The Dawn of Destruction, Chapter 22

                                 The Dawn of Destruction

Interitus 1 – Book One

            Chapter Twenty-Two

 

            The shoreline practically knew it was in the limelight. The enemy was named distance; it was the only obstacle between Arisa and the inevitable convergence of the Creation sisters. Phil and Felix’s dog stayed behind in the car, waiting patiently since Seth thought it might be dangerous to bring them to the coast. As the last sliver of the sun sank beneath the horizon, Arisa and Seth walked up to the water’s edge and prepared to say goodbye.

            “If I am unsuccessful, or if I die in the process… I’m sorry. I want nothing more than to be useful in your fight,” Arisa said.

            “I don’t think you should worry about failure; that’s not your burden to bear. It’s on all of us. You try your best to do your part, and I’ll try my best to do mine! I can’t really ask for anything more. If we can pull this off, then we can bring Naomi’s reign to an end.”

            Arisa blushed and stepped into the water until her knees were submerged. She lifted her left arm slowly and prepared to use Creation for the last time in her short life. She inhaled deeply and then activated it with a sense of caution; she levitated her body out of the water. She pushed herself westward, but then she suddenly stopped and jerked herself back toward Seth. He watched as her outstretched arms glistened in the light of the rising moon. With mist slowly rising from the water, she pulled her hands forward, casting a faint shadow on the wet sand.

Like something from a dream, Arisa clasped her levitating hands on Seth’s shoulders. She pulled her weight forward and pressed her lips on his. When they separated, Seth stood motionless with a warm smile, though a timid blush remained on Arisa’s cheeks. His hand lifted onto her knee, dragging affectionately across her leg as she flew away.

            “Until we meet again,” she whispered over the sound of ocean waves.

            The blanketing light of the starry night dazzled the ocean as Arisa flew away, but the beauty of the glimmering sea could not distract her from her task. Instead, she sensed the essence of her sisters replicating and reciprocating their powers. In only a matter of minutes, the ceremony would end and her chance would be lost, but then she saw the moonlit island on the horizon. Arisa accelerated toward the island with every remaining shred of her stamina, hoping that this would be the last fatigue she would ever feel.

            The eight Creation sisters stood with their feet adjacent to one another, all attached at the arms as visible streams of energy converged between them. A rhythmic beat emanated from their center as the form of the original Naomi appeared in the energetic convergence. Arisa soared through the air and dropped herself from a short height over the pit.

            “Now ere we nine were held idle here, we nine were won,” Arisa whispered throughout the freefall.

            Arisa never felt the impact or heard the thud of her body crashing into the ground. Instead, she simply liquefied and coagulated into the stream of essence. The previous form of Naomi kept its original size and shape, but as her mind and soul reformed, Arisa lodged herself inside like a ticking bomb, prepared to take Naomi down as the one piece of herself that she unknowingly awakened.

            “We nine are one,” Naomi whispered as her features materialized.

            However, Naomi was overwhelmed by an enormous energy that threatened to obliterate her if it were not immediately dispersed. She hypothesized that this energy came from the fusion-like reaction of condensing her fragments into a single body. Nevertheless, she directed the energetic eruption toward the west at an angle just barely beneath horizontal. It blasted through the air with the force of a volcano, and so it had dire consequences when it finally struck the distant ocean. The seismic impact of this extraordinary force caused a powerful oceanic explosion—strong enough to make the Earth itself tremble.

            Based on the energy she had launched, Naomi knew that every Pacific coast would spring alive with the fear of the inevitable tsunamis. She figured that North America’s western shoreline was directly in the path of these waves, and the people would likely consider evacuation. One way or another, it would ultimately kill a tremendous number of people. This wave would devastate countless coastlines, giving Naomi the perfect opportunity for a follow-up attack on the evacuees and survivors. The tsunami itself was an accidental perk, but it could easily jumpstart her new campaign against humanity. Not even Seth was strong enough to stop a tsunami. But just to ensure that Destruction could never challenge her again, Naomi decided that she would attack San Diego immediately after the tsunami struck land.

            Seth, on the other hand, stood silently on shore and watched the western sky. Even though it was nighttime now, he desperately searched for any hint of Arisa and the sisters of Creation, but it was hopeless; she was simply too far away. He stared over the ocean with a twinge of sadness. He knew that the only chance he had to defeat Naomi was to Destroy her body while Arisa interfered from the inside. His only shot at victory could happen by killing her with the same power that killed Iris. But there could be no backpedaling, since Seth had come too far to turn back now.

            “Seth, we needa get our asses up outta here now or else we gon’ drown!” Phil shouted, sprinting toward his friend while Skipper trailed closely behind.

            “What are you talking about?” Seth asked.

            “This guy on the radio say they been lookin’ through they satellites and checkin’ they graphs and shit, and they say there some big-ass earthquake like a minute ago! They said shit’s like the strongest they ever recorded and shit, and now we and a buncha Mexicans and Oregonians gotta watch out for tidal wave! We gotta run like it’s the police!” Phil panted, stopping for a breath after running through the dry sand.

            “You can’t be serious! But Arisa just went out there somewhere, not even two hours ago. Where was the earthquake? Was anyone hurt?!” Seth asked, running toward the Ferrari.

            “Man, Seth, I don’t know that shit! I jus’ know it’s way out there somewhere and we gon’ be whale food if we don’t get our asses up on outta here, damn! And slow yo ass down, you know I can’t run real good in sand,” Phil shouted, walking the rest of the way to the car.

            As the two friends and their comrade’s dog congregated in the moonlit car, Seth watched people emerge from their homes and scurry through the streetlights. Figures and shadows shifted across driveways and sidewalks, piling into cars as quickly as possible. Just a couple blocks away, a good-spirited man ran generously from door to door, alerting his neighbors of the approaching wave. Word had diffused rapidly; multiple vehicles started all at once. The night had suddenly awakened, and the streets became flooded with traffic almost instantly. Basic road rules were completely disregarded. Every two-lane road became one-way, and every stop sign became optional. People no longer cared about driving safely; they no longer cared about police or politeness. Instead, every car heading east became an obstacle on someone else’s path to survival. Cars drove on the grass and sidewalk. The night became bright as day from this sudden surge of activity.

            “Seth, you was too slow, now we gon’ get stuck here behind everyone and drown like fish!” Phil shouted.

            “First of all, fish don’t drown. And secondly, we would have made it if you didn’t take so long crossing the sand!” Seth retorted as he climbed out of his car.

            “Why you don’t jus’ Destroy all these cars in our way?”

            “That’s messed up, Phil. But you’re right; we need to get out of here. We’ll travel on foot, but I’m okay with pushing slow people out of our way,” Seth grumbled.

            Seth led the expedition on the nearest sidewalk, running quickly eastward toward the city. At every intersection, he ran between parked cars. Phil and Skipper were only a few paces behind him.

            “Seth, you dumb-ass, you know we ain’t fast enough to make it far on foot! You tryin’ go all Forest Gump up in this bitch when we got a much better option,” Phil said, stopping after they had run for ten minutes straight.

            “Phil! Don’t stop! We need to get out of here. If this tsunami has anything to do with Naomi, and we both know it does, then we aren’t safe here,” Seth complained.

            “No, man, look,” Phil said, pointing to an open garage with two beautiful bikes parked out front.

            “Man, we’re not going to steal someone’s bikes! I don’t care that they’re about to be washed away,” Seth argued.

            Contorting his face, Phil asked, “Why you expect me to say we should steal that shit? I was thinkin’ we jus’ knock on the door and ask real nice if we can buy them cheap ‘cause they ‘bout to be underwater. Look at you always expectin’ the worst of me! That’s a damn shame, Seth. That’s a damn shame.”

            Seth nodded and ran toward the garage. As he ran across the moonlit sidewalk, a heavyset man and his frightened daughter emerged from the front door and ran to their car.

            “Wait! Sir, can I buy your bikes?!” Seth shouted as he approached.

            “You can have them so long as you close the garage door for me! I’m haulin’ ass to the first highway I can find!” he answered as he threw his bags into the vehicle.

            Seth shouted his thanks and pulled the bikes from the garage. Phil and Skipper ran up and joined him in the driveway, and then Phil helped Seth pull the garage door down from the outside. After Seth readied his bike, he wrapped his arms around Skipper so that he could put the dog on his lap. But as he lifted the dog, he noticed a small black bag wrapped around its stomach by a small string. It was fastened tightly but hidden by its long fur, carefully affixed there by a helpful comrade.

After Seth removed the bag and quickly unzipped it, he smelled Arisa’s fragrance flood the air. There were five throwing knives inside the black bag. Phil happily grabbed the knives and placed them in his jacket pockets; he beamed excitedly now that he was reunited with his weapon of choice. Seth then climbed onto the bike and placed the dog on his lap. Its hind legs stood on Seth’s legs, but it rested the bulk of its weight rested on the handlebars.

            With a frantic burst of rapid pedaling, Seth and Phil resumed their journey east. While Seth was faster than Phil on foot by a considerable deficit, and an even greater deficit with anyone else, this was not true on the bike. He was never an extraordinary cyclist, and the extra weight of the animal in his lap brought him to the same speed as Phil. Seth led their journey by a tiny margin. Before long, the suburbs of the city faded into a more metropolitan setting.

            “Seth, don’t you think it kinda a bitch move to run away? We both pretty sure Naomi gon’ storm this place after everyone dead or evacuated. Shouldn’t we get her ass by surprise?” Phil said.

            “I get what you’re saying, and I would love to stay and fight her, but I’m pretty sure we’d die. Look, I know I don’t have enough power to Destroy this tsunami. If there was another solution, I’d take it. It’s just… I know my limits.”

            “But you ain’t thinkin’ clear, Seth! You thinkin’ all two-dimensional. We never gon’ get past the wave by goin’ north, south, east, none of that! Even all these people here gon’ die ‘cause they was at the wrong place at the wrong time. Not even Destruction can fix that, man. I think only ‘bout half of San Diego even got a chance of gettin’ away in time. The waves is gonna get here in less than an hour pretty much no matter how you look at it. We only really got a chance to live if we get in the air, but I don’t know how we gon’ do that,” Phil said.

            “That’s brilliant!” Seth yelled, ecstatic not only because of Phil’s idea but because he saw a news station on the nearest block.

            “You ain’t thinkin’ of robbin’ them, is you? Seein’ the true colors of Seth Freeman today,” Phil laughed.

             But Phil’s words had no effect on Seth’s decision. Seth pedaled furiously toward the station. There were two helicopters on the ground in a fenced enclosure, and a few people stood around the helicopters with frustrated expressions.

            “Our pilots already left the city! How are we supposed to film the devastation?” A large man shouted to the others.

            “Wait,” Seth said to Phil, slowing to an observant halt.

            “Guys! Stop standing around like a bunch of idiots! We needa bring out the news trucks,” another man advised, rushing to the fence that separated the helicopters from the sidewalk.

            The other men agreed. A moment later, they all sprinted for the gate door. After the reporters scurried out and closed the gate, they rushed toward a small parking lot on the other side of the station. Seth and Phil dropped their bikes onto the concrete.

            Seth climbed up the moonlit fence in a matter of seconds, and then he opened the door for Skipper and Phil. He knew that this probably looked suspicious to the nearby motorists, but he dismissed his concerns.

            “The problem is, we don’t have any clue where the keys are, or… how to even fly a helicopter. Shit. I think I might’ve got too caught up in the moment,” Seth sighed.

            “Lucky for yo punk-ass, you travelin’ with a dude built for this kinda situation. You remember in high school when I got that fat white kid his shit back after some thugs stole it?” Phil asked.

            Seth answered, “Yeah, I remember. And to thank you, he said his dad flew helicopters with the army and would show you how sometime. But then… you also pretended there was an earthquake that time he fell down the stairs, so I thought he revoked it.”

            “Yeah, well, that shit happened after he got me up in the air, and I memorized how that dude been flyin’. Not all helicopters is the same so I won’t know ‘till I look in the cockpit,” Phil said as he walked up to the glimmering helicopter.

            “But even if you can fly it, we still don’t have the key for that.”

            “Yeah, well, it ain’t far,” Phil retorted.

            Phil wrapped his jacket around his fist and smashed it through the window of the nearby control room, setting off a barrage of sirens.

            “Now don’t you worry yo punk-ass, I know how you do. The cops ain’t coming ‘cause they runnin’ from the wave too! And we ain’t really stealing ‘cause it gon’ be smashed anyway and we might be savin’ lives and shit maybe,” Phil yelled to his friend as he crawled through the window of the control room.

            A few seconds later, Phil ran out through the door with a keychain. He ran up to the helicopter door, opened it, and decided that he could fly this type of helicopter.

            Phil managed to get them in the air in less than a minute. The two friends and the dog set sail to the sky, but Seth and Skipper glanced around nervously, unsure of entrusting their lives to Phil’s piloting skills. And though countless headlights illuminated the bustling city, the light of the full moon revealed the outskirts of the city. As the helicopter climbed higher by the second, Phil caught sight of a restaurant close to shore.

            “Seth, look, a McBurger’s! And all that chicken is gonna be ruined if we don’t save them!” Phil shouted as he tilted the helicopter toward the building.

            “Phil! Look, the shore is about eight times longer than usual; I think I even see fish flopping around in the sand! The tsunami is close; we don’t have time for burgers.”

            “We don’t have time for burgers? We don’t have time for burgers?! How you gon’ tell me we don’t have time for burgers? You musta lost yo damn mind, Seth!” Phil retorted.

            There was a large, dark swell in the distance on the surface of the ocean. It glistened in the moonlight as it began to climb into the air.

            “It’s too late,” Seth whispered, pointing at the wave and realizing that they were too low and too close to escape.

            The crest of the monstrous wave grew taller at an inescapable rate. It swept toward shore and pulled the ocean behind it as it climbed into the atmosphere. It was not long before the wave became even higher their low-flying helicopter. Phil glared at the giant wall of water with a stunned stare. The water behemoth finally reached its peak at a height of 105 meters, and it came crashing forward like the destructive hand of God; it would simply destroy everything in its path. As the top of the tsunami finally began to break, stranded vehicles and entire neighborhoods were swept from their foundations like leaves in a tornado. The luminous wall of indescribable power thundered toward the helicopter, and Phil executed a rapid thrust on the clutch so that the helicopter could ascend.

            “Damn, we jus’ too heavy; we ain’t gon’ make it,” Phil shouted as the tsunami became dangerously close.

            Seth immediately knew what he had to do, and he knew that Phil would never allow it if he were to ask. Therefore, Seth ripped off his jacket and threw his right hand on the helicopter floor. Every muscle in his body flexed as he pulled the fingers on his right hand together and closed his eyes.

            “Don’t mourn me,” Seth said.

            Phil glanced back and saw his friend in this position, but he had no way to stop Seth from ejecting himself. Seth Destroyed a small hole in the floor at the back of the aircraft, reached his hands to the underside of the hole, and catapulted himself out of the helicopter by pulling upward on its bottom. The reaction force of this push caused him to burst into downward motion, and because he had pushed the helicopter upward while also removing his own weight, the helicopter narrowly passed over the peak of the wave. Seth kept both of his hands ready for Destruction as he plummeted, and then the ferocious wall of water engulfed his body.

            Every time that Seth had gone bodysurfing in the past, the surface of the wave was tense enough to let him surf along it without being pulled inside. This was no longer the case. A turbid steam of water forced him into spinning motion, and he had to close his eyes because the water had surrounded him. In seconds, the wave slammed him into a sharp piece of debris that was also accelerated by this cyclonic motion. His hands flailed before him in the water, Destroying the energy and matter of everything that he touched, but he could not determine which way he was moving. The streams of water tugged on his limbs as if intending to tear them free. The speed of the ocean smashed him through a solid wall beneath the water, and then it pulled him at a very high speed.

After five more seconds of torrential torture, Seth realized that it was impossible to fight the wave. This was survivable at first, because as the tsunami spread across the suburbs, it slowed down to a manageable speed. Still deep underwater, Seth felt his ears and body throb beneath the pressure. His eyes fluttered open as he accepted that it would take a miracle to escape from the depths. But when he opened his eyes, his problems were far worse than the saltwater stinging his eyes. It was worse than the evident truth that there was no light anywhere in the underwater darkness.

The only thing Seth saw was a large shape dancing in the darkness. It floundered past him so magnificently that he knew he was in the presence of some underwater creature. In the next moment, he felt his body fall into a spinning stream of water. In the darkness of the boisterous waters, Seth narrowly opened his blue eyes and confirmed his fear; he watched Naomi’s mechanical worm barrel toward him in this underwater world.