Leto’s arms reached back above his head, the towel that covered his face sliding down onto his lap. He wiped his hair out of his eyes, the light coming in past his black locks. Sun speckled rays, bouncing off the water around him blinded his sleep coated eyes, drawing a cat-like hiss from his mouth. A chuckle from his left drew his gaze, his good friend Elijah slowly coming into focus. Elijah had a smirk, medium length blonde hair messed with lake water from swimming earlier. 

 

“Welcome back to the waking world, lazy. Man, what are you, a vampire?” Leto rolled his eyes

“Do I look like a creepy, pale Transylvanian count to you?” He shot back, bringing his friend to laughter.

“Skin tone, definitely out and no accent. But dude, I think that’s rude against other vampires. Drac is totally a stereotype.”

“Oh? How so?”

“Did you read Stoker’s book? No way all vamps are that over-the-top stalkery. You aren’t even considering I am Legend. A bunch of those dudes were all straightforward murdery, but there was a whole society of normal vamps.”

“I thought that movie was about zombies?” 

“The book, not the movie dude, has a very different context.”

 

A bottle of sunscreen smacked Elijah in the face, a fantastic throw from his sister in the doorway. She was shorter and younger than the both of them, her hair falling down behind her shoulders. 

“Lij, we are sitting on a boat in the middle of a lake, bright sunny day, and you’re talking about the personality of vampires? Enjoy the weather, or at least your family.” Emilee turns back to the front of the boat where her mother and father are enjoying some canned alcoholic beverage. 

Leto grinned widely at her back and turned to Elijah, rubbing a developing welt on his cheek. 

“Little vindictive today isn’t she?”

Elijah grinned back at me. 

“You missed it last night, I filled her sleeping bag with pinecones. She was not happy with me. This is probably the least I deserve.” The two of them laughed, and Elijah helped Leto out of his lounging chair. They exchanged a couple of quips back and forth, heading toward the front of the boat. 

Leto and Elijah met this last year of high school, becoming fast friends. As someone arriving in his senior year, Elijah was not really expecting to make friends before he graduated. But he had bonded with Leto in their English class, both prominent literature and history nerds. Leto had been brought up that way by his family, whereas Elijah was just fascinated by the two subjects. At the end of the year, Elijah had invited Leto along on his family’s summer vacation. It had been a yearly tradition for them, and this year they took it in Crater Lake National Park, a beautiful spot for the middle of summer. When they got to the front, Elijah’s dad greeted them warmly. Seeing their parents, you could tell where they got their looks. He was a tall, well built man with short blonde hair and a thick beard. Their mom looked like Emilee, just aged up a bit. They were both very attractive, with laugh and smile lines on their faces from long lives of happy people.

“Boys! Good of you to join us, you were asking for a sunburn the way you were both sleeping out there.”

Leto looked at Elijah with his eyebrow raised, remembering his comment as he woke. 

“Both of us huh?” He socked Elijah in the shoulder softly, a sheepish grin adorning his face.

“Heh, I woke up a little before you did.” He turned to his dad and asked “Pop, are we still going over to the island or are we just cruising for the rest of the afternoon.” 

Leto shook his head at the obvious deflection, but was also interested in what their plans were. 

“Well, it depends on how everyone feels. Em, how is your friend feeling? Still a little seasick?” His dad asked. Each of the siblings had an open invite to bring one person along on the trip.

“She is feeling better but maybe some time on land would help her out some.” Emilee said, trying to sneak one of the cans that her parents were drinking from their cooler. 

“I can see you, young lady.” Her mom said and Emilee flinched, having hoped the conversation was distracting enough. 

“But mom, you’re letting Lij and Leto drink.” She complained, letting the lid of the cooler fall closed. 

“Your brother and his friend are both adults now, and so we are fine with it as long as it happens under our watch. You still have another two years to go missy.” Elijah and Leto grinned at that and bumped fists without looking. 

“Yeah sis” Elijah said “We are old enough to understand the huge responsibility alcohol is. I could never support a minor drinking” He shook his head in an admonishing way before his dad clipped him on the back of the head. 

“Are we forgetting the state we found you in the backyard last year when your cousin got you drunk on New Years?” His dad asked, an eyebrow raised in an eerily similar way to how Emilee had earlier. Both of the siblings took after the parent of the opposite gender in a few major ways. It was kind of funny to see how they each had mannerisms of their parents. 

Elijah’s sheepish grin came back to his face. He had told Leto about the day after that incident, and the huge lecture he had gotten from his dad while he was still hungover and hugging a toilet bowl. Leto could only imagine that Elijah was remembering that morning right now when he winced a little. Elijah straightened up and crossed his arms.

“I don’t think that has anything to do with the way…” Elijah’s response was drowned out by his parents and sister mimicking the pose he used when he couldn’t think of a good comeback while  saying gibberish words in the exact tone he was using. Leto laughed, placing a hand on his friend’s shoulder. He really enjoyed the dynamic his friend had with his family. Leto’s family, while loving, was nothing like the way Elijah was with his. They weren’t really as playful, and didn’t spend much time together outside of his dad’s history lessons. 

As the five of them laughed and reveled in each other’s company, something began to inundate the space around them. It was at the same time physical and not, somehow both sound and a feeling, completely indescribable. It  rolled through them, and their surroundings. A weight pressed down on their minds, not painful but as if a presence had settled on their brains. Their bodies were heavy, locked in place equally by the phenomenon and their base instincts. The world felt inherently wrong, as if the fundamental  makeup of the universe and physics had begun to change. 

Just as they had begun to get used to the wrongness, a deep, resounding crack ripped through their surroundings. They watched as the crater around the lake began to stretch. The rock being much more flexible  than it should be, before splitting in front of their eyes, water pouring from the lake into this gap before them, a new canyon forming in an instant. Clouds gathered faster than should have been possible, a storm forming. Rain fell in heavy sheets from the sky as if the world was supposed to flood, accompanied by lightning and thunder. Wind whipped back and forth across the lake, pulling waves in its wake all across the once calm surface of the water. 

Elijah’s dad was the first to snap from their stupor, pulling everyone’s focus to him.

“OKAY GUYS!” He yelled over the deafening storm. “WE NEED TO MAKE IT TO THE ISLAND. IT’S CLOSER THAN THE SHORE. HONEY, HELP ME WITH THE BOAT. KIDS, GO TO WHERE EM’S FRIEND IS AND HUDDLE TOGETHER. WE NEED YOU SAFE.” 

Elijah looked like he wanted to argue, but his sister grabbed his hand and Leto’s, dragging them below deck. Leto glanced one last time over his shoulder, watching Elijah’s parents try and control the sails and get them moving in the right direction. 

Emilee’s friend Sara met them at the door, her eyes rolling with panic, gripping the edge of the door with terror stricken fingers. She was a little shorter than Emilee, with curly red hair and very pale skin. She babbled at them, trying to ask what was  happening to the world outside. But they pushed past her, taking her with them deeper into the cabin. The three of them moving nearly in sync, fueled with purpose. The air around them thrumming with determination. They knew that they could not help above deck, but they would do what they could down here. 

  Emilee threw open their small pantry, gathering any canned and nonperishable foods that they had packed. She started to split them up into a few piles that could be packed quickly into different bags. Leto searched through boxes and drawers, collecting flashlights, and tools, anything he could think of that they might need if they needed to survive in the woods. Sadly, there were not very many items as most of their camping supplies were stored in the cars back at their campsite. He managed to secure a hatchet and an SRK (Survival Rescue Knife) in its sheath that Elijah’s dad kept stashed.  Elijah grabbed their bags and backpacks, throwing useless items to the ground. Chargers, books, swimsuits, and other miscellaneous items gathered around him. When only a few pairs of clothes remained in each, he handed out the bags to Em and Leto, and the three of them began to pack all of the supplies they could find. 

Sara stood shellshocked, trembling by the entrance to the cabin. Each of the three put on their thicker clothes and handed her a few pieces of her own. 

“GUYS STOP!” she screamed. “What the hell is going on?!”

The three stopped for a second and exchanged glances. None of them really knew how to explain what they had felt and witnessed earlier. After a few quiet seconds, Leto said,

“Earthquake, I think.” The other two nodded and went back to work.

“An EARTHQUAKE?!” Sara yelled again “How on Earth does that explain the storm and everything else?! What the hell was that weird feeling before everything started happening?! I just need to know what…”

“I DON'T KNOW SARA!” Leto yelled, interrupting her. “The goddamn world could be ending for all I know! We're  just trying to focus on what we can for now. For fucks sake, their parents are risking their lives to try and get us to land before this lake swallows us whole!” The siblings flinched at that, that thought not having been said out loud yet. Leto shifted gears before they could dwell any further. “Please, just help us out here.” The two of them held each other’s gaze for a few seconds before Sara nodded and joined them in gathering anything that they could need if they had to abandon the ship. When each of their bags were full of essentials, Elijah looked over at Leto.
“Let’s go check on my parents. They might need help.” Leto nodded and Elijah turned to his sister. “Em, make sure we aren’t forgetting anything. We will be back soon.” Emilee looked like she wanted to argue, but she glanced  over at Sara and let them go. 

The two boys strapped a simple backpack to each of their backs. Before opening the cabin door, Leto grabbed a length of rope and tied one end to Elijah and the other around his own waist. 

“Don’t wanna lose you out there.” He said. Elijah smiled warmly, and turned to the door. As soon as Elijah had unlatched it, the winds hammered it the rest of the way open as if making itself at home. It brought with it gallons of water from the deck and the sky, as the rain joined it in the cabin. 

 They paused for a moment to watch as the girls closed the door behind them, cutting the cabin off from the rest of the storm. Nodding to each other, they both grabbed the other, pushing and pulling simultaneously along the deck. 

Elijah saw his dad holding several ropes at the same time, holding what could not be tied down. The strength he displayed seemed impossible, holding what must have been several hundred pounds of tension . The wind and rain seemed to avoid him, leaving him drenched but stationary. Elijah glanced around and found his mother strapped to the wheel, trying to guide them through the storm as much as she could. Ropes were wrapped around her waist in a similar fashion that Leto had done. A smile crossed Elijah’s face, an ignored stress  rolling away from his shoulders. Some part of him had feared returning to the deck to find it was empty, that the storm had gripped his parents and torn them from the boat. Elijah yelled up to his father, straining his throat to be heard over the storm. 

“DAD! WHAT CAN WE DO?!” 

His father turned, his jaw clenched as he strained to hold everything together. 

“JUST HOLD ON!” He yelled back, his voice traveling way too well over the storm, as if the wind had picked it up and delivered it to them. Elijah nodded and turned to Leto, noticing his friend was staring off into the distance.

 

While his friend had been making sure his parents were alright. Leto had seen something in the storm. Well, not quite seen, so  much as he had felt something. Stepping out  onto the deck, the pressure on his mind that they had each gotten a little used to, increased. Not as a whole though, but one specific point on the back of his skull, near the top of his head. Following a strange instinct, he turned his head and the pressure point moved too, staying in the same spot in space, but not on his brain. He turned his eyes toward the sky and the pressure relieved as he saw a dark shape far above him. His logical brain told him that it was probably debris, pulled from the distant shore, or a darker portion of cloud. But something else, something deeper within his chest told him that it was not something he could easily explain away. 

Squinting his eyes, Leto tried to focus on the foreign object. It traveled in a straight line, not waving in the wind as debris would have, but with intention as if it was separated from the elements. Pushing further, the tension on his body moved toward his eyes, like it was  guided by his need to focus on the object, pooling behind them  in his skull. 

His vision sharpened, cutting through the haze of the storm. Something within him shifted, separate from the prior pressure, a thing with no weight gathered inside him like  he had added something to his soul. However, even with his newfound sight, he could not make out the object fully. It seemed to have no solid form, roiling and shifting between states of matter. . At one moment, it was a cloud of fog with lightning rolling  through it. In another, it seemed to be a strange chimera of creatures, the body of a boar, the head of a bear, and the long wings of an albatross. 

When a hand grabbed his shoulder, he was shocked out of his trance. Leto turned to look at Elijah, who seemed to be concerned. For a second, he glanced back into the sky, but the form seemed to have vanished. Shaking his head, his attention returned to his friend. Elijah put his mouth next to his ear, his hot breath quickly cooling as soon as it hit Leto’s ear. 

“Dad just wants us to hold on. We aren’t needed yet.” 

 

Leto nodded, holding onto the deck and his friend. The boat crested giant waves and cut through sheets of rain and wind. Hours seemed to pass, violent endless water all around them. 

Cutting through the dense winds, a golden glow shone from the distant shore. A massive wave of golden light passed over the boat, blinding each of the occupants on the boat. Each of them shut their eyes in agony, unable to see the golden light that lingered around each of them. It flowed over, around, and through them, gathering in a spot just below their solar plexus’, On Elijah , his mother, his sister, and on Sara, the light flashed a brighter gold before slowly engulfing each of them at different speeds. On both Leto and Elijah’s father, it was gold for a second before flashing a deep maroon. Fleeing from them as quickly as it had arrived. 

 

Opening his eyes, Leto saw Elijah almost fully engulfed in the golden light. Elijah studied his body, a baffled expression crossing his face. Elijah heard a genderless voice echo in his head,

Hello Pioneer, ready yourself for transport please. Thank you.

 

“Did you hear that?” Elijah’s voice reached Leto through the storm. Leto shook his head, a look of panic replacing Elijah’s earlier confusion. 

“Look after Emily!” He yelled. Leto’s reply was caught in his throat, fear stifling him as his dear friend dissolved into the gold light and drifted away in the wind. Turning, He watched Elijah's mother doing the same, albeit a little slower. With a speed and intention borne of panic, Leto dashed to the cabin. His feet thudded solidly on the deck, each step becoming easier as he ran through the wind. A familiar feeling gathered in him, the same weightless presence he had felt when he had focused his eyes. Throwing the cabin door open, he arrived just in time to see the two girls, huddled together, vanishing into golden light. 

There Leto stood, the impossibility of the situation driving any will from his body. For a moment, he was a part of the boat, rocking violently in the waves of confusion. A familiar voice cut through the air, driving him back to consciousness. 

“LETO. GET YOUR ASS TO THE WHEEL. I CAN ONLY DO SO MANY THINGS AT ONCE.” Elijah’s dad’s voice rocked him, not quite loud but powerful. The instant relief of not being alone and having a purpose pushed him to the wheel. The two rejects, two people stranded, fought the fury in and around  themselves as they simultaneously guided the boat and battled the confusion  at their loved ones disappearing. The rope that had held Elijah close hung loose, the other end waving in the gusts. Grasping it with one hand, he cinched it around the base of the wheel in front of him, making sure his newfound supernatural footing could not be beaten by the forces of nature. A calm settled over Leto’s mind as they fought death.

“BRACE!”