"There's my favourite niece!"

My head snaps up to the voice of my aunt. There's a straw hooked over her lip, the end of it submerged in a tall glass of something pink with a passion fruit slice floating on the surface. She's in a black, string bikini and a pair of fluffy sliders.

"Jules!" I throw myself at her, knocking the drink from her grasp so that it goes tumbling into the sand beneath our feet. It feels like I haven't seen her in days and yet here she is, living life without a care in the world.

"I hope you're going to get me another one of those." She says pointedly and I blush. "I wondered where you'd gotten to."

Where had I gotten to?

Why does it feel like we've been apart for so long?

"Not to worry though!" She claps her hands together, so loudly that I jump. "You're here now." 

I'm smiling but I can't shake the confusion as to where it is that I've 'been'. 

"And just a heads up." Jules adds in a more sombre tone. "Apparently there's a dead body in the water." 

My eyes widen instantly. A dead body in the sea? Right here on the beach? 

I turn away from her - towards the water - where a cluster of people are thigh deep and peering down at something. 

And I just can't help myself. 

My feet take off from the sand as I hurtle towards them, elbows out ready to fight my way through them. I can hear Jules calling my name but I can't stop; not even for the shower of water attacking my face each time I hit the water. Arms are thrown aside as I tear through the crowd and into the opening where I can confirm that there is most definitely a body floating on the surface. 

The face is pale with wide, staring eyes focused on the sky overhead and it doesn't take long before I realise who it is. 

Because - of course - who else could it possibly be? 

It's Harry. 

I launch upright into a stiff sitting position; heart racing and audible pants falling from my lips. My hair is plastered to my face with an adhesive of sweat and Harry's sweatshirt is clinging to me like a second skin. 

What the hell was that?  

I'm quite tempted to rank it as the worst dream - or nightmare -  I've had yet. But then again, when was the last one? It feels like ages since Jules and I watched a plane plummet into the sea in a cloud of smoke and I know it's because of Harry. For the last three nights since things got heated, we've clung onto one another at night as though our lives have depended on it. 

And we definitely fell asleep in the same way last night...so what happened?

I turn to face Harry's sleeping quarters. His towels are rumpled and evidently slept on but he's nowhere to be seen. There hasn't been a morning in the last few days where he hasn't been in my face; prodding and poking me awake or even just open mouthed and drooling into the the crook of his arm. But this morning is different. Last night was different. 

It's not the first time I've woken up without him and I know that really, the anxiety I'm feeling is somewhat irrational, but I just can't ignore the nagging feeling that something is wrong. I squint down the beach where only the remains of our last fire exist as any real evidence that we've been here at all. There are no yellow shorts or mauve hats or crazy spear-throwing cavemen. There's no Harry. 

I scrabble to my feet, catching my bare skin on the rough palm mattress, and hurry in the direction of the sea. It looms up to greet me as a mass of liquid glass but the shore is free of any sign of Harry Styles. 

"Harry?" I call out and my voice is carried off in the breeze. I chase after it, ploughing through the sand like it's mud until I reach my hand drawn 'SOS' sign. It's still immaculate and safe from the tide, despite all the excitement over Harry's washed up luggage only days before. 

But he's not here either. 

My heart's pounding now; almost bursting out of my chest with repetitive forceful thumps that won't relent. I grab a fistful of my hair in frustration and realise how sweaty I am. The sun is blazing down on me like a spotlight but I can't find it in me to care about how ridiculous it is to be wearing a sweatshirt right now. 

Where the hell is he? 

Of course there are various sensible and realistic possibilities. He could be refilling our water bottles or looking for firewood or even for fishing bait. Perhaps if I'm really lucky, I'll find him building a raft to sail us home. 

And yet the irrational fear is still there. 

"And just a heads up." Jules adds in a more sombre tone. "Apparently there's a dead body in the water." 

My head snaps up to the sea again and just like before - I can't help myself. I race into the sea like some sort of possessed rhinoceros, not stopping until my feet lift up from the seabed so that I'm drifting awkwardly with my chin barely breaking the surface. The hoodie is heavy now that it's wet and with the water trapped beneath it - it billows out around me like a deflated parachute.  

"Harry!" I scream and swallow a mouthful of salt. It makes me retch and I release a strangled cry. "HARRY!" 

I can't stop thinking about the crowd that had formed around him; all buzzing with excitement as if he were a tourist attraction. I can see the haunted, lifeless look on his face and I can't help but dive under. The salt water burns my eyes but I force them to stay open; a furious scowl burnt into my expression. 

It's peaceful under the water, just as I remember it from before. It's so clear that it's almost as if there's no water at all. And yet, despite the translucency - I can't see him. 

I come up for air; breaking the surface like a determined submarine with my head and heart throbbing. I know I should go back onto land and explore in the trees or the water pool but my nightmare is so vivid in my mind that it's almost all my brain can think about. 

"What on earth are you doing?"

My body swivels instinctively to the voice behind me where Harry stands squinting out from underneath the rim of his bucket hat. 

"Where the hell have you been?" I growl. How dare he stand there, looking as though he's just stumbled across me out of coincidence while I nearly drown myself looking for him.

He opens his mouth to reply but I've already left the water, only just catching sight of his eyes widening in shock as I launch myself at his half naked body. My arms latch around his waist; forcing my face to collide with his chest in an unsportsmanlike fashion. His feet come off the ground - as do mine - and we both go flying into a heap in the sand. There's the loud huff of an exhale as his back hits the floor before I grasp hold of his shoulders. 

"Talk!" I demand. "Right now...talk!" 

He stares at me; eyes popping and mouth gaping and I realise that, in the tussle, he's lost his hat. "What's the matter with you?"

"I woke up and you were gone!" I accuse and use my hands against his shoulders to push myself up into a kneeling position beside him. His lips twitch and he balks. 

"I've been gone when you've woken up before?" He points out breathlessly. "Why are you so worked up about it this time?"

My cheeks are burning scarlet and I peel the now soaking wet hoodie off of my body before throwing it at Harry's face. He shakes his head, shimmying it away from him before pulling himself up into a sitting position and staring at me expectantly. 

"I had a nightmare." I say eventually and rub my tired eyes. Somewhere, buried beneath the exhaustion and livid anger - there's an intense embarrassment, the kind that's making it hard for me to decide whether or not I'm pleased to find him alive. 

"Funnily enough - me too." He releases a large exhale of air. "So instead of transforming into a total psychopath, I went for a walk." 

I can't help but narrow my eyes at him. "I thought you were dead."

His cheeks puff out and burst into a spurt of laughter. "Don't be daft. A little malnourished and sleep deprived perhaps but not dead." 

"No." I say, shaking my head. "In my nightmare. You were dead." 

I watch his face crumple into a frown and he curls a hand around one of my own. "And I keep losing you."

I crinkle my nose. "I think you'll find that I was the one who lost you, actually. Hence why I was looking for you and-"

Harry's blank, pale expression stops me in my tracks and bite down onto my lower lip. "In my nightmare - I keep losing you. You get taken away from me every time and there's absolutely nothing I can do about it."

I'm speechless. 

I want to ask Harry how often he's been having these nightmares but I don't want to make him relive them by talking about it. And at the same time, I can't help feeling incredibly uncomfortable that the two of us are having terrible dreams about one another at the same time. 

"Strange, isn't it?" He says eventually in a defeated tone and I lean forward and rest my forehead against his. 

"Do you think it means anything?" I can't stop myself from asking. I generally don't believe in any of that 'stuff', but then again, I thought plane crashes and becoming stranded on desert islands only happened on the big screen. 

And yet here we are. 

"As much as I want to say no," he sighs, tickling my face with his breath. "I think it might." 

I lean away from him, watching his face carefully as he opens his eyes and looks up at me. "What do you think it means?"

He swallows uncomfortably and lowers his gaze and I just know that somehow, he genuinely believes whatever it is that he's about to tell me.  

"Honestly, Sarah?" He releases his grasp of my hand. "I think it means we're coming to the end of our time here." 

The weight of his words sends me slumping over to one side so that I'm no longer resting on my knees. I can't look at him. Harry knows full well that what he's just said could mean one of two things. Either we're going home...

...or we're going to die here. 

And one currently looks a hell of a lot more likely than the other. 

a/n: Apologies for the delayed update! I hope everyone had a great Christmas and...happy new year! Let me know what you think of this chapter :)