The First Organised Defence
The apocalypse began, as most things in Seabourne-on-Wrack did, with a committee.
Not the actual beginning, obviously. The actual beginning had involved screaming, fog, and a retired accountant attempting to negotiate with something that had clearly drowned some time ago, on the grounds that it might still be open to compromise if approached politely and offered a biscuit.
But the organised apocalypse began with folding chairs in the school hall, a kettle that had been boiled so many times it tasted emotionally tired, and Councillor Bernard Lionel Pritchard insisting that everyone "remain calm in a structured manner," like calm was an item you could requisition if you filled in the right form.
Outside, the North Sea made the sort of noise that suggested it was chewing on something large.
Inside, Oliver Penhaligon tried not to hyperventilate in a way that looked noticeable.
Which was difficult, because his lungs were currently doing that panicked rabbit thing and his hands refused to stop trembling, even when he told them—quietly, reasonably—that this was not helpful.
This is fine, he told himself, staring at the laminated evacuation diagram pinned to the hall wall. The same diagram that used to make him feel vaguely responsible and now felt aggressively ironic. This is an organised civic response to undead coastal incursion. Very standard. Absolutely the sort of thing they teach in… nowhere. But still.
He shifted his weight, trying to look like he belonged there and wasn't just a tall, slightly hunched boy in an oversized waterproof jacket who'd spent most of the last year avoiding PE and conflict with equal dedication. His hair had already achieved its usual windswept panic, despite being indoors.
In the front row, Hattie Blythe sat with her knees together and her hands folded like she was waiting to be told off by the headteacher. Her round glasses were slipping down her nose, as they always did, and she pushed them up with one finger in a movement so practiced it looked like muscle memory from a different life—one where the biggest danger was dropping a choir folder.
She'd tied her hair back too tightly again. It made her look neat. It also made her look like she was bracing for impact.
Tommy Mercer slouched one seat away, shoulders hunched into a hoodie that smelled faintly of laundry detergent and anxious sweat. He wore fingerless gloves, as he always did, despite mounting evidence that they served no practical function beyond making him look like he'd either joined a minor rebellion or lost a bet.
He kept flexing his fingers, like he didn't trust his hands to remember how to be hands.
Yasmin Qureshi had commandeered a chair like it owed her rent. Notebook open. Pen in hand. Expression sharpened to a point. She looked tired in the specific way of someone who'd tried to solve reality with logic and found reality had refused to cooperate. There was a faint smudge of ink on her thumb. She'd probably been taking notes through at least one panic attack. Possibly someone else's.
At the front of the hall, Fiona Abernathy had commandeered the whiteboard with the quiet fury of an engineer who'd just discovered that the world had become structurally unsound.
"We cannot keep reacting," she said bluntly, writing Rotations in thick marker that squeaked like it was disapproving. "We need defined roles. Assigned positions. No more 'everyone with a broom handle and a vague sense of outrage.'"
A hand went up.
It was Victor Halden.
Of course it was Victor Halden.
Victor's hair was immaculate in a way that felt personally insulting. He looked like a man who had been born wearing a pressed jacket and had never, ever been surprised by weather. Even now, with the end of civilisation taking place inconveniently around the town, he still managed to stand with the posture of a person about to sell you a house you couldn't afford and didn't want.
"With respect," Victor said, voice smooth as an estate brochure, "we cannot be placing minors in frontline engagement."
All eyes drifted—reluctantly—to the back row.
Oliver made himself very still.
Hattie adjusted her glasses again.
Tommy blinked, then blinked again like he was buffering.
Yasmin did not blink at all.
Oliver attempted to appear like a decorative coat rack. He failed. Coatracks did not usually have visible dread.
Fiona's marker paused. Her face did the thing it did when she was trying to decide whether it was worth explaining something obvious to an adult who was determined not to understand it.
"Victor," she said, without raising her voice, "the System assigned them."
Victor spread his hands, still polite, still reasonable, still absolutely certain the universe should be run like a council meeting. "And the System is not—"
The System, which had been largely silent for the duration of the meeting, chose that moment to interrupt, like a deity that hated being discussed.
SETTLEMENT METRIC INITIALISED.
SEABOURNE-ON-WRACK — LOCAL SURVIVAL ZONE CONFIRMED.
SETTLEMENT LEVEL: 1.
There was a pause so complete you could hear someone's stomach drop in real time.
"Is that good?" someone asked.
No one answered, because no one knew, and admitting you didn't know anything in a room full of people who'd once argued about parking permits felt like emotional nudity.
Oliver stared at the words that only he seemed able to focus on. Settlement Level: 1.
One. Like the town had been graded. Like the apocalypse had given them a starting score and expected improvement.
His throat felt tight.
We're a… what. A tutorial area? he thought, and immediately hated the fact his brain had phrased it like that.
Hattie's fingers tightened on the edge of her chair.
Yasmin's pen moved, neat and furious: Settlement L1. Confirmed. Survival Zone.
Tommy whispered, almost inaudible, "Do we get… like… points?"
Oliver swallowed. "We get eaten if we don't," he whispered back, and then immediately regretted how much that sounded like a joke. It wasn't. He didn't have enough emotional capacity left to pretend it was.
Fiona capped the marker with a snap. "Right. Rotations. Harbour funnel. Farmland perimeter. Mid-town fallback. No heroics."
Victor inhaled, ready to object again.
The harbour bell solved that problem.
The First AlertIt came not ten minutes later.
The harbour bell.
Not the lifeboat bell. Not the pleasant, heritage one that tourists photographed. The other one. The one they had installed three days ago because "it seemed sensible," in the same way putting a fire extinguisher next to a candle is sensible when you've accepted your candle might have ambitions.
It rang once.
Twice.
Then continuously, frantic and ugly.
Fiona didn't swear.
She inhaled in a way that suggested she might later, in private, and possibly with great creativity.
"Harbour funnel," she said. "Lower town."
Hattie stood up automatically. Not because she felt brave. Because she felt… used. Like a tool the System had picked up and said, Yes, that one will do.
She didn't feel heroic.
She felt like someone who had brought the wrong textbook to the wrong exam and still had to sit it anyway.
"Formation?" she asked quietly, voice calm because her body had apparently decided to lie on her behalf.
Oliver swallowed. His mouth tasted like cold tea and panic. "Yes. Yes, formation would be… ideal."
If we have formation, we might not die, his brain supplied helpfully. This is an optimistic thought. It is also horrifying.
Yasmin snapped her notebook shut like she was sealing a contract. "Positions."
Tommy flexed his fingers inside his fingerless gloves. "I'm just saying," he muttered, "these were meant to be practical."
"They're practical for… looking like you're about to commit mild vandalism," Yasmin replied, already moving.
Big Al Dobson lumbered past them, hauling a reinforced riot shield the size of a garden gate. He moved like a man who could carry a fridge up a flight of stairs and complain the whole time in a way that made you like him more, not less.
"I absolutely hate this," he muttered, and there was such honest sincerity in it that Oliver felt a strange rush of gratitude. It was comforting, in a way, to hear an adult say what everyone was thinking.
Fiona's voice cut through the hall as they moved for the door. "Rotational tank priority. Hattie centre anchor. Al secondary. Rangers on church steps for elevation. Adept mid-line."
Victor stepped forward. "I object to—"
The bell rang again, closer this time.
A wet dragging sound carried up the cobbled incline, like someone pulling a sack of seaweed and regret.
Victor stopped objecting.
Harbour FunnelSeabourne-on-Wrack's harbour district was picturesque in brochures.
Narrow cobbled streets. Stone fishery buildings. The Drowned Haddock pub, whose sign now felt ominously literal.
It was also, as Fiona had put it, a natural funnel—if you wanted things to flow in one direction and kill you while doing it.
Fog curled low between buildings, thick enough to make the world feel muffled, like someone had wrapped the town in damp wool.
The dead came in from the pier.
Five at first.
Then eight.
Then more shapes dragging themselves over the harbour wall.
Their clothes were salt-stiffened. Their skin had the bloated pallor of things that had been underwater too long and were now returning to complain. Their movements were wrong, joint angles too loose, bodies driven by something that didn't care about ligaments.
Oliver raised his bow.
His hands were shaking so badly he briefly considered retiring, moving inland, taking up knitting, and living exclusively in a cupboard.
This is not ideal. This is very much not ideal.
Also, why am I holding a bow? I have never—
He didn't finish the thought because the bowstring drew back smoothly, as if his body had decided to handle it without consulting his brain.
Hattie stepped forward and planted her shield.
Her boots slid slightly on wet stone. She adjusted, planted harder, shoulders set.
She could feel her heart pounding so loudly it felt like it might be heard by the dead, and she resented that. Heartbeats were private. She was not interested in sharing.
Tommy moved to her right flank, jaw clenched. He looked pale. He always looked pale, but now it was the specific shade of someone who'd just realised the monster on the screen was not, in fact, on the screen.
Yasmin drew a breath and felt mana gather like static behind her teeth. It tasted metallic and wrong, and she hated that she was already trying to quantify it.
Big Al positioned himself half a pace behind Hattie, shield angled. He gave her a look—quick, gentle, almost apologetic—like he was trying to be reassuring without saying anything embarrassing.
Victor stood five paces back, debating the legal definition of a terrible idea.
The first Drowned hit the shield.
The impact jarred Hattie's arms hard enough to sting all the way up to her shoulders. For one terrible half-second, she thought she might step back.
Then something in her—something that felt like structure—locked.
Not strength exactly.
Stability.
She didn't move.
She didn't scream.
She said, very calmly, "Right. That's firm."
Tommy darted in.
Blade flashed.
He moved faster than he did in school corridors. There, he'd always been careful, like walking was a thing that could draw attention. Here, he moved like attention was irrelevant and survival wasn't.
A clean strike.
The Drowned collapsed dramatically—
—and blocked the only narrow gap between two stone bollards.
There was a brief silence in which the universe considered whether it was being funny.
"Oh," Tommy said. "That's inconvenient."
Oliver loosed an arrow.
Headshot. Perfect.
The corpse toppled sideways into a washing line strung between two windows. Three damp tea towels wrapped around its face like an aggressive domestic intervention.
"I am so sorry," Oliver whispered to no one in particular, because apologising felt like the only human thing left in the situation.
Yasmin released Arc Bolt.
Blue-white light cracked across wet cobble. The third Drowned convulsed and dropped, steam rising faintly from its chest like it had briefly considered being cooked.
"Mana efficiency holding," she muttered. "Mildly acceptable."
More shapes dragged themselves forward.
Fog curled around their ankles like it wanted to join in.
Big Al stepped up, shield locking against Hattie's with a heavy clack that sounded weirdly comforting, like closing a door properly.
The System pulsed faintly at the edge of Oliver's perception—like a presence behind his eyes, watching and recording.
FORMATION SYNERGY DETECTED.
DEFENSIVE AMPLIFICATION ACTIVE.
Hattie felt it.
A subtle reinforcement through her stance, like someone had jammed wedges under her feet and whispered, Stay.
The next impact did not push her at all.
Oliver exhaled, surprised to discover he'd been holding his breath for what felt like an hour. He adjusted his aim. The world narrowed to angles and distance and the shape of a skull in fog.
One arrow.
Two.
Three.
Each strike landed where he did not want it to, and exactly where it needed to.
He hated that. He was grateful for it anyway.
Behind them, Victor shouted, "Hold the line!"
"Yes," Hattie replied, without turning her head. "That was the plan."
Absurd ComplicationThe fourth Drowned slipped.
Not tactically. Just physically.
Wet cobble. Poor ankle stability. The undead, it turned out, were not immune to the realities of traction.
It windmilled its arms, collided with a stack of lobster pots, and the lobster pots collapsed with the loud, offended clatter of things that had never agreed to be involved in horror.
One pot rolled downhill.
Directly into Big Al's shin.
He blinked.
The Drowned recovered, lurched—
—and was neatly decapitated by Tommy mid-apology.
"Sorry—" Tommy began, and then the head left the body and his apology turned into a quiet, appalled exhale.
The head rolled down the slope, bumping politely over cobbles, past Victor's polished shoes.
Victor looked down at it.
The head looked up at him.
There was a polite pause.
Oliver shot it.
It stopped looking at anyone.
"Right," Victor said faintly. "Quite."
EscalationThe fog thickened, as if encouraged.
More figures emerged.
This was no longer five.
It was closer to fifteen.
Yasmin felt her mana reserves dip, the sensation like a muscle tiring. She hated it, because her brain immediately began calculating how long she could sustain output and what failure would look like and whether she'd have time to say something clever about it before dying.
"This is suboptimal," she informed no one.
Hattie's arms burned. She did not mention it. She did not allow her face to change, because if she acknowledged the pain then it might become real.
Tommy's breathing grew sharp and quick.
He moved anyway.
Oliver's fear spiked like static in his ears. He loosed another arrow, and it went wide.
His stomach dropped.
Oh God. Oh God. I've missed. I've missed and now—
He swallowed hard, forced his fingers to stop shaking, drew again.
Perfect.
The System flickered, dispassionate as ever.
FEAR INDEX: ELEVATED.
COHESION: MAINTAINED.
From somewhere above, Darren Walsh called, "Left flank, three!"
Oliver adjusted without thinking.
Arrow.
Arrow.
Arrow.
The third Drowned stumbled—
—and fell backward into the harbour with a splash that sounded far too cheerful.
A moment later, a pale hand gripped the wall and pulled itself back up.
Everyone collectively disliked that.
Even Victor made a noise of private offence.
The First True Lock"Rotate!" Fiona shouted.
Big Al stepped forward.
Hattie shifted half a pace back, shield still up, the movement smooth in a way that startled her. She hadn't known her body could do that.
Tommy crossed behind her without collision, like they'd practised.
They hadn't.
Oliver adjusted elevation without being told.
Yasmin timed her cast between movements, biting down on the urge to narrate the maths aloud.
For a brief, impossible second—
—it worked perfectly.
Every strike supported another.
Every movement reinforced.
The dead pushed.
They did not break the line.
Oliver felt his breathing steady.
Hattie felt the pressure distribute.
Tommy did not think.
Yasmin did not overcalculate.
Big Al absorbed impact like an apologetic boulder.
The last Drowned fell.
Silence.
Except for the sea.
And someone's washing line, fluttering gently like it had opinions.
AftermathThey stood there for a moment, not moving, because movement felt like a decision and decisions felt dangerous.
Steam rose faintly from cooling bodies. Fog thinned reluctantly, like it was sulking.
Tommy wiped his blade on a salt-stiff sleeve.
Then immediately looked horrified at himself, like he'd just realised he'd become someone who wiped blades on things.
"Right," he said, voice thin. "Well. That was messy."
Hattie lowered her shield slowly.
Her arms trembled. She hoped no one noticed.
Big Al noticed. He pretended he hadn't. He shifted his stance slightly closer anyway, like he could block people from seeing her shake with his sheer size.
Oliver's knees nearly gave way. He steadied himself on a bollard, forehead pressed to cold stone for half a second, because cold stone didn't ask him to be brave.
Victor stepped forward, cleared his throat, and tried to regain authority like it was a hat he could put back on.
"Yes," he said. "Adequate."
Fiona stared at him.
"Settlement level just stabilised," she said, voice flat.
On cue:
SETTLEMENT XP GAINED.
COHESION BONUS APPLIED.
SETTLEMENT LEVEL REMAINS: 1.
PROGRESSION: 38%.
Yasmin scribbled it down so hard her pen nearly tore the paper.
"Incremental," she murmured. "Predictable. Good."
Oliver stared at the percentage like it might explain why his hands still wouldn't stop shaking.
Thirty-eight percent to what? he thought. To safety? To doom? To… level two?
Reverend Clarke appeared with a thermos as if summoned by narrative law and the British need to provide hot beverages at moments of despair.
"Tea," she announced calmly.
They accepted it like communion.
Oliver's hands shook so badly the first sip sloshed onto his sleeve. He didn't care. The tea tasted like tannins and mercy.
The Uneasy OmenThe bodies were dragged aside.
Lobster pots re-stacked.
The washing line disentangled from its recent social engagement, tea towels wrung out by a woman who looked furious about it in a way that suggested she would later file a complaint with someone, possibly God.
Oliver glanced toward the water.
The tide was lower than it should have been.
Or perhaps higher.
It was difficult to tell when reality had started improvising.
The fog lingered past its natural span, refusing to clear properly.
And beneath the surface—
Something moved.
Not a corpse.
Not driftwood.
A shift.
A displacement.
Too large to be dismissed, even by British denial.
Oliver blinked slowly, because blinking felt like the correct response to things that made you want to scream.
"It's probably nothing," he said quietly.
The sea did not confirm.
Behind him, the System pulsed once more.
COASTAL ACTIVITY: ANOMALOUS.
MONITORING.
No one cheered.
No one declared victory.
They simply turned back toward the stone slope leading up to Market Square—formation intact, breathing uneven, tea in hand.
The apocalypse, now slightly more organised, continued.
Fog did not clear.
It merely thinned in a way that implied it might clear later, if it could be bothered, if it felt like participating in the concept of weather.
The harbour district smelled like salt, diesel, and mild administrative failure.
Hattie remained standing a fraction longer than necessary, shield resting against her knee, because lowering it felt like admitting something had nearly happened. She stared at the wet cobbles and tried not to think about how easily she'd almost slipped.
Big Al leaned his weight onto his own shield and exhaled.
"I absolutely hate this," he repeated, as if repetition might solve it.
Tommy crouched beside one of the fallen Drowned and stared at it with the expression of someone who had just won a competitive sport and was now deeply concerned about the rules.
"I don't like how they… drip," he said, quietly disgusted.
"They've been underwater," Yasmin replied. "That's fairly consistent with basic hydrodynamics."
"Yes," Tommy said. "I still object."
Oliver was still looking at the tide.
It was wrong.
Not dramatically wrong.
Just… fractionally misaligned.
The sea had the air of someone pretending not to be watching.
It's fine, he told himself. It's just tidal variance. Entirely natural. Perfectly normal coastal behaviour. Definitely not a prelude to something enormous and segmented and—no. Stop that.
Behind him, Fiona clapped her hands once.
"Right. Clear the funnel. Rotate back to mid-town. We're not staying in the harbour if fog persists."
Victor adjusted his jacket.
"That engagement," he began, voice already adopting the tone of a man about to write a strongly worded email to reality itself, "was dangerously informal."
Yasmin blinked at him, slow and incredulous.
"We had a defined defensive anchor, mid-line caster, flanking striker, and elevated precision overwatch," she said crisply. "Which part was informal?"
Victor hesitated.
"Well. The minors."
Hattie lowered her shield at last. Her arms wobbled. She hoped the wobble looked like stretching.
"Respectfully," she said, in the tone of someone who had said respectfully to adults before and survived it, "the minors are currently less dead."
There was a brief silence.
Big Al coughed, like a man trying not to laugh at the fact that he agreed.
Oliver made a small apologetic noise, as if he might be personally responsible for the mortality comparison.
Victor inhaled.
Then, from somewhere further along the pier, there was a dragging sound.
Everyone turned.
A single Drowned hauled itself over the harbour wall.
It paused.
Looked at them.
Then immediately slipped on a patch of seaweed and face-planted into a stack of crab traps.
The crab traps collapsed with theatrical commitment.
The Drowned did not get up.
There was another pause.
Tommy tilted his head. "Are we counting that as handled?"
Oliver, out of instinct more than necessity, loosed an arrow into the back of its skull.
The body twitched once and lay still.
"I prefer certainty," Oliver muttered, and hated how true that felt.
The System chimed in, because it always did when someone had just done something traumatising.
COMBAT PARTICIPATION REGISTERED.
INDIVIDUAL XP DISTRIBUTED.
COHESION BONUS APPLIED.
Yasmin looked faintly pleased, which was concerning in its own way.
Victor looked faintly betrayed by physics.
Market SquareBy the time they reached mid-town, the bell had stopped.
The church tower loomed overhead, slate roof dark against the fog-muted sky. Stone buildings crowded close together, windows reflecting a town trying very hard to pretend this was sustainable.
Residents had gathered in the square.
Not panicking.
Just waiting.
Waiting had become Seabourne-on-Wrack's primary civic activity.
Reverend Clarke stood near the church steps, thermos still in hand.
"Any injuries?" she asked, like she was asking who wanted biscuits.
Hattie shook her head.
Tommy flexed his fingers again, grimacing at the dried salt and mud.
Yasmin glanced at her mana bar—visible only to her—and nodded once, satisfied she hadn't cooked herself from the inside out.
Oliver swallowed.
"I may require additional tea," he said.
"That is acceptable," Reverend Clarke replied solemnly, and poured him more without judgement.
Victor stepped up onto the low stone lip of the square fountain.
He did not quite mount it, but he arranged himself in a way that suggested he might begin addressing Parliament at any moment.
"Residents," he called. "The situation remains manageable. However, the continued reliance on adolescent tactical authority must be reviewed."
A ripple moved through the crowd.
Lorraine Penhaligon folded her arms.
She had the posture of a woman who had raised a child into adulthood through sheer force of competence and would be damned if the apocalypse made him skip meals.
"Reviewed by whom?" she asked sharply. "The dead?"
Victor stiffened. "That is not what I—"
A distant horn sounded from the upper road.
Three short blasts.
Farmland patrol signal.
Fiona's head snapped up instantly. "Report!"
A runner—Samuel Blythe, thirteen and too thin for comfort—skidded into the square, panting, face flushed. He looked terrified and determined in equal measure, which made Hattie's stomach twist.
"They've seen movement past the third field wall," he gasped. "Not many. But they're not coming from the sea."
That shifted something in the square.
Sea was expected now.
Land felt personal.
Yasmin's eyes sharpened. "Drift migration?" she murmured.
"Or inland vector," Oliver said faintly.
Tommy blinked. "Or," he offered, "they're just… wandering?"
No one liked that option either, because wandering meant anywhere.
The Field RotationThe dry stone walls beyond the cliffside cottages were beautiful.
Centuries old. Stacked without mortar. Picturesque in postcards.
They were also approximately four and a half feet high and excellent at segmenting both sheep and undead into manageable tactical inconveniences.
Wind tugged at Hattie's hair as they approached the first gate. She tightened the tie automatically, because if her hair came loose she might lose the last thread of control she had.
Big Al lumbered beside her.
"You sure about this?" he asked gently.
She nodded.
She did not feel sure.
She felt necessary.
Oliver took position along the low rise near the hedgerow.
Elevation here was subtle. Enough.
He stared downrange and tried not to think about how quiet the fields looked, how normal, how wrong it was that normal could hide movement.
Yasmin remained mid-ground, notebook already out, because she could not help herself. The world might be ending, but data was still data.
Tommy rolled his shoulders, trying to shake out tension. His breath fogged in the air.
The first Drowned crested the far wall.
Then another.
These were not dripping.
These were mud-streaked. Clothes torn by brambles. Their skin looked less bloated, more… dried-out wrong.
Eyes unfocused in a way that felt different from harbour rot.
"They're dispersing," Yasmin observed.
"They're sheep-fielding," Tommy corrected quietly, which was a phrase no one wanted to exist.
Three more appeared.
Then stopped.
As if confused by the pattern of walls.
One attempted to climb.
It reached the top, paused, looked around with what might generously be called strategic uncertainty, then fell backward into the ditch.
The ditch was shallow.
The Drowned flailed, offended.
Hattie inhaled slowly.
"On my mark," she said.
Her voice did not waver.
She did not know why.
"Mark."
She stepped forward.
Shield met the first over-wall lunge.
Tommy darted low. Blade flicked. Mud sprayed.
Oliver loosed from elevation—arrow punching through a shoulder joint cleanly.
Yasmin's Arc Bolt cracked across two at once, grounding through wet soil with a smell like singed rain.
The synergy locked again.
Not as smooth as harbour.
But functional.
Behind them, Samuel watched with enormous eyes.
Reverend Clarke had insisted he remain behind the second wall.
He had insisted on coming anyway.
Hattie's throat tightened. Go home, she wanted to say. Go be a child. But the apocalypse had taken "child" and filed it under "optional."
A Drowned stumbled toward the gate.
Hattie shifted to intercept.
Her boot slipped on loose gravel.
For half a second—
she tilted.
The Drowned surged.
Tommy reacted without thinking.
He crossed in front of her, too close, blade sinking deep.
The Drowned collapsed onto him.
They both went down in a mess of mud and limbs.
"Tommy!" Oliver's voice cracked, sharp with fear.
Yasmin's hands sparked, ready to overchannel—
Tommy shoved the corpse aside, sat up, blinking, mud and worse on his clothes.
"I am fine," he announced, voice strained but stubborn. "I deeply regret the texture, but I am fine."
Hattie hauled him up by the back of his jacket, hands shaking. "Thank you," she said quietly, and meant it so much it hurt.
He nodded, swallowing hard.
"Please don't fall," he replied.
"Noted."
Big Al's shield smashed into the last Drowned's chest, sending it backward into a wall.
The wall did not collapse.
The Drowned did.
Silence settled over the fields.
Wind moved through grass.
A sheep bleated somewhere in what sounded like mild disapproval, as if to say, This is not what these walls were for.
Aftermath in the FieldsThe bodies were dragged to the side of the track.
Lorraine arrived with sacks for material salvage like she'd been summoned by the word "resource."
She looked at Oliver once.
"Eat," she said.
"I—"
"Eat."
He ate, because arguing with his mother had never once been worth it, even before the dead started climbing walls.
Yasmin crouched near one of the inland Drowned, poking at its sleeve with a stick like a scientist with a strong sense of self-preservation.
"No salt crystallisation," she murmured. "Different vector entirely."
Tommy stared at his mud-slick gloves. "I'm going to need new layers," he muttered, as if this was his primary concern, which was both ridiculous and oddly human.
Mrs. Eileen Thatcham appeared as if summoned by textile destiny.
"I've been saying that," she said warmly. "You're under-insulated."
Tommy looked at her with the quiet horror of a boy about to be aggressively cardiganned.
Victor arrived last.
Surveyed the field, lips thin.
"This proves," he said, "that decentralised patrol authority is unsustainable."
Hattie wiped her shield, mud smearing across metal.
"We handled it."
"Barely."
"We handled it."
There was a pause.
Wind tugged at Victor's immaculate coat, trying to introduce it to reality.
He glanced toward the sea.
Even from here, it was visible—grey and restless.
A darker line beyond the horizon.
Too smooth.
Too deliberate.
Oliver felt it again.
That sense of being observed.
The System flickered, indifferent to their feelings.
SETTLEMENT DEFENCE SUCCESSFUL.
COHESION INDEX: STABLE.
FEAR INDEX: ELEVATED BUT WITHIN PARAMETERS.
PROGRESSION: 52%.
Yasmin wrote it down.
"Incremental," she said again, like repetition might make it feel less like a threat.
Tommy looked toward the cliff path.
"Does anyone else feel," he asked casually, because someone had to, "like this is building toward something significantly worse?"
Hattie adjusted her grip on the shield.
"Yes," she said.
Big Al nodded. "Absolutely."
Victor opened his mouth.
From the direction of the harbour—
a deep, distant sound rolled inland.
Not a wave crash.
Not wind.
Something heavier.
Something shifting under pressure.
The sheep went quiet.
The sea did not.
No one spoke.
They all turned, slowly, toward the coast.
Fog was creeping back in.
And it was taking its time.
No one in Seabourne-on-Wrack liked it when the sheep went quiet.
Sheep were, as a rule, not creatures of discernment. They bleated in wind. They bleated at shadows. They bleated because they were sheep and the world existed.
Silence from them felt… intentional.
The deep sound from the harbour rolled again.
Lower this time.
Sustained.
Not a crash.
A pressure.
As if something vast had adjusted its weight.
Tommy swallowed. "Right," he said. "That's new."
"It is acoustically inconsistent with standard tidal movement," Oliver added faintly, still staring toward the coast.
"Could you not?" Tommy replied, voice tight.
Yasmin closed her notebook slowly, because closing it felt like admitting she didn't have enough data. "That is not wave energy," she said. "That's displacement."
Victor, who had been preparing a remark about decentralised command structures, quietly did not make it.
Fiona's voice cut across the fields.
"All patrol units rotate back to mid-town. We are not engaging unknown offshore phenomena with four teenagers and a sheep."
One of the sheep bleated belatedly, as if objecting to the phrasing.
Big Al exhaled. "Good."
Hattie adjusted her shield strap.
She did not want to retreat.
She did not want to advance either.
She wanted the world to pick a lane.
"Back to square," she said calmly.
No one argued.
Market Square (Again, But Slightly Worse)By the time they reached the square, more residents had gathered. The fog was thinner inland but clung stubbornly toward the harbour slope like it had unfinished business.
Reverend Clarke stood near the church steps again, thermos replenished as if by divine logistics.
"Everyone breathe," she said gently. "Structured breathing. In for four. Out for four."
Several people complied automatically.
Victor stepped up beside Fiona this time, not onto the fountain.
Progress of a sort.
"That sound," he began, voice noticeably less confident than earlier, "may require… assessment."
Yasmin stared at him.
"That was not an assessment?" she asked, gesturing vaguely back toward the fields.
"That was agricultural containment," Victor said stiffly.
Oliver blinked.
"I would prefer the sea not escalate," he said, and hated how small his voice sounded.
The sea did not consult him.
The deep pressure rolled again.
Closer.
The church tower vibrated faintly—not enough to damage stone, enough to suggest that stone had been considered.
The System pulsed.
COASTAL ACTIVITY: INCREASING.
THREAT ESCALATION WITHIN PREDICTED PARAMETERS.
MONITORING CONTINUES.
"Predicted," Tommy echoed softly. "That's comforting."
"It implies modelling," Yasmin said.
"That is not comforting."
Fiona didn't wait for a third rumble.
"Oliver," she said sharply. "Tower."
Oliver swallowed.
"Yes."
The church tower stairs were narrow and spiralled in a way that had never been designed for urgency.
He climbed anyway, boots slipping slightly on worn stone, heart thudding against ribs that were not built for this.
It's fine, he told himself. You're simply observing. Very observational. Extremely non-heroic. No one dies from observing. Usually.
He emerged onto the narrow parapet.
Wind struck him instantly.
The fog below was parting in uneven ribbons.
The harbour wall.
The pier.
The dark water beyond.
For a moment—nothing.
Then—
movement.
Not at the surface.
Under it.
A slow curvature.
As if something immense had rolled beneath the skin of the sea.
The water displaced outward in a ring.
Subtle.
Massive.
Oliver's mouth went dry.
"Oliver?" Fiona's voice drifted up from below.
He forced air into his lungs.
"There is," he said carefully, because careful felt necessary, "a substantial underwater mass exhibiting controlled displacement patterns."
There was a pause.
Tommy's voice floated faintly up from the square. "Is that Oliver-speak for 'big'?"
"Yes," Oliver called down. "It is Oliver-speak for 'big.'"
The curvature shifted again.
Closer to the harbour mouth.
Then stilled.
The fog began to close back over it, like a curtain drawn politely over something unspeakable.
Oliver's fear spiked hard.
The System responded instantly.
FEAR INDEX: ELEVATED.
COHESION RECOMMENDED.
FORMATION ADVISED IF ENGAGEMENT OCCURS.
He did not feel comforted.
He felt observed.
The water smoothed.
The deep rumble ceased.
He stood there for another full ten seconds, because part of him expected a dramatic reveal. Tentacles. A face. Something cinematic.
Nothing breached.
Nothing surfaced.
No drama.
Just sea.
Too calm.
He descended.
Public ReactionWhen he reached the square, everyone looked at him.
Which he disliked profoundly.
He adjusted his jacket, like he could make himself less noticeable through fabric.
"It did not surface," he reported. "It is large."
"How large?" Victor demanded.
Oliver considered.
"Architecturally inconvenient."
That seemed to land.
Yasmin nodded slowly. "Mass estimate?"
"Large enough to influence harbour wall integrity if motivated," Oliver replied, because his brain apparently refused to speak like a normal person when terrified.
Big Al blinked. "That's… not small."
"No," Oliver said.
Reverend Clarke handed Oliver tea without comment.
He accepted it with gratitude bordering on religious.
Victor cleared his throat, trying to pull himself back into authority like a man climbing onto a raft that was already on fire.
"This," he began, recovering some stiffness, "is precisely why structured adult leadership must take precedence."
Fiona stared at him.
"It didn't surface," she said flatly. "We're not engaging offshore anomalies with a clipboard."
Victor opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Then, unfortunately, decided to continue.
"The optics of children reporting on large-scale marine threats—"
Hattie spoke before she realised she was going to.
"We're not children," she said evenly. "We're assigned."
There was a quiet shift in the square.
Not loud.
Not dramatic.
Just a collective recalibration.
Lorraine Penhaligon stepped forward slightly, not looking at her son because looking would crack something she was keeping reinforced.
"They held harbour," she said. "And farmland."
Victor's jaw tightened.
He looked toward the harbour slope.
The fog was creeping upward again.
The sea remained quiet.
Too quiet.
The System flickered once more.
SETTLEMENT STATUS: STABLE.
THREAT LEVEL: ESCALATING GRADUALLY.
PROGRESSION: 61%.
Yasmin's eyes lit briefly.
"Sixty-one," she murmured. "We're advancing."
"Toward what?" Tommy asked.
No one answered.
Domestic InterruptionBecause Seabourne-on-Wrack refused to remain cinematic for long, Mrs. Eileen Thatcham chose that moment to arrive with a stack of reinforced scarves.
"Thomas," she said firmly. "You are damp."
"I am," Tommy admitted.
She wrapped a padded, rune-stitched scarf around his neck with decisive competence.
"It's slash-resistant," she informed him. "And morale-enhancing."
Tommy swallowed against the sudden warmth. "I feel enhanced," he said faintly.
Hattie almost smiled.
Almost.
Samuel tugged at her sleeve.
"Are we going to be alright?" he whispered.
She looked at him.
At the square.
At the fog.
At the adults pretending not to look frightened.
At her friends—because they were friends, even if they'd never said it out loud, even if they'd just been people who'd sat near each other and survived school by being quiet.
"Yes," she said.
Not confidently.
But steadily.
"We're organised."
Samuel nodded, as if that was enough.
Perhaps it was.
The Final Omen of the DayAs the square began to disperse—rotations reassigning, crafting teams reorganising, council members preparing to argue in a slightly more hushed tone—the lighthouse beam flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then steadied.
Fiona looked up sharply.
"That's automated," she muttered. "It shouldn't flicker."
Oliver followed her gaze.
The beam swept across the fog.
For half a second—
it illuminated something under the surface beyond the harbour mouth.
Not fully.
Not clearly.
Just a shadow.
Curved.
Segmented.
Then gone.
The beam moved on.
The sea resumed its innocent posture.
Tommy let out a breath he hadn't realised he was holding.
"Well," he said lightly, because someone had to, "that's probably decorative."
Yasmin closed her notebook.
"That," she said quietly, "is a Regional-tier threat profile."
Victor looked between them.
"No such classification has been formally agreed—"
The System interrupted, because the System had no patience for committees.
REGIONAL PRESSURE BUILDING.
COASTAL MUTATION VECTOR: CONFIRMED.
RECOMMENDED: STRUCTURAL REINFORCEMENT.
No one cheered.
No one screamed.
They simply stood there in the square of an old stone town that had never asked for this, and listened to the sea breathe.
Hattie adjusted her shield strap.
Oliver tightened his grip on his bow.
Yasmin calculated.
Tommy flexed his fingers.
Big Al sighed.
The lighthouse beam swept again.
The fog lingered.
And far beneath the waterline—
something shifted its weight.