After the whales disappear beneath the surface and we step onto land, something inside me goes still. As if a string pulled too tight just snapped. I feel... untethered now that we’ve made it to shore. Drenched in saltwater, wind-stung and sore, I just stand there on the new shoreline with Reid, both of us dripping and silent, too wrung out to say a word. We change into our dry clothes from the plastic bags in our packs behind a half-fallen cinderblock wall, blocking the view from the street. I strip off the soaked layers and pause, staring down at my jeans. They’re heavy and clinging, waterlogged through every thread.
I don’t even know why I try it. Desperation to see if it’s all real? Or maybe just curiosity. Maybe it’s because everything else has stopped making sense. But if I do have these weird powers, then I need to be able to control them. Control is everything for me.
I grip the jeans tightly and think about the water inside them.
Move. Get out.
A pulse coils low in my chest like a current winding up my spine into my shoulders and down my arms. The fabric shivers and a sheen lifts off it in a slow shimmer that’s a mist gathering like breath fogging a mirror, and then the water just... evaporates. Lifts off the jeans and dissipates into the air like it was never there.
“Jesus,” I breathe out, stunned.
Reid glances over as he tugs a hoodie over his head. “What happened?”
I shake my head too quickly. “Nothing. Just tired.”
I don’t know how to say it yet. That somethingshifted. That my bones feel buzzy and wrong. That I justcommanded water like it was mine. I pick up my dry jeans but my skin is still wet, so I focus again and command the water on my skin to… lift. It happens faster and easier this time. I shove down the laugh I want to bark out because holy fuck, this is a lot. Also really, really fucking cool. I can control air and water. Holy fuck. I quickly get dressed and put on the running shoes I found back at the hotel.
"What else can I do?" I think. I shelve that for now. There are other things that I need to be focused on, like getting the hell out of this city and home to Luna. We walk through the streets, astonished at what looks and feels like a war zone without the explosions. How is any of this possible? We were just at a concert, but now stores are gutted, windows are shattered, and goods are tossed everywhere. The occasional car abandoned in the middle of the street with doors flung open like someone ran and never came back. A dress shoe sits next to a sippy cup. A backpack is slashed open, its contents scattered in the gutter.
The silence is worse than anything, but as we walk further, we start to hear it. Faint at first. Voices, dozens of them in the distance. No, more like hundreds. Thousands? We round a corner and stop cold.
A massive crowd fills what used to be a city park. The grass is hidden beneath tents, tarps, and bed sheets strung between trees. Cots, sleeping bags, and every type of chair, from office chairs to plastic lawn chairs, are crammed together wherever there’s a free space. People are standing in a lineup that snakes around the block, listless and glassy-eyed, their bodies hunched and weary. I see children crying, and a woman clutches an inhaler and a rosary. A man paces barefoot, blood caked on one foot. I see a group of teens sitting on the curb sharing one water bottle, passing it back and forth without speaking. We don’t ask or speak to anyone; we just get in line.
It moves like molasses as the sun climbs overhead and I swear I age a year waiting. Reid and I barely speak. There’s nothing to say that doesn’t make this more real. Finally, hours later, we reach the front to find a folding table that has been set up beside a bus shelter. Behind it, an aid worker in a faded Red Cross hoodie slumps with a clipboard. His face looks hollowed out like he hasn’t slept in days.
“Names?” he asks without looking up.
“Julian Stillwell,” I tell him. “That’s Reid Channing.”
“Home?”
“Prairie Gap, Alberta.”
He scribbles it down and slides two slips of paper across the table toward us.
“This is a food voucher. Two blocks to the right is a transport line. The buses going east to Alberta leave at dawn.”
Reid digs into his wallet and pulls out a couple of hundred dollars in damp, crumpled bills. “We just need a place to sleep. Something safe, a room or a cot. I’ll pay.”
The man doesn’t even blink. “Not how this works anymore.”
“There’s gotta be something,” Reid presses.
“There’s not. Find a patch of ground and lie down. That’s all I’ve got.”
I look past him. The park is a human jigsaw puzzle of bodies and backpacks and make-shift tents. There’s nowhere to go that isn’t already taken, so we walk away, both of us stunned by what has come of things. The food line is wrapped around the far end of the field. People look like they’re waiting for an execution, not meals, so we turn away from it. We have the minibar food from the hotel in our packs. That will do for tonight.
“I’m not sleeping here,” I mutter. “We’ll get trampled.”
Reid nods grimly. “Yeah. Let’s find the transport lot. Maybe it’s quieter there.”
We walk another two blocks through the city. Everything feels abandoned but not dead. Like the whole town’s just... holding its breath. We find the buses behind a chain-link fence. They’re yellow school buses, older ones, their paint faded and scratched. Cops stand around smoking in little knots. No one acknowledges us so we don’t go near them. Instead, we find an empty shop doorway near the lot. It’s a pharmacy, and the cracked windows are still intact. Looking through the window at the mess inside, it’s obvious the place has already been looted so we don’t bother going in to see if anything is left we could use. There’s just enough space for both of us to sit with our backs against the frame.
Reid pulls out the snacks from the hotel minibar. A couple of smashed granola bars and some packs of chocolate-covered almonds. I take half and chew slowly, barely tasting any of it. We share a can of Coke to wash it all down and then settle in to wait for morning. The sky turns pink, then orange, then a deep bruised purple, and still the cracked moon looms overhead in such an unnatural way.
Reid doesn’t say anything for a long time. I finally break the silence. “Do you think she’s okay?”
He doesn’t ask who I mean. He just nods, “Yeah, I have to believe she is or I’ll spiral.”
