The grown woman standing before us smiled as she told us that she was our long-lost daughter, who had finally found us after reading about our success online. I welcomed her into the house quickly while my husband started looking online for immediate-effect life insurance policies again.

It didn’t take us long to realise that the tide wasn’t coming back in. We chased the water through sand, rock and coral and over the corpses of suffocated sea creatures, right up until the edge of the endless hole.

I can feel my cat kneading my stomach with her claws as she takes advantage of my sleep paralysis. I keep my eyes shut to avoid hallucinations and squeeze them more tightly when I hear my cat scratching on the outside of my door.