My hand splashes down into water. I groan, and my not yet functioning brain tries my other hand, which finds a soaked blanket on the mattress.
“What the fuck? Reid, did you piss the bed?” I growl, but a soft snore is the only answer I get. I peel my gritty eyelids open and look through blurry eyes around the room.
Both my hands are wet as I try and rub the sleep from my eyes and I realize that my entire body is wet and freezing cold. I jerk up to a sitting position to get a better look around the dim room. I keep blinking, trying to process what I’m seeing, but it makes no sense at all.
There’s a lamp floating beside the bed and the sharp scent of brine bites at my nose. It still doesn't fully register in my brain until I look at the floor-to-ceiling windows. I fly off the bed toward them in shocked disbelief. Water, there’s water up against them - but how the fuck can that be? Our room is on the tenth fucking floor!
I wade through the water, away from the windows until I bump into the bed again, never taking my eyes from the water pressing against the windows. My brain is finally starting to catch up and I start yelling.
“Reid! Reid, get up! Wake the fuck up! Something’s happened and we need to get the fuck out of here, right now!”
Reid groans and rolls over as he mumbles, “Stole all the blankets, fucking cold, man.”
I reach behind me and pat around until I feel his leg and then yank hard on it.
“Reid, wake the fuck up!”
“What?” He snaps back. I hear him gasp in a sharp breath and feel the bed bounce as he scrambles up off it. “What the fuck is happening right now? Did we do acid or shrooms last night? What the actual fuck?”
I slowly shake my head, having no answers for him. “I don’t know but we need to get out of here. Who knows how long that glass will hold?”
“Yeah, shit, okay, have you seen my phone?” He leans over the water beside the bed and fishes around until he pulls up his soaked jeans. “Never mind. I found it.”
I do the same and find my jeans underwater with my wallet and phone completely soaked through. I sit on the bed and drag them on, shuddering at the feel of wet denim clinging to my legs. Then I wade over to the dresser where we left our bags. Thankfully, the water is still a few inches from the top of the dresser so everything is still dry. Not that it helps, everything will be soaked if we try and carry it out of here. Fuck, we’ll just have to hold everything over our heads as we go. I zip both of them up and toss Reid his and then start wading to the door.
“Where are we going, Jules?”
“Fuck if I know, but let’s start with up. I want to get above this water.”
It takes both of us to pull the door open through the water that reaches halfway up it. I hear ominous creaking noises coming from the windows like the glass is flexing and getting ready to break. Reid glances behind us at the noise. He turns back with terror showing on his face and we both start moving faster out into the hall toward the emergency exit and stairs. Stairs are good. Stairs will take us up away from the water. If we can get to the roof, we will have a decent view and maybe figure out what the fuck has happened since we passed out lastnight. The power is obviously out and all exit doors should be unlocked. Right?
We make it into the stairwell and start climbing, happy to be out of the water even as it drips off of our clothing.
“Do you think it was a tsunami? How the fuck did we sleep through that?”
“A lot of shots and a lot of pot is how we slept through whatever happened. It had to have been fast, though. This is an expensive hotel. I can’t see them just abandoning all the guests, unless they tried to get us out and we slept through that too.” I scrub at my face and grumble. “I would kill for a fucking coffee, a full bottle of water and a handful of painkillers. This hangover is kicking my ass. Every step we climb makes me want to puke.”
We finally reach the top floor and spot the roof access sign. I go to push out the door but Reid grabs my arm, stopping me.
“Hold up. Look.” He points down at a long piece of wood leaning against the door jam and I’m guessing it’s to block the door from closing. Just in case, I grab it and stoop down to set it in place while Reid goes through the door.
“Argggg! No! No, no, no, no!”
I push Reid out of the way to see what he’s flipping out about and I immediately duck and lunge to the side. Like that’s going to protect me from the fucking cracked moon heading our way. Reid staggers over to me and we clutch at each other as we stare up in horror at something out of a bad science fiction movie because this can’t be happening. This can’t be real.
“Is…is…is it moving? Is it coming closer?”
I don’t know the answer but I need to protect him. I’ve always needed to protect him. I grab his head with both my hands and turn it away from the moon until our foreheads are pressed together and he’s forced to look in my eyes and then I lie because I don’t fucking know the truth.
“No, it’s not moving. It’s not coming any closer. We’re going to be okay, Reid. We’re going to get off this roof and either get rescued or fucking swim until we find dry land. And then… and then we are going home to be with Luna, okay? Luna needs us, so you have to man up here and help me get us home, alright?”
Some of the terrorized glaze clears from his eyes. “Luna, yes, we need to get to her. She’s going to be so fucking scared,” he whispers, then pushes away from me and stands. “Let’s go.”
I take his arm and pull him to the eastern-facing side of the building. All we can see is water covering what was once downtown Vancouver. I look all over the skies searching for the helicopters that should be swarming the area on rescue missions and come up empty. Why the fuck is no one out looking to save people? I get my answer within minutes when a sharp whistling noise has both of us ducking as something flies through the sky two buildings away and makes a loud crash when it hits another building. We both whirl around and see at least eight more white trails shooting through the sky. As one, we turn our gazes to the broken moon.
“Those are pieces of the moon. Holy fuck, pieces of the moon are shooting at us!”
I take one more look over the side of the building down at the water and then grab his arm and pull him back to the door.
