Rafi had no shoes.
He had lost them while running.
The road burned his feet, but he didn't stop. Pain was nothing new to him. Hunger, cold nights, broken things he knew those well. What he didn't know… was fear like this.
Behind him, the sea screamed.
Rafi lived near the docks, in a small broken house made of tin and wood. His father had died years ago. His mother cleaned fish for money. That morning, she had sent him to buy bread.
Now the bread was gone.
The streets were gone.
People were gone.
"Ammi!" Rafi shouted, his voice cracking as he ran through smoke and water. "Ammi!"
A shadow moved beside him.
A shark huge, gray, bleeding from gunfire slammed onto the road. Its body crushed a parked van like paper. Rafi screamed and turned, running the other way.
He slipped. Fell.
The ground shook so hard his teeth rattled.
Rafi covered his head, waiting to die.
But nothing happened.
He opened his eyes.
A woman stood in front of him.
"Get up!" she yelled.
It was Lila.
She grabbed his arm and pulled him up with surprising strength. "Run! Don't look back!"
"I I can't find my mother," Rafi cried as they ran.
Lila's heart tightened. She didn't stop running. "We'll find her. But first, you live. Okay?"
Rafi nodded, tears running down his face.
They joined a small group moving uphill Marco, Anna, her child Leo, and a few others. No one spoke. They just ran.
Behind them, the city died.
Buildings collapsed under massive bodies. A giant squid wrapped its tentacles around a tower and pulled. The tower fell sideways, screaming metal and glass.
Rafi stared. "Are they… monsters?"
Lila answered honestly. "No. They're animals."
"That's worse," Marco said quietly.
They reached a narrow road between rocks. The sea was far below now, but the sounds followed them deep, angry, endless.
Rafi's feet bled. He slowed.
Marco picked him up. "Hold on, kid."
Rafi clung to him, shaking.
Then something happened that made everyone stop.
The creatures stopped too.
The ground vibrated not from footsteps, but from below.
Water in the air began pulling backward, like the world was inhaling.
Lila felt it in her bones.
"This isn't normal," she whispered. "They're waiting."
A sound rolled across the land low, ancient, powerful.
Rafi covered his ears. "What is that?"
Lila looked toward the ocean.
Her face went pale.
"That," she said, "is a call."
Far away, the sea pulled back from the shore. Way back. Exposing dark ground that had never seen light.
Every creature turned toward it.
Rafi looked at the empty water, then at the people around him.
"Does the sea want us dead?" he asked softly.
No one answered.
Because the sea moved again.
And this time, it was coming for everything.