Page 87 of Midnightsong
She wasn’t looking at what Angie was seeing. At the shore, the water had drawn back, leaving the seafloor bare and exposed for the world to see.
And in front of the illusion of mountains, water rose until a liquid wall formed. Angie had to turn her gaze from one shoulder all the way to the other to see it from end to end and sucked in a sharp gasp.
The massive, fast-approaching wave moved, its crests touching the heavens.
A tsunami—its apex painting the skies leaden gray as it rushed for the school, and the surrounding buildings.
It looked like the massive wave that Serapha had once created to smash the docks—if it was double the size.
Cassia and Varin. It had to be.
When it was Serapha alone, the tsunami was terrifying.
With Cassia and Varin combining their Goddess-given magic? Spine-chilling.
But was the earthquake their doing too? How?
This had to be their revenge against wronging their people, for capturing them, for attempting to murder Kaden—for assassinating Serapha, and for capturing and killing more mer.
The ground stopped shaking, thankfully, and Angie only heard Reesa’s squeak of terror before the two sprinted back up the hill.
The storm winds raged and whistled and sang to her, an eerie, ominous melody, and a deadly siren’s song.
Angie screamed as loud as her lungs would allow her to whoever was in their vicinity “Tsunami!”
A commotion rose from the tens of students and professors around her.
Her own booted feet squished and slammed against the muddy ground as she fought to keep her balance. She couldn’t stop looking back and watching the tsunami advance.
The waterwall slowed as it approached the shore, but kept rising, straightening up before its final strike.
The tsunami reached the surface and stormed forth, consuming everything in its path. The buildings on the ground level shattered and cars swept out to sea, including hers. A group of Angie’s peers on the ground level were swept up into the waves and vanished.
Underneath the tsunami’s crest, a massive ship appeared, as if emerging from behind a watery drape.
Smaller ships surrounded it. As it drew closer, Angie made them out. Yachts, small fishing boats, kayaks. The massive ship was a cruise liner.
And it was coming for them on the hill.
She couldn’t stop. She had to keep going and get as high as she could.
The sea was closing in fast behind her. Empty bottles, cigarette butts, plastic bags and metal caps dropped to the floor; the giant wave emptied its trash as it moved.
Angie’s breathing hitched, her breaths shallow as she picked up speed. Sweat poured from every open pore in her body and mixed with the salt spray and raindrops. Her clothes clung to her.
Reesa and her peers screamed and cried, sounding like a buzzing, nonsensical cacophony in her ears.
The tsunami slammed down on them.
She flung herself forward, landing on her chest, pulling Reesa with her, the breath stored in her lungs knocked out of her. The yachts and kayaks hurled over their heads first, crashing into the school buildings that were still standing.
The cruise ship came last; its hundreds of thousands of gross tons rammed into the graduate school, the combined weight with the tsunami causing it to break through the brick building.
A degraded torpedo broke through the smaller, fine arts building behind her and landed by Angie’s shoulder. She whimpered, commando crawling away.
Above her, following the colossal wave, came chunks of a shipwreck. Broken hulls and masts commingled with pieces of the cruise ship, and slammed into the remaining buildings.
A waterfall crashed down onto her head when she tried to stand, throwing her back to the ground. Trapped under the water’s immense pressure, she curled into a ball and dug her toes into the muddy ground, trembling as cold water soaked her like a heavy barbell had been dropped onto her back and neck.
