May 13th, 2022,
Friendly Premonition

With the spinning world screeching to a halt, Amelia felt intensely dizzy and uncoordinated. When she finally regained her bearings, she was immediately blown away by her surroundings.

She stood atop a massive, unfamiliar box-like structure, surrounded by others much like it. They stretched even higher than London's clock tower, and that was the tallest building she'd ever seen before. The ground below featured a neat, gridlike configuration of roads, where peculiar metal boxes rolled along on wheels. She'd heard rumors about horseless carriages - several inventors had been trying their hands at the idea - but there were so many occupying the streets below, and they were all so sleek and refined.

She could have admired the futuristic cityscape for hours on end. Unfortunately, it seemed that this was no time for sightseeing. Many of the horseless wagons below were impatiently waiting in the crowded streets, each of them bleating the same obnoxious sound as they inched along in one direction. People scurried like ants along the sides of buildings. Others could be seen abandoning their carriages in the street and fleeing out of desperation. They were clearly trying to escape from something, but it wasn't immediately clear what that was.

That was when she saw it.

Torrents of water began barreling down the streets with the force of several elephants, smashing against the sides of the towers. She watched as the waves overtook countless city folk, consuming them whole. The currents demolished every vehicle they could swallow. Any screams below were completely drowned out by the surging flood.

Along with the violent waters came a thick fog. It rolled in rapidly, hanging in layers and gumming up the air. From that haze, then, emerged an ominous figure, suspended several stories above the ground. It appeared to be a young girl with long, dark hair, and she was being carried along by several massive, hulking tentacles that spiraled out of her back.

Amelia froze as the titanic appendages ripped through the futuristic structures she'd just marveled at. Both the beast and its behavior were totally foreign to her, and yet Watson felt as if she could predict its exact movements. 

Why do I feel like I've seen this before? She wondered.

The ominous girl beamed her glowing, crimson eyes directly at Watson. Something about the detective had caught the monster's attention immediately, as it completely halted its destruction the very moment it noticed her. One of the tentacles rose up behind it, the beast poising itself to strike.

Time seemed to freeze around Amelia. Strangely, she felt little fear as her certain doom approached. It was as if she knew she wasn't in any real danger.

Right, then someone screams my name…

"WATSON!" cried a squeaky voice, as a small, shark-tailed girl pierced the approaching tentacle with her shimmering blue trident.

The wounded tentacle flailed wildly, Amelia's savior clinging desperately to her giant fork, which was now firmly lodged in place. Her grip loosened, however, and she was flung across the sky without her weapon, plopping into the waters below with a pathetically minuscule splash. The eldritch monster recoiled backwards as it roared in pain, its scream sending a shockwave through the air. Every glass window in sight shattered. Amelia reached up to clutch her hat tightly as she took the blast head-on, but she lost her grip on the golden pocket watch. Turning back, she watched helplessly as the device clanged against the rooftop and vanished over the edge.

When the being's scream finally subsided, the shark girl made an enormous leap from the turbulent waters and landed gracefully beside Watson.

"Phew, for once I'm the one who's just in time!" The girl gave a wide grin, showing off her razor-sharp teeth. But her expression changed abruptly as her gaze shifted toward the monster. "Watch out!"

The girl dove into Amelia, sending the two of them free falling off of the building. One of the beast's enormous tendrils cut through the structure like a knife through butter, sending massive chunks of concrete, metal, and other debris hurtling through the air like projectiles. Watson screamed as the two of them plummeted faster and faster toward the waters below. Amelia managed to steady herself just in time to hold her breath and brace for impact as they both splashed into the stormy depths.

Watson's eyes shut tight as the debris-filled water seared her eyes. All she could sense was the water swirling all around her, and the girl's hand, still tightly clasping the detective's own with all its strength. The violent waves conspired to keep the two submerged as Amelia's lungs pleaded for air. Was this really where it would all come to an end?

Suddenly, the shark girl's hand began to pull, and Amelia felt her other arm be grasped as she was pulled against her savior's back. She felt the water begin rushing past her faster than before, and she could finally breathe as her head breached the water. Finally winning the struggle to open her eyes, the detective realized that the shark girl was ferrying her along the flooded street corners as swiftly as a bullet. Looking back at the monster, it was preparing to strike at them once more. 

This time, a tentacle approached in a jabbing motion at breakneck speeds, like a finger attempting to squash an insect. Amelia's ride swerved just in time to avoid getting hit directly. The limb broke the water's surface and kicked up a massive wave, one that the shark girl took advantage of as a speed boost. Her tail paddling furiously behind her as she rode the current, their speed surpassed that which the beast could keep up with. Frustrated by their escape, the monster funneled its rage back into leveling the city in its entirety. It seemed more determined than ever to not leave a single building standing.

"There's a good spot!" Cheered the shark. Amelia turned her head forward and spied the crest of a hill barely breaching the raging waters. It was the only land in sight.

Coming ashore, Watson collapsed onto the sopping wet grass. Her coat was several times heavier, as if it had absorbed all the water in the sea, and she began coughing up salt water and concrete powder as her throat burned.

"Sorry for the rough ride," apologized the small girl, "but we really needed to get as far away from that thing as possible!"

Watson was still struggling to clear the water out of her lungs, and couldn't manage any words.

"Well, despite the uhhh…" the shark girl looked around at the devastation that surrounded them, "… everything, it's great to see you again!"

"Wh-who are you?" Amelia gasped, nearly caught up on her breathing.

"C'mon Ame! I know it's been a while, but don't tell me you forgot Gura!"

The detective stared at the girl for a moment, racking her brain, searching for any memory of her. Surely she would've remembered if she'd met a girl with a shark tail, right? How could she have ever forgotten something that bizarre?

"…You really don't know who I am, do you?" Gura was devastated. "What is it today Watson, opposite day or something?"

Today…

"Wait, what day is it today?" Amelia asked.

"…Friday?"

"No, like, the month! The date! The year!" Watson demanded.

"C'mon Watson, you've always been better with that," Gura groaned. "It's like… mid-May?"

That sounded right to the detective.

"And then… I think it's, what, 2022 now?"

Watson froze, "W-wait, did you say 2022? As in, the year is 2022?"

Gura blushed. "D-don't make fun of me! I've been alive for, like, nine thousand and…" she paused, as if she was trying to make up a number, "five hundred years? Nine thousand seven hundred? Whatever, you know I've lost track!"

The detective's eyes widened, "We have to go back to that city."

"What're ya crazy, Watson?" The shark scolded. "You've got a habit of runnin' into danger, but now's NOT a good time!"

"I need to find that pocket watch!" Amelia exclaimed, hoping the girl would understand.

"Oh yeah!" Gura remembered. "Ya dropped this, right?" She pulled the golden clock out of the pocket of her hoodie. "I made sure to grab it when it fell. Sorry, I almost forgot to give it back!"

Amelia reached desperately for it, but Gura stepped back and put it back into her pocket.

"Hold up detective," Gura's tone became much more serious, "you can have your little clock back. But can you promise me one thing?" 

Watson squinted her eyes, "What do you want?"

"C-can you…" Gura choked up a bit, struggling to form the words. Her eyes shut tight, and, when they opened, there were tears beginning to form. "Can you promise to come back and see me again?"

The girl held out the shimmering timepiece, offering it to the detective. Her face struggled to express all the emotions she was feeling as her hand shook, tightly gripping the clock. She knew that giving it to Watson was the only way out of this, but she seemed painfully aware of the loneliness that awaited her.

Despite having just met Gura, Amelia immediately began to feel the bond that existed between them. The way this girl had gone through painstaking effort to save her life, and even ensure the watch's safety - there was no doubt in Amelia's mind that they'd had a long and storied history together.

"I will."

Watson's hand came to rest on Gura's, and her fingers wrapped around the clock. They gazed deep into each other's eyes, each of them longing for a connection that wasn't there. Amelia wished she had experienced some of her and Gura's past; maybe then they could have had the moment of reunion that Gura needed. As a single tear rolled down her cheek, the small, shark-tailed girl loosened her grip, allowing Amelia to take the pocket watch.

"Sad to finally see you again just to see you go," Gura lamented, her tail drooping like that of a sad puppy. "I'll be rooting for you over here. Whatever this is, I know you can fix it!"

Fix it? Does she mean the flood, and that monster? Amelia was becoming less sure of whether or not this weird shark girl knew who she was talking to.

"G-goodbye, Ame…"

"Goodbye, Gura," Amelia bid farewell, taking one last look at the apocalypse surrounding them.

Her thumb clicked the button, causing the symbols to flash, clock hands to rotate, gears to whir, and the world to spin. Before she knew it, she was all alone, standing in the waterlogged study of that 19th century dwelling.