Chapter 1 – The First Organised DefenceThe apocalypse began, as most things in Seabourne-on-Wrack did, with a committee.
Not the actual beginning, obviously. The actual beginning had involved screaming, fog, and a retired accountant attempting to negotiate with something that had clearly drowned some time ago.
But the organised apocalypse began with folding chairs in the school hall and Councillor Bernard Lionel Pritchard insisting that everyone "remain calm in a structured manner."
Outside, the North Sea made the sort of noise that suggested it was chewing on something large.
Inside, Oliver Penhaligon was trying not to hyperventilate in a way that looked noticeable.
This is fine, he told himself, staring at the laminated evacuation diagram that now felt aggressively ironic. This is an organised civic response to undead coastal incursion. Very standard.
At the front of the hall, Fiona Abernathy had commandeered the whiteboard.
"We cannot keep reacting," she said bluntly. "We need rotations. Defined roles. No more 'everyone with a broom handle.'"
A hand went up.
It was Victor Halden.
Of course it was Victor Halden.
"With respect," Victor said, immaculate hair somehow unruffled by catastrophe, "we cannot be placing minors in frontline engagement."
All eyes drifted, reluctantly, to the back row.
Hattie Blythe adjusted her glasses.
Tommy Mercer blinked.
Yasmin Qureshi did not blink at all.
Oliver attempted to appear like a decorative coat rack.
The System, which had been largely silent for the duration of the meeting, chose that moment to interrupt.
SETTLEMENT METRIC INITIALISED.
SEABOURNE-ON-WRACK – LOCAL SURVIVAL ZONE CONFIRMED.
SETTLEMENT LEVEL: 1.
There was a pause.
"Is that good?" someone asked.
No one answered.
The First AlertIt came not ten minutes later.
The harbour bell.
Not the lifeboat bell.
The other one.
The one they had installed three days ago because "it seemed sensible."
It rang once.
Twice.
Then continuously.
Fiona didn't swear.
She inhaled in a way that suggested she might later.
"Harbour funnel," she said. "Lower town."
Hattie stood up automatically.
She didn't feel heroic.
She felt like someone who had remembered to bring the wrong textbook to the wrong exam.
"Formation?" she asked quietly.
Oliver swallowed. "Yes. Yes, formation would be… ideal."
Yasmin snapped her notebook shut.
Tommy flexed his fingers inside his fingerless gloves, which he insisted were practical despite mounting evidence.
Big Al Dobson lumbered past them, already hauling a reinforced riot shield the size of a garden gate.
"I absolutely hate this," he muttered.
"Rotational tank priority," Fiona called. "Hattie centre anchor. Al secondary. Rangers on the church steps for elevation. Adept mid-line."
Victor stepped forward.
"I object to—"
The bell rang again, closer this time.
A wet sound carried up the cobbled incline.
Victor stopped objecting.
Harbour FunnelSeabourne-on-Wrack's harbour district was picturesque in brochures.
Narrow cobbled streets.
Stone fishery buildings.
The Drowned Haddock pub, whose sign now felt ominously literal.
It was also, as Fiona had put it, a natural funnel.
The dead came in from the pier.
Five at first.
Then eight.
Then more shapes dragging themselves over the harbour wall.
Their clothes were salt-stiffened.
Their movements wrong.
Oliver raised his bow.
His hands were shaking so badly he briefly considered retiring.
This is not ideal. This is very much not ideal.
Hattie stepped forward and planted her shield.
Her boots slid slightly on wet stone.
She adjusted.
Planted harder.
Tommy moved to her right flank.
Yasmin drew a breath and felt mana gather like static behind her teeth.
Big Al positioned himself half a pace behind Hattie.
Victor stood five paces back, debating.
The first Drowned hit the shield.
The impact jarred Hattie's arms.
She did not move.
She did not scream.
She said, very calmly, "Right. That's firm."
Tommy darted in.
Blade flashed.
He moved faster than he did in school corridors.
A clean strike.
The Drowned collapsed dramatically—
—and blocked the only narrow gap between two stone bollards.
There was a brief silence.
"Oh," Tommy said. "That's inconvenient."
Oliver loosed an arrow.
Headshot.
Perfect.
The corpse toppled sideways into a washing line strung between two windows.
Three damp tea towels wrapped around its face like an aggressive domestic intervention.
"I am so sorry," Oliver whispered to no one in particular.
Yasmin released Arc Bolt.
Blue-white light cracked across wet cobble.
The third Drowned convulsed and dropped.
"Mana efficiency holding," she muttered. "Mildly acceptable."
More shapes dragged themselves forward.
Fog curled low around their ankles.
Big Al stepped up, shield locking against Hattie's.
The System pulsed faintly in the background.
FORMATION SYNERGY DETECTED.
DEFENSIVE AMPLIFICATION ACTIVE.
Hattie felt it.
A subtle reinforcement.
Not strength exactly.
Stability.
The next impact did not push her at all.
Oliver exhaled and adjusted his aim.
One arrow.
Two.
Three.
Each strike landed where he did not want it to, and exactly where it needed to.
Behind them, Victor shouted, "Hold the line!"
"Yes," Hattie replied. "That was the plan."
Absurd ComplicationThe fourth Drowned slipped.
Not tactically.
Just physically.
Wet cobble. Poor ankle stability.
It windmilled its arms and collided with a stack of lobster pots.
The lobster pots collapsed.
One rolled downhill.
Directly into Big Al's shin.
He blinked.
The Drowned recovered, lurched—
—and was neatly decapitated by Tommy mid-apology.
The head rolled.
Down the slope.
Past Victor's polished shoes.
Victor looked down at it.
The head looked up at him.
There was a polite pause.
Oliver shot it.
It stopped looking at anyone.
"Right," Victor said faintly. "Quite."
EscalationThe fog thickened.
More figures emerged.
This was no longer five.
It was closer to fifteen.
Yasmin felt her mana reserves dip.
"This is suboptimal," she informed no one.
Hattie's arms burned.
She did not mention it.
Tommy's breathing grew sharp and quick.
He moved anyway.
Oliver's Fear spiked like static in his ears.
He loosed another arrow.
Missed.
He swallowed.
Tried again.
Perfect.
The System flickered.
FEAR INDEX: ELEVATED.
COHESION: MAINTAINED.
From somewhere above, Darren Walsh called, "Left flank, three!"
Oliver adjusted without thinking.
Arrow.
Arrow.
Arrow.
The third Drowned stumbled—
—and fell backward into the harbour.
There was a splash.
A moment later, a pale hand gripped the wall and pulled itself back up.
Everyone collectively disliked that.
The First True Lock"Rotate!" Fiona shouted.
Big Al stepped forward.
Hattie shifted half a pace back, shield still up.
Tommy crossed behind her without collision.
Oliver adjusted elevation.
Yasmin timed her cast between movements.
For a brief, impossible second—
—it worked perfectly.
Every strike supported another.
Every movement reinforced.
The dead pushed.
They did not break the line.
Oliver felt his breathing steady.
Hattie felt the pressure distribute.
Tommy did not think.
Yasmin did not overcalculate.
Big Al absorbed impact like an apologetic boulder.
The last Drowned fell.
Silence.
Except for the sea.
And someone's washing line.
AftermathThey stood there for a moment.
Steam rising faintly from cooling bodies.
Fog thinning reluctantly.
Tommy wiped his blade on a salt-stiff sleeve.
Then immediately looked horrified at himself.
"Right," he said. "Well. That was messy."
Hattie lowered her shield slowly.
Her arms trembled.
She hoped no one noticed.
Oliver's knees nearly gave way.
He steadied himself on a bollard.
Victor stepped forward.
Cleared his throat.
"Yes," he said. "Adequate."
Fiona stared at him.
"Settlement Level just stabilised," she said.
On cue:
SETTLEMENT XP GAINED.
COHESION BONUS APPLIED.
SETTLEMENT LEVEL REMAINS: 1.
PROGRESSION: 38%.
Yasmin scribbled it down.
"Incremental," she murmured. "Predictable. Good."
Reverend Clarke appeared with a thermos as if summoned by narrative law.
"Tea," she announced calmly.
They accepted it like communion.
The Uneasy OmenThe bodies were dragged aside.
Lobster pots re-stacked.
The washing line disentangled from its recent social engagement.
Oliver glanced toward the water.
The tide was lower than it should have been.
Or perhaps higher.
It was difficult to tell.
The fog lingered past its natural span.
And beneath the surface—
Something moved.
Not a corpse.
Not driftwood.
A shift.
A displacement.
Too large to be dismissed.
Oliver blinked.
"It's probably nothing," he said quietly.
The sea did not confirm.
Behind him, the System pulsed once more.
COASTAL ACTIVITY: ANOMALOUS.
MONITORING.
No one cheered.
No one declared victory.
They simply turned back toward the stone slope leading up to Market Square.
Formation intact.
Breathing uneven.
Tea in hand.
The apocalypse, now slightly more organised, continued.
Fog did not clear.
It merely thinned in a way that implied it might clear later, if it could be bothered.
The harbour district smelled like salt, diesel, and mild administrative failure.
Hattie remained standing a fraction longer than necessary, shield still resting against her knee, because lowering it felt like admitting something had nearly happened.
Big Al leaned his weight onto his own shield and exhaled.
"I absolutely hate this," he repeated, as if hoping repetition might solve it.
Tommy crouched beside one of the fallen Drowned and stared at it with the expression of someone who had just won a competitive sport and was now deeply concerned about the rules.
"I don't like how they… drip," he said.
"They've been underwater," Yasmin replied. "That's fairly consistent with basic hydrodynamics."
"Yes," Tommy said. "I still object."
Oliver was still looking at the tide.
It was wrong.
Not dramatically wrong.
Just… fractionally misaligned.
The sea had the air of someone pretending not to be watching.
It's fine, he told himself. It's just tidal variance. Entirely natural. Perfectly normal coastal behaviour. Definitely not a prelude to something enormous and tentacled.
Behind him, Fiona clapped her hands once.
"Right. Clear the funnel. Rotate back to mid-town. We're not staying in the harbour if fog persists."
Victor adjusted his jacket.
"That engagement," he began, voice already adopting the tone of a man about to write a strongly worded email to reality itself, "was dangerously informal."
Yasmin blinked at him.
"We had a defined defensive anchor, mid-line caster, flanking striker, and elevated precision overwatch," she said crisply. "Which part was informal?"
Victor hesitated.
"Well. The minors."
Hattie lowered her shield at last.
"Respectfully," she said, in the tone of someone who had said respectfully to adults before and survived it, "the minors are currently less dead."
There was a brief silence.
Big Al coughed.
Oliver made a small apologetic noise, as if he might be personally responsible for the mortality comparison.
Victor inhaled.
Then, from somewhere further along the pier, there was a dragging sound.
Everyone turned.
A single Drowned hauled itself over the harbour wall.
It paused.
Looked at them.
Then immediately slipped on a patch of seaweed and face-planted into a stack of crab traps.
The crab traps collapsed with theatrical commitment.
The Drowned did not get up.
There was another pause.
Tommy tilted his head.
"Are we counting that as handled?" he asked.
Oliver, out of instinct more than necessity, loosed an arrow into the back of its skull.
The body twitched once and lay still.
"I prefer certainty," Oliver muttered.
COMBAT PARTICIPATION REGISTERED.
INDIVIDUAL XP DISTRIBUTED.
COHESION BONUS APPLIED.
Yasmin looked faintly pleased.
Victor looked faintly betrayed by physics.
Market SquareBy the time they reached mid-town, the bell had stopped.
The church tower loomed overhead, slate roof dark against the fog-muted sky.
Stone buildings crowded close together, windows reflecting a town trying very hard to pretend this was sustainable.
Residents had gathered in the square.
Not panicking.
Just waiting.
Waiting had become Seabourne-on-Wrack's primary civic activity.
Reverend Clarke stood near the church steps, thermos still in hand.
"Any injuries?" she asked.
Hattie shook her head.
Tommy flexed his fingers.
Yasmin glanced at her mana bar—visible only to her—and nodded once.
Oliver swallowed.
"I may require additional tea," he said.
"That is acceptable," Reverend Clarke replied solemnly.
Victor stepped up onto the low stone lip of the square fountain.
He did not quite mount it, but he arranged himself in a way that suggested he might begin addressing Parliament at any moment.
"Residents," he called. "The situation remains manageable. However, the continued reliance on adolescent tactical authority must be reviewed."
A ripple moved through the crowd.
Lorraine Penhaligon folded her arms.
"Reviewed by whom?" she asked sharply. "The dead?"
Victor stiffened.
"That is not what I—"
A distant horn sounded from the upper road.
Three short blasts.
Farmland patrol signal.
Fiona turned instantly.
"Report!"
A runner—Samuel Blythe, thirteen and too thin for comfort—skidded into the square.
"They've seen movement past the third field wall," he panted. "Not many. But they're not coming from the sea."
That shifted something.
Sea was expected now.
Land felt personal.
Yasmin's eyes sharpened.
"Drift migration?" she murmured.
"Or inland vector," Oliver said faintly.
Tommy blinked.
"Or," he offered, "they're just… wandering?"
No one liked that option either.
The Field RotationThe dry stone walls beyond the cliffside cottages were beautiful.
Centuries old.
Stacked without mortar.
Picturesque in postcards.
They were also approximately four and a half feet high and excellent at segmenting both sheep and undead into manageable tactical inconveniences.
Hattie adjusted her grip as they approached the first gate.
Wind tugged at her hair.
She tightened the tie automatically.
Big Al lumbered beside her.
"You sure about this?" he asked gently.
She nodded.
She did not feel sure.
She felt necessary.
Oliver took position along the low rise near the hedgerow.
Elevation here was subtle.
Enough.
Yasmin remained mid-ground, notebook already out, because she could not help herself.
Tommy rolled his shoulders.
The first Drowned crested the far wall.
Then another.
These were not dripping.
These were mud-streaked.
Clothes torn from brambles.
Eyes unfocused in a way that felt different from harbour rot.
"They're dispersing," Yasmin observed.
"They're sheep-fielding," Tommy corrected quietly.
Three more appeared.
Then stopped.
As if confused by the pattern of walls.
One attempted to climb.
It reached the top.
Paused.
Looked around with what might generously be called strategic uncertainty.
Then fell backward into the ditch.
The ditch was shallow.
The Drowned flailed.
Hattie inhaled slowly.
"On my mark," she said.
Her voice did not waver.
She did not know why.
"Mark."
She stepped forward.
Shield met the first over-wall lunge.
Tommy darted low.
Blade flicked.
Mud sprayed.
Oliver loosed from elevation.
Arrow punched through a shoulder joint cleanly.
Yasmin's Arc Bolt cracked across two at once, grounding through wet soil.
The synergy locked again.
Not as smooth as harbour.
But functional.
Behind them, Samuel watched with enormous eyes.
Reverend Clarke had insisted he remain behind the second wall.
He had insisted on coming anyway.
A Drowned stumbled toward the gate.
Hattie shifted to intercept.
Her boot slipped on loose gravel.
For half a second—
She tilted.
The Drowned surged.
Tommy reacted without thinking.
He crossed in front of her.
Too close.
Blade sank deep.
The Drowned collapsed onto him.
They both went down.
"Tommy!" Oliver's voice cracked.
Yasmin's hands sparked, ready to overchannel—
Tommy shoved the corpse aside.
Sat up.
Blinking.
"I am fine," he announced, covered in mud and something worse. "I deeply regret the texture, but I am fine."
Hattie hauled him up by the back of his jacket.
"Thank you," she said quietly.
He nodded.
"Please don't fall," he replied.
"Noted."
Big Al's shield smashed into the last Drowned's chest, sending it backward into a wall.
The wall did not collapse.
The Drowned did.
Silence settled over the fields.
Wind moved through grass.
A sheep bleated somewhere in what sounded like mild disapproval.
Aftermath in the FieldsThe bodies were dragged to the side of the track.
Lorraine arrived with sacks for material salvage.
She looked at Oliver once.
"Eat," she said.
"I—"
"Eat."
He ate.
Yasmin crouched near one of the inland Drowned.
"No salt crystalisation," she murmured. "Different vector entirely."
Tommy stared at his mud-slick gloves.
"I'm going to need new layers," he muttered.
Mrs. Thatcham appeared as if summoned by textile destiny.
"I've been saying that," she said warmly. "You're under-insulated."
He looked at her with the quiet horror of a boy about to be aggressively cardiganned.
Victor arrived last.
Surveyed the field.
"This proves," he said, "that decentralised patrol authority is unsustainable."
Hattie wiped her shield.
"We handled it."
"Barely."
"We handled it."
There was a pause.
Wind tugged at Victor's immaculate coat.
He glanced toward the sea.
Even from here, it was visible.
A darker line beyond the horizon.
Too smooth.
Too deliberate.
Oliver felt it again.
That sense.
Of being observed.
The System flickered.
SETTLEMENT DEFENCE SUCCESSFUL.
COHESION INDEX: STABLE.
FEAR INDEX: ELEVATED BUT WITHIN PARAMETERS.
PROGRESSION: 52%.
Yasmin wrote it down.
"Incremental," she said again.
Tommy looked toward the cliff path.
"Does anyone else feel," he asked casually, "like this is building toward something significantly worse?"
Hattie adjusted her grip on the shield.
"Yes," she said.
Big Al nodded.
"Absolutely."
Victor opened his mouth.
From the direction of the harbour—
A deep, distant sound rolled inland.
Not a wave crash.
Not wind.
Something heavier.
Something shifting under pressure.
The sheep went quiet.
The sea did not.
No one spoke.
They all turned, slowly, toward the coast.
Fog was creeping back in.
And it was taking its time.
No one in Seabourne-on-Wrack liked it when the sheep went quiet.
Sheep were, as a rule, not creatures of discernment. They bleated in wind. They bleated at shadows. They bleated because they were sheep and the world existed.
Silence from them felt… intentional.
The deep sound from the harbour rolled again.
Lower this time.
Sustained.
Not a crash.
A pressure.
As if something vast had adjusted its weight.
Tommy swallowed.
"Right," he said. "That's new."
"It is acoustically inconsistent with standard tidal movement," Oliver added faintly, still staring toward the coast.
"Could you not?" Tommy replied.
Yasmin closed her notebook slowly.
"That is not wave energy," she said. "That's displacement."
Victor, who had been preparing a remark about decentralised command structures, quietly did not make it.
Fiona's voice cut through the field.
"All patrol units rotate back to mid-town. We are not engaging unknown offshore phenomena with four teenagers and a sheep."
One of the sheep bleated belatedly, as if objecting to the phrasing.
Big Al exhaled. "Good."
Hattie adjusted her shield strap.
She did not want to retreat.
She did not want to advance either.
She wanted the world to pick a lane.
"Back to square," she said calmly.
No one argued.
Market Square (Again, But Slightly Worse)By the time they reached the square, more residents had gathered.
The fog was thinner inland but clung stubbornly toward the harbour slope.
Reverend Clarke stood near the church steps again, thermos replenished as if by divine logistics.
"Everyone breathe," she said gently. "Structured breathing. In for four. Out for four."
Several people complied automatically.
Victor stepped up beside Fiona this time, not onto the fountain.
Progress of a sort.
"That sound," he began, voice noticeably less confident than earlier, "may require… assessment."
Yasmin stared at him.
"That was not an assessment?" she asked, gesturing vaguely at the fields.
"That was agricultural containment."
Oliver blinked.
"I would prefer the sea not escalate," he said.
The sea did not consult him.
The deep pressure rolled again.
Closer.
The church tower vibrated faintly.
Not enough to damage stone.
Enough to suggest that stone had been considered.
The System pulsed.
COASTAL ACTIVITY: INCREASING.
THREAT ESCALATION WITHIN PREDICTED PARAMETERS.
MONITORING CONTINUES.
"Predicted," Tommy echoed softly. "That's comforting."
"It implies modelling," Yasmin said.
"That is not comforting."
The Harbour GlimpseFiona did not wait for a third rumble.
"Oliver," she said sharply. "Tower."
He swallowed.
"Yes."
The church tower stairs were narrow and spiralled in a way that had never been designed for urgency.
He climbed anyway.
Boots slipping slightly on worn stone.
Heart thudding against ribs that were not built for this.
It's fine, he told himself. You're simply observing. Very observational. Extremely non-heroic.
He emerged onto the narrow parapet.
Wind struck him instantly.
The fog below was parting in uneven ribbons.
The harbour wall.
The pier.
The dark water beyond.
For a moment—
Nothing.
Then—
Movement.
Not at the surface.
Under it.
A slow curvature.
As if something immense had rolled beneath the skin of the sea.
The water displaced outward in a ring.
Subtle.
Massive.
He felt his mouth go dry.
"Oliver?" Fiona's voice drifted up from below.
He forced air into his lungs.
"There is," he said carefully, because careful felt necessary, "a substantial underwater mass exhibiting controlled displacement patterns."
There was a pause.
Tommy's voice floated faintly up from the square.
"Is that Oliver-speak for 'big'?"
"Yes," Oliver called down. "It is Oliver-speak for 'big.'"
The curvature shifted again.
Closer to the harbour mouth.
Then stilled.
The fog began to close back over it, like a curtain drawn politely over something unspeakable.
Oliver's Fear spiked hard.
The System responded instantly.
FEAR INDEX: ELEVATED.
COHESION RECOMMENDED.
FORMATION ADVISED IF ENGAGEMENT OCCURS.
He did not feel comforted.
He felt observed.
The water smoothed.
The deep rumble ceased.
He stood there for another full ten seconds.
Just in case.
Nothing breached.
Nothing surfaced.
No tentacles.
No dramatic reveal.
Just sea.
Too calm.
He descended.
Public ReactionWhen he reached the square, everyone looked at him.
Which he disliked profoundly.
He adjusted his jacket.
"It did not surface," he reported. "It is large."
"How large?" Victor demanded.
Oliver considered.
"Architecturally inconvenient."
That seemed to land.
Yasmin nodded slowly.
"Mass estimate?" she asked.
"Large enough to influence harbour wall integrity if motivated," Oliver replied.
Big Al blinked.
"That's… not small."
"No."
Reverend Clarke handed Oliver tea without comment.
He accepted it with gratitude bordering on religious.
Victor cleared his throat.
"This," he began, recovering some of his earlier stiffness, "is precisely why structured adult leadership must take precedence."
Fiona stared at him.
"It didn't surface," she said flatly. "We're not engaging offshore anomalies with a clipboard."
Victor opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Then, unfortunately, decided to continue.
"The optics of children reporting on large-scale marine threats—"
Hattie spoke before she realised she was going to.
"We're not children," she said evenly. "We're assigned."
There was a quiet shift in the square.
Not loud.
Not dramatic.
Just a collective recalibration.
Lorraine Penhaligon stepped forward slightly, not looking at her son.
"They held harbour," she said. "And farmland."
Victor's jaw tightened.
He looked toward the harbour slope.
The fog was creeping upward again.
The sea remained quiet.
Too quiet.
The System flickered once more.
SETTLEMENT STATUS: STABLE.
THREAT LEVEL: ESCALATING GRADUALLY.
PROGRESSION: 61%.
Yasmin's eyes lit briefly.
"Sixty-one," she murmured. "We're advancing."
"Toward what?" Tommy asked.
No one answered.
Domestic InterruptionBecause Seabourne-on-Wrack refused to remain cinematic for long, Mrs. Eileen Thatcham chose that moment to arrive with a stack of reinforced scarves.
"Thomas," she said firmly. "You are damp."
"I am," Tommy admitted.
She wrapped a padded, rune-stitched scarf around his neck with decisive competence.
"It's slash-resistant," she informed him. "And morale-enhancing."
"I feel enhanced," he said faintly.
Hattie almost smiled.
Almost.
Samuel tugged at her sleeve.
"Are we going to be alright?" he whispered.
She looked at him.
At the square.
At the fog.
At the adults pretending not to look frightened.
"Yes," she said.
Not confidently.
But steadily.
"We're organised."
He nodded, as if that was enough.
Perhaps it was.
The Final Omen of the DayAs the square began to disperse—rotations reassigning, crafting teams reorganising, council members preparing to argue in a slightly more hushed tone—the lighthouse beam flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then steadied.
Fiona looked up sharply.
"That's automated," she muttered. "It shouldn't flicker."
Oliver followed her gaze.
The beam swept across the fog.
For half a second—
It illuminated something under the surface beyond the harbour mouth.
Not fully.
Not clearly.
Just a shadow.
Curved.
Segmented.
Then gone.
The beam moved on.
The sea resumed its innocent posture.
Tommy let out a breath he hadn't realised he was holding.
"Well," he said lightly, because someone had to, "that's probably decorative."
Yasmin closed her notebook.
"That," she said quietly, "is a Regional-tier threat profile."
Victor looked between them.
"No such classification has been formally agreed—"
The System interrupted.
REGIONAL PRESSURE BUILDING.
COASTAL MUTATION VECTOR: CONFIRMED.
RECOMMENDED: STRUCTURAL REINFORCEMENT.
No one cheered.
No one screamed.
They simply stood there, in the square of an old stone town that had never asked for this, and listened to the sea breathe.
Hattie adjusted her shield strap.
Oliver tightened his grip on his bow.
Yasmin calculated.
Tommy flexed his fingers.
Big Al sighed.
The lighthouse beam swept again.
The fog lingered.
And far beneath the waterline—
Something shifted its weight.