Rain.

The familiar sea smell.

Light sand underfoot.

And the sky… there was no sky. Just clouds. Churning clouds of rumbling black and lightning white.

The locals called it the storm to end storms.

But there would be more.

In Kaiser’s abdication, there came Führer. And after them, presidents and prezidenty.

Another world war would always succeed.

So let glasses be raised to the storm to end storms…

Evelyn Deforce stood alone upon the sprinkling spheres of snowflaking sands of Priory Bay. Cloaked and booted. And drawing in the pure and chilling air through her nostrils as she continued staring out across the bay, her back to the surrounding Priory Woods, and her front facing the forcing fusillade that fired flecks of rain and sand into her eyes upon the swarming gusts all around her…

On these yearly low tides, the wailing waves would withdraw and expose the black rock bed beneath them that stretched a fair distance Eastwards and towards the great sea fort, which would be easily spotted upon a clearer horizon.

But, of course, storms had no need for horizons.

Around Priory Bay, only sailors needed horizons.

Not the native sailors, though. No local set off to Priory Bay upon the low tides. Especially at night. Whatever the weather.

It was the shipping sailors that needed to be steady. For they cared not for superstition. Only for business. Trade. Finances. A degraded class of leadership. So long as the dates and the right swapping of notes were set, the titanic tankers of Europe continued slicing up the seas on their journeys North to Portsmouth…

But the native sailors were wiser. For they knew that the shallows did not breathe gradually. Their rocked teeth bit hard into the hulls and crunched them wide open well before any sailor could notice that the seabed was not so distant than it had been before.

Indeed, open ocean was not a toy.

Nor a glove to wear and then discard at the first moment of boredom.

It was its own domain.

Merciless…

And worsened by the lack of light.

Light that should have beamed from the fort’s lantern room for miles further than the bay.

Light for lingering lives.

Light to fill the darkness…

But there were no beams.

There was no light.

In this ever-increasing dusk, there was nothing but…

Darkness.

Everywhere.

Even in lesser storms and higher tides, the fort’s keeper would never have risked leaving the light off.

Never…

At least not on their own accord –

That was Evelyn’s final thought before spinning upon her hardened heel and marching a pace back towards Priory Woods, where it was somewhat more sheltered from the slaughtering and steaming sky. During which she undid her cloak and dumped it upon the sand. Once more secured in the woodland, the rest of her clothes were off, excluding her undergarments…

Before she brought herself back to the bay, whilst the rapiers of rain and whips of wind sliced at her stark skin and howled upon her hackled hair…

And the whacking waves, which, at irregular intervals, would roll over the rock bed beyond the beach and swipe the entire surface of stone with a flurry of frozen foam.

That was all she had to wait for now. That one moment when the sea would sweep away back to the Solent’s East, leaving the cracked rocks free from the clasping currents long enough to make the run…

The sprint over the stone…

All the way to the fort.

She sniffed as she balanced herself upon the bare balls of her feet, brushing her toes on the twigs and gritted ground below her, and giving her suspended ankles each a slight and steady snap…

She hoped that it would be easy. Had tried to convince herself that there would be some easiness to her task at hand… Had tried not to imagine the blasts of ships’ horns upon the breeze –

And then the sea slunk away from the stone.

The moment was made –

She sprang. Soared almost, from sole to sole. Scuffing up sand about her shins, before smacking her feet down on the stone in a series of splashes as she skidded straight on. The fort was so faded in the fog that to focus upon it was fruitless. But still she flew forwards. Fast. Firm. And unfailing –

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Until the sea struck. Speedier than she had suspected. And square into her stomach, shooting her off of her feet, and slamming her spine first onto the stone –

Her lungs looped –

Instantly stabbed with shivering, she fumbled onto her front and scurried back to the sinking sand.

Shuddering to the skin, she stood up. And stared to the sneering sea.

Sneering. With strength… And scorn.

Lapping. Laughing. Luring –

Her wearied face wrinkled as she waited.

Waited for the waves to wash away from the rocks again.

Waited for the new moment…

Waited… wobblingly –

Until the foam flushed away. And her feet flashed her forwards again. Faster. And more unflinching. Sea spray and salt seeped through her skin. Her goosebumps gurgled. And warnings rode upon the Western wind –

A wave almost whacked her up to her waist. Not enough to knock her down this time. But still beating about her bones as she bounded on blindly through the bandaging blackness…

She had never known running like this until now. She was a streaking stallion over the stone, pounding through the puddles and pools, and skating across the slick seaweed like it were frost. It felt frozen enough to be frost. Shavings of stones and shells spiked into her soles like glittered glass, and her teeth tapped in tantrums. But the sensations to slow were silent. Even as the stone sloped and the sea swamped up her shins, she still stepped and stomped on. Arms aloft and swinging at her sides. Legs lunging. And always continuing… carrying on… in her cause…

For the void of dark was pitch in the night.

And those ships needed beams of charging light –

And with those final two words frantically in thought, every volume of sky suddenly volted in its entire with luminous lightning. Wholly white against the ominous obsidian sea –

And the wave.

Her eyes elongated.

It was impossible for a wave to be that immense.

But there it was.

Black against the bugles of booming sky.

Flaked to the front with frothing foam.

And towering towards her. Cloud cutting. Empty of empathy…

A pause pondered here. Merely a moment. Shorter than a second. But heightened because it hurt more –

Before she was swept up off her soles…

And submerged under the surface.

There was no coldness. Or maybe there was, she was not sure. There probably was. Her stomach stretched as the wave wrenched her West, whilst the clasping currents chained her to the East. A human tug of war. Before being dragged to the depths, feet flying over face as she barrelled backwards, eyelids and lips latched against the scorching salt, and bigger bubbles bellowing from her nose as her descent deepened. Still spinning with speed, she kept clawing and kicking up, hoisting herself higher, and the draining density decreasing –

Until an onslaught of Oxygen –

And waves and wind bashing hard onto the back of her head –

Splashing and smashing in her sights –

And moaning mouthfuls as she gagged gallons –

Sensing her skin starting to shrink, she launched out her legs and anchored her arms ahead…

Although all she could do was flounder in infinite fog.

Currents cramped her calves, intertwined with ice inching into her instincts –

The smacking of her shins slackened…

Whilst her will withered…

Her energy emptied…

And her consciousness concluded that she could not carry on constantly…

Soon, she would stop.

Soon, she would sink.

Soon…

Breaths parted to become pants.

Flinging herself forwards got her no further…

The ocean owned her.

And the ocean only.

No one else…

No one else who knew where she was.

No one else to see her seep away…

No… family…

Her blinks and blights blended…

She had not always been an only child…

Or fatherless…

But she was alone now… And she knew it…

She was alone…

Alone.

All alone…

And done for…

But there was a twist of something there…

A passion… of longing…

Of retaliation…

Something… that was not yet done…

Something to fight the weakness of ease…

To strive…

To prove…

That her time was hers.

And it was not up –

And it roared in her like… a foghorn from a ship…that needed saving… That needed survivors…

Like a fort fighting for the light –

Snarling, she shot straight on, streaking through the sea with a sword’s stealth.

It was flooding through her now. The Fight. The greatest she had ever grabbed –

Arm after arm, kicks to her coffin –

Her muscles had never been more menaced than in those moments.

But still she strived on…

For she would not die here.

For she had a reason to live.

For, so surely as the Sun will set and the moon will rise, she would not let the Solent swallow another ship –

Pebbles.

Pebbles softly probing her soles.

Desperate and drained enough to danger it, she stopped –

And sank –

Slightly to her shoulders.

And flat upon both feet.

Her limbs loosened…

Before she brought herself to bolt on… Juggernauting in jolts… Thrashing through the thunder… And ricocheting within the whirls of rain…

Until swimming swapped to scraping over stone on all fours.

Until the waves only went up to her wrists –

Until the sky once again shocked alight with lightning.

And the fort fazed faintly through the fog.

A black battlement on a bed of bladed rock.

Wondrous within the white weather…

Despite the dominant darkness dead to the distant daylight –

Hollow of hesitation, she hopped to her heels, and hurried on. No longer sensing the snips of stones under her soles as she leapt. And wrestling through the wind with resilience as she rushed on…

Until the shroud of shadows shifted slightly, and she found herself a few feet away from the fort…

And the length of ladder that led to the top…

Relentless, she reached for the rungs and raced up. Battling the bullets blasting into her back. And the flesh of her feet and fingers raw red as they rubbed upon the rust…

Before climbing became clambering onto concrete as she came to the top of the circular construction…

Where the storm’s soul swirled and spiralled the strongest.

Where her charge was coming to its closing conclusion…

Where –

The sudden sound of a ship’s sirens sailed on the sky –

And everything in Evelyn electrified with eternal echolocation –

She ventured with violet velocity for the visible and vulnerable air vent that led right into the lantern room –

Fought it open with fighting fists, uncovering the tight tunnel underneath –

Lowered her feet and legs first into the stiff shaft –

And dived down…

Plummeting through the pipe.

Wincing as her wet waist weaved…

Sucking in her sides to stop herself from sticking –

Then landing raggedly…

Into the lantern room…

Where motionless machines were manacled.

Where what small space still standing was dotted with doors.

Where –

Flabbergasted in fear, she found…

She was the only person present.

The sole spectator in a keeperless keep.

The only one –

Without waiting, she manoeuvred to the machines –

Before bashing buttons and swiping switches and launching levers –

Then fell forwards…

Whilst the wonderful light lived.

She dragged herself to a door…

Locked.

All locked.

Locked from the inside.

And, pale with purpleness and grey with grime, Evelyn Deforce was done…

Like Death’s drowned debt…

Pain.

The failing sea smell.

Lifeless litter underfoot.

And the sky… there was no sky. Just smoke. Soulless smoke of Carbon and Chlorine and Hydrogen.

The people called it the war to end war.

But the power promised more.

In Evil’s coronation, there came Fear. And Anger. And Hate. And Suffering.

Greater world wars would always succeed.

So let guns be raised to the war to end war…