I and my family are walking along the beach--the sky is low and there's a general feeling of dread and impending doom. I know that the tide is due to turn any minute, and will wash away our car, which is parked on a vulnerable sand-bar. I urge everyone to leave, wabbling on about better safe than sorry and all that stuff. My parents are adamant we'll be fine, and carry on collecting driftwood to cook the evening meal.

Two of the smaller children are close to the sea's edge--I rush down to chivvy them away, knowing that a tidal wave is due any minute.

The first few warning waves before a tsunami break--we all start running, but the smaller children are being left behind. We manage to get to the car, and my parents slam the doors with relief, but I know that one of the kids, usually Claire, is still out there--I tell everyone to drive to somewhere safe while I go out and search for her. The rest of the family drive off as I run down to the water's edge--I'm utterly terrified, as I know that the tsunami will break at any minute, and that as soon as it does I will run and leave Claire to her doom. I hate the fact I'm so cowardly.

I see a pale-green arm thirty yards out to sea--Claire is wrapped around with seaweed--it's anchored her to the seabed, and she looks dead already. I dive under water, and try to drag her out, but she's heavy with seawater and can't be shifted. I'm hysterical with grief--I know how terrified and alone she must have felt while dying--her last sight was all her family running away from her as she faced the most horrific moment of her life.

She must have died despairingly, knowing that everything she believed in was false and bitter. I think of Emily Dickinson's line--"I look to the sky for God / But the sky is empty". These were Claire's last thoughts--out here in the cold, gunmetal-grey sea.

I decide she will not die alone, that I will be along very shortly to apologise to her in the Limbo we'll both end up in. I wrap my arms around my dead sister, and wait for the tsunami to take me to her.

SOURCE: The Tiger Garden: A Book of Writers' Dreams by Nicholas Royle, p.169-172. Original passage untitled.