Emilia

Wednesday, April 20th, 2022 (29 days after the Shutdown)

The smoke grew thicker, swelling to rise hundreds of feet into the air. Her father who’d been clutching the meteor was looking around in confusion like the madness that had seized him disappeared.

“It was a signaling device. The meteor was a fuckin’ signaling device. Now either every monster on the island is going to come ‘ere or every sailor is going and lure the monsters anyway. I knew it was a goddamn trap!” Jefferson bellowed, slamming his palm into the cavern’s walls.

Far to their left where they entered from, they could hear screeching as the monster awoke from its hibernation. All around them, similar tormented cries answered it, with the monsters emerging around the crater’s edge.

Her father, who was still recovering from his shock, threw the meteor as far away into the ocean as he could. Screams echoed from within the cavern, seemingly closer than before.

“Fuck. Everyone into the water now!”

Diving in first, he left Katherine and her looking at each other in confusion. Wiping the water from his eyes, Jefferson looked up at them.

“There’s a monster in the cave with you! Jump!”

Without a second thought, Katherine heeded his advice and leaped out. Giving herself a chance to think before she blindly followed, Emilia peered into the depths of the cave. With everything cloaked in shadows, the presence of one more was difficult to detect but when the light around a nearby stalagmite wavered, that was enough proof.

Leaping from the hole, for the second time that day cold water rushed towards her. Resurfacing as the current threatened to drag her under, she joined the others as they waited and watched.

On cue, tendrils of smoke crept around the edge of the hole as the monster revealed itself. There were 4 of them in total, drifting down the side of the crater till they were close enough to the water’s edge.

But they no longer screamed, as if they knew it wasn’t required anymore. Their prey was helpless in front of them.

“Are you happy now, Juan?” Jefferson seethed. Further infuriated when a wave smacked him in the face, he spat, “I told you not to touch the meteor. The one time — the one fuckin’ time — you should’ve listened, you didn’t. You tempted fate and fucked us in the ass.”

Her father stared at his friend with pleading eyes, “I-I didn’t even… How? Why… am I outside?”

Was he actually in a trance? Possessed? How? Maybe this… wasn’t the golden light we were supposed to find.

Swimming towards the small column of land, they wrapped their hands around it so they wouldn’t drown from over-exertion.

“Can we swim around and maybe get to the beach?” Katherine asked, already sapped of the strength she recovered. Her hands kept slipping, unable to find purchase on the rock.

“We don’t how strong the currents out there are and you’re too weak to fight against it. And if we stick too close to the rocks, they’ll be the death of us when we get bashed into them,” Jefferson said as he studied the monsters for a weakness or a gap he could expose.

Sullen and shivering, her father looked at them apologetically. “I-I’m sorry… I—”

“Save your breath until we get out of here. We’re dealing with monsters, Juan, don’t blame yourself.”

Her father slumped atop the pillar as the monsters’ howls continued unabated, filling the air with melancholy.

***

“Switch,” her father called out weakly and Jefferson climbed atop the spire. Her father grimaced, scratching his palm on a sharp edge as he rolled into the water.

They’d been doing this in a cycle for the past 3 hours, giving each other a short break before getting back in the water leaving everyone cold, wet, and miserable. And despite there being other people for them to hunt on the island, the monsters were fixated on them. The smoke exhausted by the meteor still lazed in the sky. If that goes away, will they go away?

“Jeff, when you… s-splashed water on the one outside the cave, did it pass through it like the rocks?”

“Emilia, save your energy,” he replied. After a moment, he sighed, “No, it sizzled like it was corrosive to them. If your plan is to splash them, I already thought about doin’ it hours ago. The best case scenario is we stop one of them, but as we be scramblin’ up the rocks, the other three would kill us.”

“H-How do you know t-they would k-kill us?”

“Then what, they’d spare us? They’re not humans. They’re monsters, Emilia. Monsters kill, end of story. All we can do is wait ‘til someone miraculously comes along in a boat.”

“I-I don’t think Katherine can wait that long,” her father said.

Painstakingly opening her eyes at the mention of her name, Katherine’s lips had a light blue tint to it. Her breathing had slowed, coming out in delicate puffs as if her lungs couldn’t muster more energy.

“Jefferson, I think we—”

Her father’s words were cut short as he disappeared under the water.

“Papa?!” Emilia cried, watching a fountain of bubbles break against the surface where her father once was. “PAPA!”

She could see him bound by an invisible force as he fought to resurface. Managing to break away, his hands and feet paddled till he broke through the surface, gasping for air.

“Why the hell is that in your hand?!” Jefferson demanded, pointing at the pulsing meteor that had reappeared in her father’s hand.

“I-I… I d-don’t know…”

“Then throw it near one of them! Lure the monsters with it!”

Launching it behind him, Emilia saw sparks flying where his blood contacted the meteor. It exploded out of her father’s hands, growing smaller and smaller until it made it to the furthest monster where it passed through it and hit the rocks behind.

“Good god, man. I didn’t know you had an arm like that on you,” Jefferson grinned before turning to look at the twisted ore his friend had thrown sliding into the ocean. “Is your hand fine?”

Her father was staring at his arm in bewilderment as golden smoke curled off his palm. Along the water’s edge, the monsters seemed oblivious to her father’s actions.

“Why aren’t they reacting? I thought they wanted it.”

On his last syllable, the furthest monster started vibrating.

Nervously getting up as its wails turned to a high-pitched buzz, Jefferson’s feet teetered dangerously on the edge of the spire, ready to dive at a moment’s notice. Far to their right, the creature’s amorphous form condensed to the size of the meteor and its turbulent vortex grew tamed. Catching the sun’s final rays, the four of them watched the new orb hovering where the creature once was.

Sheepishly looking down at them, Jefferson quipped, “Ha! All that buildup for nothin—”

Emilia watched him sail over her as the orb erupted.

Plunging underwater as shrapnel blasted outwards, the sound of thunder reverberated through the water, sending shoals of fish swimming away. Clinging to the spire, the aftershock of the explosion swept through her.

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Breaking the water's surface, she sucked at the air around her. Katherine was floating beside her with her eyes rolled back into her head and her father was coughing up water on the spire. Pressing herself against the rock column, her body was trembling like a leaf.

“Emilia! EMILIA!”

“I-I’m here,” she quavered, reaching out to grab her father’s hand.

“Shit! Katherine! Help me get Katherine!”

Leaving the comfort of the spire, Emilia paddled over to the large woman. Alongside her father, they managed to pull her out of the water and without missing a beat her father started to administer CPR.

“She’s not listening,” her father whispered. “C’mon. C’mon. C’mon. COME ON!”

In a desperate attempt, he slammed his fist into her chest and Katherine’s eyes snapped open. Fighting for breath, she looked around in alarm till she landed on Juan, who she promptly puked on. Emilia felt her heart flutter in relief.

“I… hate… this stupid island,” she coughed. Retching the last of the saltwater, she wearily looked at them. “Where’s Jeff?”

“Thank you! At least one of you lot remembered me,” he grumbled, swimming towards them. Shrapnel from the blast had brushed the side of his face. “Sometimes, I feel underappreciated.”

Wryly smiling at them, Jefferson asked, “So, what happened to the monster?”

Peering around the rock tower, the only reminder of the monster was a cavity in the crater where it once was.

“Did you kill it?”

“I… think so… Maybe that’s why they were in a… a frenzy when I touched it. That meteor was their weakness,” her father said, sparing a glance at the cavity.

“Well… at least we got rid of one of them…” Jefferson sighed, grabbing onto the rock spire. “Pity we lost the thing.”

“Yeah… about that.”

From the back of his short pockets, he pulled out a hammer with a familiar same meteorite gray and gold. Yellow mist wreathed his hand as he tentatively held on to it.

“... What?” Jefferson's face went slack. “H-How…”

Shaking his head, her father explained, “I don’t know. It appeared in my belt when the monster blew up.”

“Well, then throw it! If it kills them, let’s send them back to whatever hell they came from!”

“... How ‘bout we let Katherine catch her breath first. I’m not sure I can even throw it like that again.”

Sitting up, Katherine eased herself into the water and stared around expectantly. “What? I’m not gonna be deadweight. Kill the fuckers, Juan.”

Studying the second closest of the monsters, he lifted the hammer. “Here’s to hoping I don’t miss.”

Flinging it as fast he could, it closed the distance between them faster than Emilia could blink. The shadow creature put up as much resistance as tissue paper as the hammer rippled through the top of its head. When it started to react, her father leaped into the water and sought shelter behind the column alongside them.

3… 2… 1… And—

BOOM!

Smoke exploded outward and past the shock, a blood-curdling scream could be faintly heard. In her father’s hands, the hammer rematerialized. Again.

BOOM!

Shrapnel from the third blast ricochetted off the side of the pillar, slicing through the water next to her like an arrowhead. One more. As the hammer fell on the final creature sheltered in the breach the group had created in the cave walls, it swiftly followed its brethren into oblivion, collapsing the entire cave system.

Smiling at them, her father pointed to the imploded cliffsides.

“I think we got a way out.”

***

“All in favor of killing Jean when we find him,” Jefferson asked, wringing the last of the water from his shirt.

They all raised their hands unanimously as they lumbered back to the ship. By the time they scaled the crater, the sun had vanished beyond the horizon forcing them to navigate the island by the pale streams of moonlight.

The seaside cottage Jean Bain had held up in was abandoned and upon investigating it, the results only served to further dampen their mood. Just like their ship, none of the electrical appliances were working making their trek back to the ship slow and painful.

A gale of wind swept through the forest. Flinching at the sound of the howling, the group froze as they eyed their surroundings.

“What happens if you hit a human with the hammer? Do they turn into an orb as well, or would it… I don’t know, just hurt?” Katherine asked, keeping one eye out on the ground for gnarled roots.

“Well… when we test it on Mr. Bain, we’ll find out,” her father commented, throwing the hammer around the forest and watching it reappear in his hand seconds later.

Jefferson watched him with a mixture of horror and awe.

“Do you want to hold it?” her father asked his friend, noticing Jefferson’s wariness.

“Hell nah. I wouldn’t want to be within a 12-foot pole if it didn’t glow,” Jefferson shook his head. “But why does it look like a hammer? Maybe this is like… alien humor since you’re a mechanic?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care where it came from at this point. As long it protects us I’ll take that as a win. But I’m truly more shocked that I threw it so accurately before. I didn’t even miss once.”

“Adrenaline?” Katherine offered as she held on to Emilia.

“Nahh, it’s the start of his villain arc,” Jefferson joked. “ ‘The Colombian Hammer’, striking into the hearts of — stop. We should’ve heard the men back at the Santa Marino. Why is it so quiet?”

Hesitating at his words, the din of the forest suddenly grew sharper.

Everything was as it should’ve been but in the dark, the noises of the forest became a veil of false tranquility. Were people watching them under the cover of darkness? Could the songs of the wind be hiding a monster’s wails amongst it as it moved through the forest?

“Juan.”

The moonlight filtering through the forest canopy gave Jefferson a sinister look.

“I know.”

From that point on the two men took the lead.

Diverting her attention to Katherine, Emilia took comfort in the solidity of the older woman’s bulky frame as they broke out of the forest. The clearing on the cliffs where they’d set up camp in the morning had been abandoned in a hurry. Supplies were scattered everywhere. And beyond the cliff where they'd aground themselves, the silhouette of the ship stood imposing against the backdrop of the ocean.

Initially hidden, as the moon broke out of the clouds a garden of statues arose around them. Pale grey figures of humans glowed underneath the stars, scattered in every direction. Their movements were detailed; veins on the forearms and hair follicles on their head were crafted to make them lifelike.

Spinning in a circle, Emilia stared in bewilderment at the lifelike figures around her.

What is this?

“Emilia? Is that you?” a voice quavered.

A weary old man stood at the prow of the cargo ship, holding a lantern in his hands. With his stoic composure shattered, First Officer Daniels looked like he had a foot in the grave.

“Who… what happened here?”

“... How are you safe? The Banshees… they’re in the forest. They’re hunting right now,” the first officer said, ignoring her question.

“Mr. Daniels, what happened here?”

Staring at the rest of them as if seeing them for the first time, his eyes widened, “More of you? Get over here quickly before the demons are back!”

As he turned away to grab a plank, Jefferson whispered to them. “Until we know what’s happening, don’t mention anything about the dreams, the hammer or… Banshees I think he said? Play it safe from the get-go.”

Walking across the plank, Mr. Daniels hurriedly took it away after they’d all crossed.

“The crew.”

“What?”

“The statues you see there,” he said, pointing a trembling finger to the clearing behind them. “That is what is left of the rest of the crew.”

Counting them, Emilia gave up when she went past 15 statues, all with looks of horror immortalized on their faces.

“We were preparing lunch when they came from the woods. They just… swept through and as we were running onto the ship, the catwalk slipped and fell. There are only 5 of us left,” he grieved, surveying the garden of statues, many of whom he considered his friends.

“And Marcus Noren and Jean Bain? What happened to them?” Jefferson demanded, unable to tear his eyes away.

The old sailor cast a wary eye at the mention of their names. “Why? Have you seen them?”

“You better believe we saw those fuc—”

“Mr. Bain locked us out of a cottage we found down the round when we were getting chased by the monsters,” her father interrupted, raising an arm to stop Jefferson.

At those words, Mr. Daniels' posture straightened just a tad bit as if he’d been exonerated of some of his guilt.

“... I see. Men show their true colors in the face of the unknown,” he sighed. “After the monsters chased those who had fled into the forest, maybe an hour later we saw Jean Bain running towards us, yelling at us to throw them a line. But by the time we found something else to bridge the gap he and his group were running off, spitting death threats.”

“That… is worrying. But that means there could be more people that are still alive.”

Nodding his head, Mr. Daniels replied, “Yes, seeing how you 4 have managed to survive, it seems that is a possibility. Discounting your group, there are another 9 accounted ship hands including the captain and Marcus Noren. Let us pray they all arrive here safely.”