novelraw Chapter 118: The Ocean Moves In
Chapter 118: The Ocean Moves In
By early morning the next day, the tower had settled into a kind of hushed, airless quiet.
The tsunami had completely destroyed all the power companies and the back ups as well. The low hum that had been filling Sera’s ears since she had been reborn was quickly cut off in the middle of the night, and it was enough to wake her up for a moment.
True silence was so much different from the quiet of regular life.
And for just a moment, she could hear the sound of her own fear echoing in her ears.
The apocalypse had officially arrived...
And now Sera was having all sorts of second thoughts.
Not bothering to try and go back to sleep, Sera got out of bed and walked down the stairs to the kitchen. Taking out a camping burner she got a massive pot of water boiling away.
Hot chocolate was the best thing for when you were having an existential crisis.
Yesterday, the guys had already swept what there was to sweep, and they weren’t happy with what they found.
The casino tower wasn’t a hotel in truth, just a spine of offices, security rooms, server closets, and showpiece spaces that had once been meant to impress the very rich. There were no guest floors here, no rows of numbered doors.
In fact, the only bedroom in the building was the two-story penthouse, designed and finished for the owner and him alone. Everything else was infrastructure—eyes, locks, wires, money. The attached hotel sat next door across the sky, connected by a glass bridge that hung over the drowned streets like a dare. They were separate corporations once, and separate hearts now.
When the water in the pot had come to a boil, Sera took out a few of the containers that she had stashed away in her space and started putting the hot chocolate power into a mug before topping it with the water.
She had just finished putting on the massive amount of whipped cream that hot chocolate desperately called for when the rest of the guys emerged from their room.
Zubair came into the kitchen first, going straight to the instant coffee and making himself a cup. Elias and Alexei came in after him, both in grey sweatpants and a white wifebeater. Alexei moved to the coffee while Elias started to make himself a cup of tea.
Finally, Lachlan was the last to arrive, and instead of making himself a drink, he walked directly over to where Sera was standing and wrapped a single arm around her.
"You are up early," he said, looking down at her with concern. "Is everything okay?"
"The quiet was too loud," replied Sera with a shrug.
Lachlan hummed in agreement and pulled a stool over so that he was sitting next to her. "I get that. But you don’t need to worry. We are here, and whatever happens next, we can survive it. I promise you."
Sera turned her head to look at him for a moment before slowly nodding. "I hope that you are right," she agreed softly.
When the rest of the men had gotten their drinks, they met Sera and Lachlan at the island in the middle of the kitchen and got to planning the day.
"There’s no way to resupply from below," Zubair grunted softly after taking the first sip of his hot coffee. "Everything under the twentieth floor is flooded. Elevators are dead. The electricity is dead. The skybridge to the hotel is intact but is part way underwater at the moment. What we have here is what we are going to have to depend on for survival."
Then, he turned to Sera. "When does the water go down?" He asked the question like he knew she had the answer. But the only problem was that he wasn’t asking the right question.
Sera had been looking at the harbor the way a surveyor looks at a line of sight. At his question she lifted one shoulder, a minimal gesture that meant both don’t know and don’t care to guess. She didn’t add anything, she didn’t bother to say what would happen next.
Like the guys, she was flying blind when it came to a timeline. Unlike the guys, she knew generally what would happen next.
And the water going down was not on the bingo card for the next few years.
Alexei gave a small sound that could have been a laugh if it had found traction. "There it is. The pep talk from father bear. We don’t need much to survive. We just have to conserve what we have until summer comes and we can grow our own food. Just like it is done in the old country."
Lachlan grinned as Elias shook his head. Letting out a long sigh, Zubair started looking in the fridge and cupboards for something to make for breakfast.
This time, the absolute silence was interrupted by the sound of cupboards opening and closing... of Lachlan and Alexei laughing over a card game...of paper being turned as Elias went through the books he had brought in his go bag.
This time, the silence wasn’t nearly as deafening.
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By midafternoon the guys had decided to go down to the 21st floor and see what was going on.
Sera was about to pass, but her creature pushed her forward, not wanting to be away from the horde for any length of time. The men picked up their guns and flung empty bags on their backs—just in case they found something to bring back.
When everyone was ready, they all left the penthouse and walked down the stairs until they got to the 21st floor. Leaving the stairwell, they went into the hall and stopped dead.
The harbor was now apparently, a room with a glass wall. The windows on each end of the hall showed the lapping waves that were now gently caressing the building.
Things passed along the windows as if they had come to see who was living inside.
Not just the dead, and not just the zombies.
The ocean had emptied itself into the grid and brought its whole life with it.