered.

So far out at sea, nobody would find any trace of what happened to the two men. No one knew where they’d gone or why. As fishermen, vanishing for days wasn’t unusual. Nobody would question their absence. As weeks passed by without them returning, would anyone even go looking for them - would anyone even care? Even if they did make it back to shore alive, there was little left to return to.

The water had been deceptively tranquil until that point, lulling them into a false sense of security. As dawn broke, they had spotted that massive force soundlessly creep up from the horizon that threatened to engulf and shatter their bodies. Without hesitation, they began to row with all their might and hurry.

But they could not row fast enough, and the wave raced towards them. Accepting defeat, they instead clasped each other’s hands tightly, prayed and wept in unison, exchanging farewells. In their final moments, their hearts opened, and they hastily unburdened truths they’d carried alone for decades. They had laughed, loved, hurt - just like anyone else. Flashes of their lives visited them by day, haunted them at night, but was never told to anyone else. Their lives had passed in silence, now visible only to each other.

Bereft of family ties and genuine companionship, they only had each other’s presence, and the little boat was their only refuge. They were two destitute fishermen, striving to establish a livelihood, who had caught wind of a fabled island with buried treasures. To them, it was an opportunity to turn their lives around.

If not for the colossal wave that stood ominously close to their fragile vessel, now thundering with a loud roar in their faces as it tugged them inwards - usurping their unspoken dreams and desires. Thus, as they faced their inevitable end, so far out at sea, their secluded lives were coming to a tragic and abrupt conclusion - their ends not witnessed or acknowledged by anyone. Their legacy, if it could even be called as such, would be an indistinct whisper, leaving no mark in history. Their lives, like their footprints in the sand before they had jumped into the boat the day before - was about to be washed away and forgotten by the next wave rolling in. It was as if they had never existed at all.