Welcome to Sealantis

chapter 7: this honestly should have been tacked onto chapter 6

Conveniently, the government came to us for the fight! We didn't have to worry about sneaking into a secure facility with weapons or getting through security as a bunch of teenagers or even how to escape.

How polite of them!

Inconveniently for us, though, the government came with a super-drainer machine that they aimed directly at the Oceans.

Whoopsies.

Probably should've thought through the whole "summoning the Oceans to a specific location that the government-who-enjoys-draining-things has access to" plan before doing it, but I guess I figured the embodiment of the Oceans, a whole 70% of the world I grew up on, would be... I don't know... all-powerful?

Don't get me wrong - at first, the Oceans did have the upper hand! It slished and slashed and pulsed and jettisoned millions of gallons of water in hyper-concentrated blasts. Shells shot out and scratched the draining machinery; the metal cleaved like soft putty. Within seconds, the government's draining machine was decimated.

And that was when everything went wrong.

Dear reader, when I say "wrong," I don't mean the rising action of Freytags pyramid. I don't even mean the climax, for that still follows the Mount Everest shaped narrative tool that fills middle schoolers with cold dread.

No, this level of wrong is so wrong, it creates its own story structure.

If Freytag's pyramid mimics Mount Everest to allow authors to dangle readers off a cliff... this story's structure resembles the flight patterns of a starship if Nicky were in control. If a good story were a comforting bowl of soup, this one is Manhattan Clam Chowder. Even the Sealiens could not craft a reasonable graph for which this story could follow.

Friends, writers, pescatarians - lend me your wit, for the story I am about to tell you is infinitely more difficult to convey than it is to comprehend.

The Oceans surged,
A vortex formed,
And the Sealiens dissolved.

I felt like the world's loudest bass had been cranked to the max, tuned to emit the exact frequency at which I resonated. I could feel myself starting to come apart, an irresistible pull from the vortex ripping me apart from the inside out.

It was exhilarating and terrifying and excruciating all at the same time. I could feel Trident and Andy beside me, the pull twice as strong on them as it was on me.

I could hear Harry groaning in pain - I supposed he was intact enough to make noise - and the distant voice of Edward yelling urgently about something, but it was hard to make sense of language while everything elongated and shrunk in incongruent waves.

This was the end of the world, wasn't it?

Wasn't it?

Time slowed down.
My physical experience ceased to have meaning, but somehow, I could still... sense?

A gentle caress of saltwater on my cheeks - it had to be the siblings.

Fury incarnate, as cold as the Oceans were deep - I almost wept with relief. The Oceans had not been consumed entirely!

The taste of saltwater taffy - somehow, I knew it was Harry.

I reached out desperately to feel Edward's warmth and companionship - but there was nothing.

Edward, it seemed, was no more.

Edward. My best friend, my ever-faithful guardian - the guy that I could go to about anything -

gone.

Stupid girl. Can't save your parents, can't save your best friend... you're a

Failure.

My parents were gone.

Disappointment.

I didn't even avenge them; I lived under the same roof as their murderers.

Useless ally.

Now Edward was gone, along with millions of innocent clams. What good did my help ever do?

Everything I touch fails.

In the midst of my grief, the darkest parts of me began to chuckle.

If all I do is ruin things, then how about I give the government a little helping hand?

I stopped resisting.

A/N - is this short? yes. do i care? mmmmm... not enough. enjoyyyyy!