A faint rumbling came from
outside. The sound was definitely not from the waves. Nat
nervously got to her feet and walked over to the narrow cave
opening.
“I see
lightning. There’s a storm brewing. I thought you said there
would be two veils before a storm.”
“I was
trying to make an educated guess. Does it look like it’s
coming our way?”
“I can’t
tell. Griff, what if it’s a regular storm, and not an acid
one?”
“We’ll
have to wait and see.” Getting up, he went over and drew his
arms around her waist. Together they stared out past the
stretch of beach, into the nearly absolute darkness. The
clouds masked any stars or moonlight, making it difficult to
see anything.
“Where’d
you see the lightning?”
She
pointed off to their left. At that same moment, a jagged
line of bright, neon green raced toward the horizon. Griff
gasped and pulled her away from the cave’s entrance.
“That’s
one of those acid storms. We best retreat farther inside so
we don’t get any of it on our skin.”
“What if
it’s not coming our way? What if it bypasses us?”
“We can’t
take the chance.”
She
resisted the pull of his arms. “What’ll happen to the ocean
after the storm rains acid on it? Will it kill the fish?”
“I don’t
know. I can’t even begin to hazard a guess.”
A shudder
went through her. “What if it’s rained here before? Have we
been eating tainted seafood?”
He
understood what she was trying to say. “If we’ve been eating
tainted fish and all, I think we would’ve felt the effects
by now, don’t you think?”
He tried
to urge her back inside the cave, when a hard gust of wind
buffeted them. It slid around from the side instead of
head-on, which told him it hadn’t originated from the storm
they were watching.
Unless…
“Nat, get
back,” he ordered, almost pulling her out of the entrance.
This time
she obeyed. “What?”
“I don’t
know, but that wind isn’t coming from that storm. It’s
coming from behind us.”
She
gasped. “From another storm?”
“Could be.
Let’s go over to the fire to wait this thing out.”
“Since
when do two storms show up at the same time?” She paused.
“What if it’s not a storm? What if it’s a veil?”
“Veils
aren’t preceded by winds,” he argued.
“That we
know of,” she challenged. “Ever since those veils showed up,
we’ve tried to make sense of them. Just when we thought we
knew what was going on, the tables were turned on us. We’ve
tried to figure out why they started, and why things changed
so much after we go through them. Why are we in the middle
of farmland one moment, and in a desert the next? We’ve been
in a jungle, on a mountain, and now this island. And, on top
of that, one time it was the middle of winter, then it was
summer, then the fall. We don’t even know what year it is!”
Her voice
was rising as panic started to overtake her. He felt the
same fears threatening to overwhelm him. Taking her face
between his hands, he kissed her, cutting off any further
protests. It wasn’t meant to be a sexual kiss, but it was a
loving kiss. One that conveyed his growing affection for
her. She calmed and leaned against him, kissing him back.
In the few
days since they’d found each other, he’d come to realize how
much she meant to him. At first, he’d argued with himself
that their mutual attraction was because of their
circumstances. They were two survivors of a catastrophic
event no one understood or had anticipated. They needed each
other the same way a drowning person clings to a life
preserver. But of the handful of people they’d encountered
since the veils overtook the world, they’d quickly
discovered they could only count of each other.
Another
blast of wind whistled through the cave opening, throwing
sand into the air and nearly blinding them. Coughing, Griff
lifted the neck of his t-shirt over his nose to keep from
breathing in the grit, when another gust swirled inside.
This one was strong enough to extinguish the fire, plunging
them in blackness.
Nat
clutched him, burying her face in his chest against the
flying sand. He enveloped her in his embrace and guided her
to the far end of the cave without going deeper into the
rear cavern. He didn’t know if the coming storm would
penetrate the back area, or if it would even reach them.
Either way, they needed to stay far away from any openings
to prevent themselves from getting hit by the acid rain.
They
remained in each other’s arms and watched what they could of
the storm. The wind continued to blow fiercely against the
island, and several times they felt drops of sea water
reaching them.
“Could
this be a hurricane, you think?” Nat yelled at him to be
heard over the gale.
“Or a
water spout. Let’s hope it’s over with soon.”
An
unearthly howl began to screech around them. Griff wondered
if his guess was correct, and a twister was descending upon
them, when Nat jumped.
“The
water’s coming in!”
She
stepped back. He felt the water’s resistance against his
boots. Bending down, he dipped his hand into the coldness
that was almost at his ankles.
“Griff!”
He sensed
her starting to retreat farther toward the inner chamber,
but stopped her. “No! We need to get out of here before the
tide rises!”
“But the
acid rain will scald us!”
“We can’t
stay in here!” he insisted. “We could get trapped. We need
to get above the water level. If we’re lucky, we might find
a ledge or something to hide under.”
They’d
discovered yesterday that the small spit of land they
inhabited was actually the upper cone of what had been a
volcano, whose eruption from the ocean’s depths had created
this solitary island. The inner part of the volcano was
honeycombed with caves, but they’d held back from any
further investigation for fear of getting separated. Or
worse, falling into a crevasse and dying.
“Griff,
the water’s getting higher!”
“Come on!
Hold onto me!”
She
clutched the waistband of his pants as he started to wade
toward the cave entrance. The water was up to his calves and
quickly rising. He heard the pounding of the waves coming
from outside. The sound grew louder as it grew closer. Stark
fear went through him as he realized at the last second what
was about to happen. He turned to grab Nat when icy water
surged into the cave, blasting them like a gigantic
firehose, and sending them flying into a rock wall.
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