The kayak rolled across the choppy waters with a slight bounce as the waves slapped against the narrow hull. The girls didn’t stop paddling until they were about fifty yards out from the dock. The boy remained at the end of the dock, watching as they floated aimlessly with nowhere to go.

Channie was in the front seat. She turned her upper body around to look at Josie questioningly.

Josie took a deep breath. “That thing we saw this morning was real,” she said. “I went into the forest with Rebecca. Something is out there. I don’t know where Rebecca is. She just vanished.”

“You left her out there?”

Josie frowned. “She left me! But we really should try to find her.”

“We?” Channie asked, incredulously.

Josie looked to her pleadingly. “I can’t exactly go to the counselors with this.”

“No one would believe any of it,” Channie agreed. “So what’s with the guy?” Channie asked, gesturing with her paddle towards the older boy, still skulking at them from the end of the dock. He was sitting down now, his legs dangling just above the water.

The way he looked at her put a nervous pit in Josie’s stomach. It wasn’t that she was afraid of him. She had a knife and was more than capable of defending herself. She was not weak, nor stupid. But still, the pained expression on his face held something that disturbed her. He was looking at her like he knew her.

You don’t know me.

She narrowed her eyes at him disapprovingly across the water. “I don’t know who he is, but he’s been following me,” said Josie.

The longer they waited offshore, the more concerned Josie became with the boy’s willpower. They paddled around for what must have been hours, but the boy never moved from his spot on the dock.

“He isn’t going to quit,” said Channie, exasperated and bored out of her mind. “Let’s just head back in and beat him up. We can probably take him together. He looks kind of scrawny.” She wasn’t joking.

Josie pursed her lips. She was inclined to agree. The sun was starting to get low and she felt exhausted. Her legs were cramped up from sitting in the kayak all day.

Before she could respond, a stroke of luck landed in their favor: Matt Greene came strutting down the dock and immediate began yelling at the boy about the submerged bucket of paddles.

Josie and Channie didn’t squander the distraction. They paddled hard with the slight current, moving down the shoreline and then in towards the rocky beach. The ominous forest stood just beyond the edge of the water.

Josie stopped paddling as the sound of a large splash farther down the shore drew her attention. The water was rippling wildly, as if a cannonball had just touched down.

Channie stopped paddling as well. A moment later, something bumped the bottom of the kayak violently. Both girls braced themselves, trying to steady the rocking.

“I think I saw a fin!” said Channie. “Did a shark just ram us?”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Josie searched the dark water. It was difficult to see anything through the glare of the low sun.

Thud! Another bump sent the kayak rolling dangerously to one side.

Josie saw something too, this time. It was the size of a large dog, gliding through the water with ease. What Channie thought was a fin looked more like a giant bat wing to Josie—hairy and veiny, and about three feet long.

That’s not a shark….

They paddled harder as whatever it was made one last pass, ramming the front corner of the kayak. It stopped them as abruptly as hitting a rock and jarred the hull sideways, parallel to the shoreline.

Channie screamed. She drew her kayak paddle from the water and gripped it by one end. She swung it down over her head like an axe, slapping the water ineffectively. After several more swings, the paddle was yanked from her hands and disappeared under the surface of the water for good.

Josie drew her paddle through the water more shallowly, afraid of what might happen if she lost hers as well. They needed to get back to the shore, and quickly!

Another splash sounded in the distance, followed by a strange chittering coming from the forest that didn’t sound like any bird Josie had ever heard before. She focused on working her paddle efficiently, though her heart was racing faster than ever before.

The chitters grew higher in pitch until it morphed into a child-like giggle.

“Oh, hell no!” exclaimed Channie.

As soon as they reached shallow enough water, Channie and Josie both flopped out of the kayak and high-stepped their way through the surf. The loose rocks on the beach clinked together as they sprinted down the shoreline, back towards the campground. They didn’t stop running until the abandoned kayak was out of sight and their stiff legs had turned to jelly. Wet socks squished in their shoes uncomfortably as they continued back towards their cabin at a slow jog, breathing hard.

Neither Matt, nor the odd boy was anywhere to be seen as they skirted past the dock. They hardly seemed threatening anymore by contrast. People could be reasoned with—monsters, not so much.

Channie remained ahead of Josie, her wide-eyed stare focused on their destination. When they reached the row of cabins, they found some of the other girls setting up blankets on the grass, gazing up towards the dimming sky. Steph was among them. She shot Josie a dark glower as she passed.

Once inside the cabin, Channie immediately began throwing all of her belongings into her suitcase.

“We still need to search for Rebecca,” Josie reminded her. She slipped off her wet shoes and dumped atleast an ounce of water out of each of them.

“Yeah, I’m not doing that,” said Channie. She didn’t even glance up from her frantic packing. “That wasn’t natural.”

Josie frowned. She wasn’t any more pleased with the prospect of looking for Rebecca than Channie was, but she felt obligated. “The last ferry already left for the night,” she said. “There’s no way off the island until morning.”

“Then I’m leaving first thing in the morning,” said Channie. She sat down on the edge of her bunk and kicked off her wet shoes. She buried her face in her hands, leaning against her knees with her elbows.

Their twenty-year-old cabin leader, Alison Cartwright, poked her head in through the door and called out to them: “You girls won’t want to miss this!” she exclaimed. “The northern lights are visible. Like, really visible!” She disappeared back out through the door.

Channie lifted her head up. “That’s some bad omen crap,” she said. “I swear to god, if those things eat me first….”

Despite her protests, Channie followed Josie’s lead, putting on dry shoes and grabbing flashlights before exiting the cabin.

Outside, despite the sky not being all the way dark yet, the aurora borealis was shimmering with a grand display. Everyone was lying down, staring up at the dancing lights as they flashed with a golden hue.

“It looks like the sky’s on fire,” said Steph, her eyes wide with awe.

In stoic silence, Josie and Channie slinked away from the viewing party. Josie clutched Matt’s knife tightly in her fist inside her pocket. The forest loomed in the near distance.

With everyone else’s eyes locked on the sky, Josie kept hers aimed lower. The terrors kept to the fringes no longer. The shadows had malicious intent.

It is not the sky that is burning…. This is a sad phase for my species. The Agares lay waste to our city in the Beyond. It is our punishment for meddling in the lives of the humans. The pendulum swings freely, and so now it is my time to stay vigilant.

Best wishes,

-Mr. Gray