*Maya_
Ka–Boooom!!!...Was the explosion Maya heard just as she was about to enter their apartment from school. She quickly looked up and saw an orange circular wave of energy burst across the atmosphere. It was fast and quick, dying suddenly just as it had been born.
Streetlights. Neon signs. Security lights. Indoor bulbs. Car headlights. All of them—every artificial light within a twenty-metre radius from the explosion source—went dead at once.
Maya watched in fear as the city around her plunged in late evening darkness.
Silence followed—the kind that makes your ears ring. People stood still. Some screamed. Others laughed nervously, unsure whether to panic or pray.
Then, after 5 minutes, the lights blinked on one by one and the affected radius revived into to life. Everyone was shocked and overjoyed.
But what really had caused that?
Such a question did not escape Maya's curious mind,among others. Most people shrugged it off. She didn't. Her curiosity was of another level. Why so? She decided to take action and investigate, both passively and actively.
*(Always be aware of such people. People who get curious and venture into details aggressively have curiosity of another level. A dangerous level. Dangerous to YOU and... themselves. Haha.)*
Maya looked at the source of the explosion, top of a certain tall building flat at the top. The building was just a walking distance from their apartment.
'Should I go and investigate?'
She shook her head.
Suddenly, realization hit her mind like a lightning bolt striking a lightning arrestor.
'Wait,, isn't it that the same building I spied the twins Rockie and Ruksy atop with my binoculars when I was coming? Damn, have they survived?'
She took her binoculars from her bag and spied the top of the building. Nothing. No one. She spied its below, ground floor and front. Her eyes almost popped from what she saw.
Out of thin air, Ruksy and Rockie appeared side to side, still in their school uniforms, hands tightly clasped together. They looked at each other for a brief second and then vanished into mist. Maya withdrew her binoculars and took a step back.
'What did I just see?'
"Maya what are you still doing there?" A sharp voice suddenly called behind her and she almost jumped out of her skin in fear.
"Dammit, Auntie! Why scare me like that?" Maya snapped, spinning around. Her aunt stood there, light-skinned, middle-aged, wrapped in a sari, arms crossed.
"I used my most moderate voice. You were literally somewhere else." Her auntie explained. "Now,get in quickly."
Maya glanced back at the building and then at her binoculars.
"No...it can't be." She muttered,almost inaudibly.
"What?" Her aunt asked.
Maya didn't answer. Instead, she reached into her pocket and unfolded the piece of paper. The merman drawing stared back at her.
A merman drawing. Not to forget she had seen Ruksy hand the same paper to Mike. Meaning it was Ruksy's drawing. And she just saw them... teleport?
Connect those with the orange-energy explosion.
"Maya, whatever is that you are thinking, you better finish it inside." Her aunt warned arms akimbo.
"Actually," Maya said taking off her bag and throwing it at her aunt's feet. "I'll finish my thinking outside."
She then lay down her bike and headed towards the city off skirts,the beach,to be exact.
"Maya! Where are you going you figureless creature?"
"I have supernatural issues to figure out with my figureless mind auntie. I'll be back."
******************
The sky was bright and well lit with with a galaxy of million stars scattered all over it. The gibbous moon also hung there keeping watch of the land and ocean without biasness.
Everything was so calm. But the ocean wasn't. Maya could hear waves crashing and breaking violently. She ran and stood a few safe metres of distance from the shoreline and watched the gleaming and stirring ocean.
The waves were violent—rising and crashing against each other with unnatural force. Foam hissed. Water roared. Small fish were flung onto the sand, left gasping and still to suffer their fate.
The ground trembled beneath her feet. She crouched, pressing her palm into the sand.
"Goodness! It's… vibrating," she whispered.
Then,silence.
What was happening? Her thoughts spiraled.
"This is not natural. It is supernatural. The land and sea are connected mutually. If something is off in the ocean,the land feels it too. There must be something else more than the obvious we know about. Something is happening in the ocean."
And with that conclusion,she turned and ran back toward the city.
As her silhouette disappeared into the distance,a dark manly figure with red glaring eyes that had been watching her on top of a cave, "melted" into the ground;or maybe the ground swallowed it.
What was that?
Anyway, what could be happening in the ocean?
Let's investigate.....
....TO BE CONTINUED...