I stood panicked, my eyes darting around the dimly lit shower block, looking for any sign of the arrival of my brother. Icy tendrils of fear clawed at my heart, sending sharp sensations throughout my upper body. I started to shake, I didn’t want to lose Roderick too.

Reese jumped up and grabbed my shoulders and looked me directly in the eyes. Her own slightly watery with tears but she held them at bay and blinked them away.

“Ariah, it’s okay. He’s okay. There wasn’t enough time for him to get out too so he was going to wait until after the next wave.” She said calmly, her voice steady and soothing looking me in the eyes as she spoke, her words bringing a calming reassurance and helped to ease the tension I felt in my chest.

“Okay.” I breathed, relieved, the tight knot of anxiety loosened in my throat.

“Hopefully he’ll be here soon.” Reese said as she looked out into the gymnasium past me.

“I hope he’s alright.” I whispered softly, my voice quivering with the pent up emotions that I was feeling. The grim reality of our situation began to weigh heavily as I suddenly thought about all of our friends and family and the unknown entity that was causing the malevolence.

“I’m sure he’s on his way now, the wave has subsided so he’s got time to get here.” Just as Reese finished speaking, the ground shook beneath our feet sending tiles falling off the shiny shower walls around us. We stumbled, trying to keep our footing and I reached out to stabilise myself against the wall.

“What the hell?!” Reese exclaimed, widening her stance to keep her balance, her years of skateboarding helping her to stay upright.

Another massive shake and low sounding rumble followed, sending me to my hands and knees on the dirty floor.

“It looks like the tactic has changed. Light and sound weird enough, now it’s earthquakes?!” I yelled out to Reese above the rumbling, realising that this was no ordinary seismic event. The tremors weren’t random, they were like pulses just like the light attacks - calculated in their execution and deliberately timed to cause the most damage.

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Bits of the ceiling started falling from above and smashed on the floor. The mirrors above the sinks cracked and broke, shards falling into the hand basins, shattering into even smaller fragments.

The wall separating the showers in the locker room crumbled, falling into a large dusty heap, sending debris across the tiled floor towards our direction. Broken wooden framework, concrete and steel protruded from the pile of destruction.

Reese stumbled over to me and fell down beside my legs. I crouched down next to her, and we covered our heads with our arms. The little white tiles came off the walls around us, falling like ceramic snowflakes onto the ground. A few me, sending sharp pain to my fingertips, cutting into my skin on my forearms.

“I think we need to get out.” I yelled.

“If we go outside we might get hit by the light wave.” Reese answered.

“Maybe, but if we stay here we might get crushed.”

The shaking suddenly stopped and things went quiet apart from the sound of the occasional piece of debris still heading the floor from above.

Covered in dust and tiny pieces of glass in concrete, we got up and generally dusted ourselves off. The gymnasium hadn’t fared well in the shaking, the outer walls to the shower room had been damaged and offered no protection from the outside.

I could see out into the main gym and the bleachers that had only recently held cheering fans were now just a twisted mess of metal and shattered concrete blocks. The basketball hoops hung limply casting eerie shadows across the once polished wooden floors which were now cracked and splintered into varying sections. Strewn across the floor were mangled pieces of gym equipment and shattered glass from the trophy cases.

“We are lucky that we were in here.” I breathed as I took in the devastation and destruction in front of us.

“Yes, but we won’t be lucky for long if we stay here. We’re exposed now with that wall missing. Light could come in more easily.” Reese said looking around us, studying the damage.

The sound of glass breaking came from out in the main entrance and made us both jump. It was followed by the sound of something metallic being dragged, scraping the broken floorboards. Shivers ran up the back of my neck as my imagination went into overdrive at the thought of what could be causing it.

Reese pushed me behind her and got into a combative stance, fists clenched in anticipation of what was coming. I braced myself too and saw a metal rod laying on the ground. I reached out and grabbed it, holding it like a baseball bat ready to swing into action.

“Prepare yourself Ariah.” Reese whispered.

I gulped.