03: Abduction

Angie Colson walked briskly on the boardwalk by the sea, her hurried steps taking her to the beach villa where the party was held.

There were small groups of people gathered at the seaside, pointing at the dark sky. Angie looked at the moon. She briefly remembered the news; that a lunar eclipse would transpire that night.

A special eclipse that would occur every forty years. In the middle of the boardwalk, her feet stopped to watch the historic moment unfold. She would be almost sixty if she wanted to witness it again, and god knew if she was still alive then.

The salty night breeze caressed her bare skin. Her frilly, black dress was sleeveless and stopped at her knees. She wasn't used to feeling the wind on her limbs.

Angie filched out her phone to call her best friend. "Jean, I'm on the way," she said.

Jean was shrieking over the line. "Oh god, I didn't think you're coming! When your dad called me, I just couldn't lie, you know! So you're not really having a fever?"

"If I was, I wouldn't be walking at the beach at night. Did you know there's an eclipse happening tonight? I'm watching it right now actually."

"I knew it! What a lying prick your dad is!"

Angie watched as the sun, ironically now a round black mass of darkness, edging close to obscure the moon. In a few minutes, the sun would swallow it completely.

"Don't call Clive that. You know I don't like it."

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

"What? That I called him your dad, or that he's a prick?"

"Both. He's my guardian and nobody gets to call him anything except me."

She could hear Jean roll her eyes. "Whatever, take care of your daddy issues when you get home, okay? Right now just make your way here quickly. Or do you want me to ask Ansel to pick you up?" There was a shuffle of noise. "Hold on—that guy isn't even here. Where did he disappear off to?"

Jean continued to chatter over the line, but it fell on deaf ears. Angie's focus had strayed, completely transfixed by the eclipse on the night sky. The moon looked different tonight, a small slice of white among the sullen clouds, slowly eaten away by a bigger, divine being. She beheld the vision carefully, as the wind whispered through her. It felt like the world had changed somehow for a brief moment, and she was part of that new world.

Suddenly it seemed like that the seawaves were crashing louder. The waters had receded further than normal. The people on the beach had left. It was just her, standing alone on the boardwalk.

She looked at the moon again. It was no longer there —the sun had completely consumed it.

In the dark distance, an insurmountable wall of water formed steadily and rapidly. The wind howled loud in Angie's ears, chilling her deep into the marrow of her bones.

A dark mass swirled in the waves. It swarmed out, bursting from the waters in black smoke, twisting and unfurling in the air like a plague of locust. Then it dispersed, flew to form a faint silhoutte, before scattering again in the wind. A pair of embers glowed red within.

"Ariya."

"Angie babe, you still there?"

Her phone from Angie's grasp. It slipped between the planks of the boardwalk, cluttering on the sand below.

"Ariya," the sandpaper-like voice rasped again.

It was the Shadow Man from her childhood nightmares. Angie's body stood paralysed with horror as she watched him materialize before her eyes, even as the gigantic seawave loomed past the shoreline, even as it threatened to swallow her whole.

The wave crashed onto the boardwalk in a resounding roar. It rolled further to the empty benches, shook the tall palm trees.

When it finally ebbed away back into the sea, the boardwalk was left clean and empty.

To be continued...