38
Elvira blinked and, with a gasp, her body jolted awake. She looked at the dark window and the empty bed. She’d only dozed off for a few minutes.
“Evan?” she mumbled, already slipping on her shoes and jacket. “Evan!”
Rushing out of the hotel room and down the corridor, her legs struggled to keep up with her mind. Where could he have wandered off to? Was he in trouble? She knew what could happen to people who had things that others coveted. What if he refused to help someone and they got angry?
She pushed herself into an already full elevator and slammed her hand repeatedly against the ground floor button, her head filled with images of a modern-day crucifixion. One man snorted at her, and a woman said ‘bitch’ under her breath. Elvira didn’t have time for these idiots, and when the elevator finally came to a halt, she elbowed her way out and ran through the hotel reception. To her surprise and horror, the crowd outside was gone. She dashed back inside again and up to the reception desk.
“Excuse me! Have you seen my son?” she said and described Evan as quickly as she could.
The receptionist, who was a woman in her forties with a tight cinnamon ponytail and rectangular glasses, narrowed her eyes. “I did see a man in his mid-twenties with a beard, just like the one you describe. How old are you?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I don’t mean to be intrusive, but how old were you when you… you know?”
Elvira shook her head. “It’s kind of complicated. Do you know where he went?”
The receptionist looked at her for several long seconds, before finally shrugging. “I think he walked west along 77th.”
The snowflakes melted on Elvira’s face as she ran through the traffic. The TV screens in the electronics store showed a series of explosions across a European city, blasting the concrete buildings into clouds of swirling dust.
At the intersection of 5th Avenue, a car almost ran her over. The driver honked angrily, but she wasn’t paying attention. All she had eyes for was the massive crowd gathering on a snow-sprinkled meadow in Central Park.
Elvira slipped and stumbled across the frozen lawn. Panting heavily, she finally found Evan standing on a park bench, with people flocking tightly around him. He seemed calm as ever, with the frost highlighting his beard and the dark sky above him shifting with silvery smoke. He gave her a sad look.
“I had hoped you wouldn’t come,” he whispered.
“What’s happening?” Elvira said, her lungs burning.
He regarded her for a moment before speaking. “I’ve decided to do what you told me. You were right.” Evan turned his face toward the crowd. “I will lead these people. I will put out the fires. I will make the world a better place.”
“I knew you would, baby.” Elvira sighed in relief and took his hand. “I’m so proud of you.”
***
Blaring sirens awoke Amanda from her slumber. Her neck hurt from sleeping on the subway train. She had decided to rest for a bit, but exhaustion had put her under for several hours. She wondered briefly how long it would take for her to arrive at the Manhattan South Ferry to Liberty Island. The clock in the ceiling showed 11:30 AM, but the train wasn't moving, and nobody else was around.
Slowly, she pulled herself up. The noise sounded like an air raid alarm and seemed to fill the entire platform outside. A voice cut through the siren.
“Warning! City-wide evacuation in progress. Warning! Citizens, please evacuate the city toward the mainland.
Amanda’s feet thudded against the concrete as she rushed up the stairs. If anything, the sirens were even louder up above ground. Abandoned cars clogged the streets, and people hurried past her in both directions. A father carrying his daughter. An old lady hobbling along with her walker. A horrified teenage girl repeatedly calling out for ‘Maria.’
In the midst of all the chaos, Amanda stopped and looked up at the sky. It was almost noon, but darkness still lay like black sackcloth over the city. The sun, the stars, and even the moon had been devoured by the void. Flashes of lightning lit up an armada of ominous clouds that slowly drifted closer.
Then, the ground shook.
A massive quake that grabbed hold of the city and tossed it violently. The tarmac cracked, and the buildings struggled to stay upright. A tsunami wave, the height of a three-story building, rolled in from the sea. Like a deep-blue wall, it loomed between the skyscrapers.
Amanda started running. She dodged through an alley and jumped over trash. It wasn’t the worry of drowning that pushed her to flee – it was her unfinished business.
Treetops came into view up ahead. That had to be Central Park. She threw a glance over her shoulder just as the wave crashed into the first buildings, bringing them down as if they were made out of sticks.
Between the trees, a crowd had gathered. Thousands of people surrounded a bearded man, preaching on top of a bench. They all looked unnaturally calm in the face of the impending doom. Amanda shook her head and started climbing up the fire escape of the closest house. There was no way she could outrun the water masses.
Despite the deafening noise of the sirens and thunderclaps, the voice of the man in the park rang true.
“Don’t worry, my brothers and sisters. Just like Moses, I will split the sea,” the man said with a calm that stirred up goosebumps all over Amanda’s arms. “As long as you’re with me, your feet shall remain dry.”
If she hadn’t been halfway up the building already, Amanda probably would’ve hurried over to him instead. There was something unearthly about him – a charisma that transcended humanity itself. From the rooftop, she watched in awe as the man stood fearlessly before the surging water.
Carried by the wave, the Statue of Liberty tumbled through the streets, smashing walls and bending street lamps in its onslaught. Finally, the statue made it the edge of the park, coming to a halt with its crowned head and raised arm sticking out of the muddy water.
Amanda gasped, but not at the imminent death of all the people in the park. Something absolutely massive rode the momentum of the wave – sharp fins and a giant tail sliced through the surface. It dwarfed any animal she’d ever heard of, and the golden spots that shone along the sides of its eel-like body seemed to have stolen the light of the missing stars.
“I have looked into your hearts,” the bearded man said as the wave rose like a shadow behind him. His face grew dark. “You’re all sinners. Sinners drown.”
People looked at each other, suddenly awoken from the calm they’d been lulled into. They all screamed at the same time. Some ran out of pure instinct. Others froze, faces twisted in horror. Nobody would escape their liquid grave.
Or so Amanda thought. A flicker of white swooped down from above, lifting the bearded man up into the air, just as the water swallowed the wailing thousands. So many voices silenced in an instant. The tsunami wave must’ve broken the power grid because the sirens sputtered and died as well. A hush fell over the city.
The man landed on the roof, right next to Amanda. He brushed off his knees and rose to his full height. Underneath the flowing beard, his face was young and his eyes a bright turquoise. Amanda watched him in silence as he stumbled over to the edge of the roof. With a fearful expression that didn't match the calm from before, he gazed down into the murky water below. Like a shark, the sea monster circled the building.