Authors: Amy Braun
The water around
me
, on the other hand… Different story and a
severely
different stress level.
My eyes stung from the sea salt as the water splashed across my face. I stood up, my arms and legs now soaked and my clothes clinging to my skin. I splashed through the water and raced for the door. Well, not exactly raced. More like dragged. The torrent of ocean water crashed against me, trying to push me back into the house. I made it to the door, but had to cling to the frame to keep my balance. I gripped the edges of the heavy iron and started to pull. The metal resisted me, unwilling to move against the heavy flow of water.
A flash of light slashed through my vision. My traitorous eyes followed it.
Bits of shingle and roofing spiraled through the air like flakes of deadly ash. The trunks of palm trees splintered as they snapped in half, their big leaves ripped from their crowns. Flooded cars were
carried through the flow of water barreling down the street. Trash and debris followed it. If anyone was crazy enough to still be outside, I couldn’t see them, couldn’t hear them scream.
But I wasn’t really looking at the destruction. I was looking at the center of the street, directly across from me. The way the water broke apart around the figure standing in it, as if it were Moses beginning to part the Red Sea.
I was frozen with shock. I saw it. I was
looking at one.
I could barely believe it, but I knew it was true.
A Stormkind.
Its body was made of water, shafts of pale blue light outlining its skeleton. The water shimmered over the light like water over stone, rippling and calm.
For a second, that’s exactly what it was– calm. It just stood there. Maybe it was looking around, though I didn’t know how it would have done so. It had no nose or mouth. Two almond-shaped eyes glowed from its face like halogen headlights. It was a disturbing, alien thing.
Nobody knew what the Stormkind really were or where they had come from, because nobody that encountered one had gotten close enough to study them, let alone stop to have a chat with one.
That single second ended, and I remembered why.
The Stormkind lifted its arms. The water around it crested in a tidal wave. The Stormkind twisted and pushed its hands toward the houses across the street. The tidal wave mimicked its movements and slammed into the houses, obliterating them like they’d been made of matchsticks.
I clamped my hand over my mouth to stifle my scream, thinking about my neighbors that lived in those houses. The Wilsons with their unbearably loud truck. Mrs. Tucker with her yappy dog. The Cortez’s with their newborn baby.
None of them had won the Lottery. All of them could be dead now.
The Stormkind bent its arm over its head in an awkward wave. A huge gust of wind crested over the street, pushing the debris and snapping more palm trees. It also pushed the water closer to the Stormkind.
That was when I saw the body.
I couldn’t really see who it was. I recognized them as being male, but that was it. They flailed and thrashed as their head bobbed up and down in the water. I wanted to help, but I was frozen at the door. I couldn’t have moved even if I wanted to.
And I wasn’t sure I did. As terrifying as all this was, I had to admit that I was amazed. Everyone who had seen a Stormkind before today was now dead. Photographs of them were rare and accused of being fakes. But I knew what I was seeing was real. It couldn’t be anything but genuine. Morbid curiosity had dug its hooks into me, and I didn’t know how to let go.
The man drifted to the Stormkind. He tumbled out of the wave and rolled onto the concrete. The Stormkind reacted with quick, violent grace. It grabbed the man’s shoulders– my heart lurched when I recognized Mr. Cortez– and lifted him like he was a rag doll.
Then the icy blue light in its body drifted up, out of its face, and slid into Mr. Cortez’s screaming mouth. The light obscured their faces, but I saw the illumination in the Stormkind intensify. Mr. Cortez’s legs kicked and jerked helplessly.
Then they stopped. The light drew back from the Stormkind’s face.
Mr. Cortez was limp and grey.
The Stormkind dropped my neighbor’s lifeless body and scurried around the street, pushing the winds and gathering more water. It shoved the waves aside, each one battering more homes to splinters. One of the waves crashed onto my street, sending a barrage of ocean water right into my face.
I coughed it out and spat the salt from my mouth. Served me right for standing and gawking at the alien controlling the hurricane on my street.
I backed up and gripped the iron door. While I’d been gawking, the water flooding into my house reached my thighs. I panicked when I thought about how it could have drowned my family, but threw the thought aside when I remembered they were safe in the basement, locked behind a watertight door.
A door I had no chance of opening now that it was smothered in a layer of heavy water.
My heart thundered with panic. I didn’t have a way to protect myself. Even if I could close the front door– and another minute of pushing and cursing told me I couldn’t– I had no protection in the house. The roof was coming apart. The first level was totally flooded. If I weren’t hurled through the air from the wind, I would drown in the flood.
I shoved my hands through my hair again, gripping the red strands by the roots as if it would help me think.
But I couldn’t even do that. I was too damn scared. My heart was on a rampage, punching at my ribcage while my brain screamed at me to
think think think!
There were procedures for this kind of thing. When the Storm Protection Union realized this would be the year of the next Centennial, they made the government pass laws that forced schools to teach us how to handle natural disasters. Dust storms, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, anything and everything. It was like being in the Spetsnaz, but without being trained how to kill.
Yet try as hard as I did– and I was two seconds away from giving myself an aneurysm due to the pressure I was putting on my brain as I scoured it for memories– I couldn’t remember anything. The information just wouldn’t come.
My best bet now was to find an SPU station. They were everywhere, especially in the oh-so-weather-lucky state of Florida. They had the best facilities for anyone who didn’t win the Lottery and couldn’t afford to modify their house. If I could find them, I could ride it out. I would be safe.
The nearest SPU station was...
Oh, God, look at the tide
... Park Vista, my old high school! Five blocks away.
Might as well have been on the goddamn moon.
But I could get there. I
would
get there. I mean, how hard could it be? I liked to surf, and I was the best swimmer at my school.
I was also clinging to adrenaline, fear, and hopeless dreams, but I didn’t have time to focus on rationality.
I took a deep breath, gathered the remnants of my courage and sanity, and left my house.
The hurricane winds knocked me over. I yelped when I hit the rising water, but was able to at least turn around.
Okay. Not a great start. But at least I wasn’t upside down.
I dragged my arms through the current, turning my head to check on the Stormkind. It must have had its back to me because the houses across from me were still being destroyed. It ran back and forth, swinging its arms wildly, water and wind battering the wood to splinters. It drew the ocean water forward, then hurled it aside. Was it looking for other people to...You know what? I didn’t actually want to know. Swimming faster. That’s the secret I wanted to uncover right now.
My arms strained as I punched them into the water. It fought me the whole way, but I kicked and pushed myself. I moved through the water slowly, but I was making progress. I was almost at the end of the block, and while the ocean water and heavy rain was absolutely
freezing
me– warm, Florida seawater, this was not– I concentrated on the SPU station. They would have everything: strong walls, warm blankets, dry clothes, hot chocolate–
The current I was in abruptly crested. Salt water pooled in my throat and surrounded me. My body was lifted, out of control. I felt myself being pushed, but I didn’t know where I was going. Up and down were perceptions. My eyes burned as I tried to look through the murky grey water. My mouth was closed, but I could taste the salt water I’d stupidly swallowed scorching through my throat. The violent churns of the ocean pummeled my ears, becoming nightmarish. My heart was beating way too fast.
I had no idea where I was, or what was in the water with me. I was trapped, helpless to do anything if a submerged mailbox or car hit me. Oh God, why did I do this? What the hell was I thinking? Where was I, what was around me, where was the surface, I needed to breathe,
I can’t breathe–
The tidal wave punched into my back. I flipped end over end until my spine crashed into slick, unforgiving concrete. I hacked and vomited water, dragging air into my parched lungs. I was shaking, though I didn’t register the cold.
What I did register were the walls of water around me, cocooning me in the single open space on the street.
Horror filled my aching body. Mr. Cortez’s corpse was no longer in this space.
But I wasn’t alone.
I flipped over, a scream hitching in my throat.
The Stormkind towered over me like some ancient ocean god, its glowing white eyes searing my own retinas. Water cascaded around its featureless body, making the beacons of light in its skeleton shiver.
It reached for me, and I raised my arm uselessly, opening my mouth to scream–
A flash of light seared my vision. It concealed a dark shape that crashed into the ground inches from my feet. I shrieked and scuttled back. My heart couldn’t take much more of this. If I didn’t pass out, I might become one of the only twenty-one year olds to die of a heart attack.
The light between me and the Stormkind faded. In its place stood a man.
Not a Stormkind, but legitimate man. He was tall and broad, his hair the same silver as the long-sword in his hand. He was as drenched as I was, rainwater running across the black leather and steel plating of his armor. On the metal plate covering his back was some kind of insignia– a series of jagged waves sliced in half by an upturned sword.
I could barely comprehend what just happened, who this man was, and why he looked like he was on his way to some kind of Renaissance Fair for Badasses. But I did know that the Stormkind didn’t attack him.
It moved
away
from him.
Whoever this man was, the Stormkind was terrified of him.
“You have devoured already, Wild One,” the man said, his voice deep and raspy, like gravel mixing with smoke. “This one is not yours.”
The man turned on his heel and looked at me. My heart skipped another beat.
He was in his late forties, and alarmingly handsome. The shockingly silver hair was tied at the back of his neck, displaying a hawkish face of sharp angles. His skin was paler than my own, and he didn’t have so much as a single blemish or age-worn scar. The man looked perfect, in a harsh way.
Except for his eyes.
They were so dark they appeared black to me, twin voids that threatened to suck the life from me if I stared into them for too long. I saw nothing in them, no emotion that I could recognize. This man chilled me worse than any part of the storm I was trapped in.
When he spoke again, I felt my heart freeze.
“This one is mine.”
I must have heard him wrong. He couldn’t have meant me. I was nobody. A waitress struggling to pay her way through college. I didn’t have any big connections and had never gotten so much as a parking ticket.
But this man didn’t see me that way. He eyed me like I was prey.
A panicked breath strained out of my chest and I flipped around, desperate to get to my feet. The man grabbed my ankle and pulled. I landed hard on my stomach. He pulled me across the concrete. My fingers scrabbled and skidded over the road, burning and slipping away from traction I didn’t have.
He let go of my ankle and grabbed my hair instead. I yelped at the sharp pain as he pulled me back to meet his eyes.
They weren’t just dark. They
were
black, so deep I couldn’t even see his pupils.
I wanted to beg, fight, do anything to make him let me go. But I knew I was mercilessly trapped.
Helpless.
His inky eyes traced my body, scrutinizing instead of leering.
“You are not ideal,” he growled. “But I am short on time. You will have to do.”
I didn’t know what he meant, didn’t even know how to start asking, when he reached for his belt and took out a dagger with a light in the crystal blade.