The storm still hung overhead. I thought I heard lightning strike. Waves crashed against the wharf. At night, the lights that peered over the pier looked like incandescent flowers, red, yellow, blue, sparkled. During the summer, it drew in people from all over the city. Families with a van and little savings could come here and pretend that the world was okay. Here, the world was cotton candy, sand, and joy. An arcade nearby beeped to the rhythm of 8-bit monuments. Around the corner, a dock stirred restlessly, rocking back and forth against the wind and antecedent winter froth.

In November, the wharf was in a transitory state. Autumn leaves floated down and into the water, pocketing the promenade nearby in blankets of sunset orange and brown. The chill brought in from sea breezes made it too cold to swim. In the storm, water and leaves were picked up by torrential forces and brought across streets and sidewalks. It felt like nature was giving humanity a piece of its mind. We were too disobedient. We took mother nature for granted. We did not deserve the beauty of fall’s color or the ocean’s gentility. People destroyed things, so nature would destroy too.

I stood by the pier and looked out across the ocean, searching for a sign. The streetlights were still on. The neighborhood was darker than it should be. The storm blocked out the sun. The whole place was dreary.

No one else thought to stay and watch for the anomaly. Some stragglers remained, but they were too little and too scattered across town.

If Easton was a turned over plate, Southshore was the lip touching the table. It came down into the water. Or, if you were to see it from the other side, the town rose from the sea, apartments and commercial buildings stacked next to each other overlooking the coast. It was small-town Agartha. It was as if both the city island and Inner Easton overflowed from each side, Octoberfaire sat dead set between them, the pooling recess that caught interlopers from both sides. It was a prime location for folks looking to transition from one city to another, even if they both technically fell under the Agarthan Metropolitan umbrella. You got rich visitors from the island mixing with folks from the more wild parts of Easton, making the town a hot spot of neighborly love.

That still did not mean that it was safe to walk at night.

I would have to be careful. I should have been more careful. I knew a number of kids who had been caught out at night before. It never went well. Older kids from the high school nearby did not take kindly to people looking to take an evening stroll. It would be even worse if you were from the island, like I was. Yea, they would give you shit at school, but it was never unmanageable. I would hate to think what they would do out here. So, when I felt a hand grab my shoulder, it was not totally out of left field to want to crawl into a hole and get the hell out of dodge. No one could blame me.

When I turned to see who was there, the familiar smell of cherry heralded her grating laugh.

“You’re a fast walker, you know that?” she said.

“Why are you following me?” I asked.

“Pffft. Come one, I ain’t letting you get away that easily.” She walked around me and leaned against the pier.

“I feel like we got off on the wrong foot.”

She reached out her hand again.

“Cindi ‘Sorry’ Seiko.”

I shook her hand.

“It’s ‘sorry’ now?”

“Okay,” she raised her hands, like she was being taken in for custody, “you got me. Just trying to get you to talk.”

She lowered her hands.

“I’m still kinda new to town.” Her eyes looked down at my shoes.

“Honestly, it’s been a little rough. But, I was hoping to get to know a few of the other kids in the neighborhood, maybe see what's what.”

I could not help but feel bad. After all, I was kinda in the same boat a few years back.

“I moved here a few years back,” I said, keeping it vague, “and honestly don’t know too many people.”

She looked around, checking out the wharf.

“Nice spot, you come here often?”

I laughed.

“No, not really. There’s a comic book shop nearby I like to go to. Usually, the beach doesn’t do it for me.”

She closed her eyes and nodded, like she understood.

“You seem like the type.”

“The type?”

“Ya know, a nerd. Quiet, keeps to himself.”

I groaned.

“And what about you?”

“Me?” she asked.

“Yea you. You followed me all the way out here. Unless you’ve got limitless stamina and determination. I’d take you for a cross country cuckoo.”

“Rugby, more like.” She planted fists on her hips and widened her stance to take on a larger than life pose. “Can’t judge off of looks. Oh, and I’m an Aquarius, by the way.”

“But you just judged me?”

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“That’s because you’re easy to read. Like a comic book.” Her smile showed her absolute assuredness of her wit. She’s probably waiting for me to look away to give herself a pat on the back. I could not help but smile.

“Names Monty. Monty ‘Mysterious’ Court.”

She laughed.

“You can’t call yourself ‘mysterious’. It doesn’t fit your vibe! How about…” She paused to think of a name. Her eyes lit up like the windows of a vacant apartment.

“Monty ‘The Morose’.”

“I’ll pass.”

“Monty ‘Callus’ Court?”

“Are we switching up on alliterations now?”

“Well it doesn’t really work for you. ‘Monty’ and ‘Court’ don’t really rhyme like ‘Cindi Seiko’.”

She shrugged, as if there was nothing more she could do for me. She shook her head.

“Face it kid. You’re gonna have to play second fiddle.”

“Says who?”

“Says the alliteration police. I don’t know.”

“Do you have an off switch?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

“Not really, it got patched out in my most recent update.”

She made some pretty good robot movements with her arms. Honestly, I was impressed.

“Okay, okay, I get it. You’re pretty weird, you know that?” I raise my hands, admitting defeat.

“And you’re pretty weird for running out here.” She opened her arms, showing off the wharf.

“What gives anyway? What are you doing out here?”

I looked around, expecting more from the water and the sand. I realized that it was probably a mistake to come out here. I felt silly.

“I…don’t know,” I said. I think she saw the defeat in my voice.

“It was crazy, earlier,” she said, trying to change the topic, “that thing up in the sky.”

“Yea.”

“What do you think it was?”

“Some fireworks.”

“Didn’t look like any kind of fireworks to me.”

I shrugged again. I don’t know why I came out here. I thought about Casey and what she must be feeling right about now. Has she tried to check in on me? Did she know I snuck out?

“I thought…” I remembered the falling object, “I thought I saw something. Like it fell out of the explosion and landed in the water.”

I shoved my hands in my pockets.

“What? What fell?” She asked.

“It was probably just nothing.”

“It couldn’t have been nothing if you came all the way out here for it.”

She walks towards the water, looking down into the bay as if she was searching for something floating.

“Yea I don’t see anything.”

“Of course not,” I said.

I looked across the bay, where Cindi searched the surface.

“Wait a minute,” she said, squinting.

I saw it too. It glowed, very slightly. Like fireflies in the dark. Pockets of color poked out of the dark along the beach. It blinked in and out. Was it morse code? No, it was something else.

Then I felt it. That same feeling drawn from within myself. As if I picked up on an S.O.S. signal.

Cindi grabbed my shoulder again. This time, her grip was firmer.

“Monty,” she said. She had a worried tone. Did she feel it too?

I followed her gaze and saw a group of kids on the beach below the pier.

The tall dude from before was on the beach. I have seen him around the apartment before, and I think at school too. He was a high schooler. He wore a band’s t-shirt, baggy jeans, and his hair was a mess. His lankiness stood out amongst his friends, who were also on the beach too, throwing stones into the ocean. They each wore a flash of color. Green.

“We should go,” I said.

“You think they see it too? In the water?”

“What? I don’t know,” I said, not entirely sure, “they look like bad news.”

“Hey. Isn’t he one of our neighbors?” she asked. “I think I remember him from earlier.”

One of TD’s , Tall Dude’s, friends yelled something. The flashes of light grew a little brighter. They blinked in and out, then stopped. The lights went dim and the pier felt darker because of it. It felt like all the light went with it. Even the street lights seemed dimmer.

“Cindi,” I said, more desperate, “I really think we should go.”

She turned to me and nodded. The teens down below yelled something else, something I could not hear or make out.

I turned back and saw them looking at us.

“Okay yea. Let’s go.”

The two of us turned to leave. We stopped when a familiar voice from below called up.

“Hey, what the hell are you two doing?”

I grabbed Cindi’s arm and pulled her along with me, looking back just to see the group on their way up. We picked up speed and started down on our way back. Their shouts became increasingly louder. They taunted us. They were like hunting dogs, barking out to each other. Howls followed the two of them, their scents fresh and hides at reach. My legs kicked the concrete, eager to leave them behind.

We managed to lose them. Cindi and I huddled behind a store in an alley nearby. We were somewhere near the wharf, but out of sight. We breathed heavily, the pain of running that fast caught up to us.

I heard a noise from around the corner. Cindi and I peeked out from behind the building to investigate. The group was gone, but a straggler was still looking for them. TD circled an intersection, searching for any sign of our whereabouts.

“Come on out. I ain’t gonna do nothing,” he shouted. “Earlier, you guys saw the big explosion in the sky, right?”

Was he trying to bait us out? His buddies could be hiding, waiting for us to expose ourselves. He might be the bait, luring us out so they could get the jump. I looked back at Cindi to see what she was thinking. She crouched just behind me. Her eyes met mine and shook her head.

“Just wanna talk.”

I listened closer. I tried to make out the surrounding noises. I could not hear anyone else, but I was still poised to not trust him. After a while he got bored and left to join his friends again. I let myself breathe easily.

“What do you think they were looking for?” Cindi asked.

“Debris? Maybe they just wanted to check out ground zero too,” I said, “did you see that on the beach?”

“The lights?”

“Yea.”

“It was probably nothing,” she said. “I want to head back.”

“Back to the factory?”

“No, back to the beach,” Cindi said.

“You just said it was probably nothing.”

“But what if it isn’t?”

She did have a point.

“Could be dangerous,” I said, smiling.

She smiled too.

“Dangerous is my middle name.”