Water-born.
Soft inside. Easy.
I felt the vacuum rise before I even summoned it—
a pull deep inside my ribs,
like gravity bending inward.
Every punch he threw at me,
I took a little.
Then a little more.
A slow siphon—instinctive, horrible, automatic.
Vic faltered.
He looked down at his hands like they’d betrayed him.
Like he couldn’t understand the trembling.
I didn’t wait.
I kicked upward, hard—
rolled to the side, dirt grinding under my palms—
But something else moved first.
A blur cut the air.
A force so fast it didn’t make sound.
Vic was ripped off me as if he weighed nothing—
lifted and hurled back into the trunk of a tree with a crack
that echoed through the clearing.
I crawled backward, every nerve screaming, as a shadow swept past me—
not human-shaped,
not natural,
a whisper of something massive moving with impossible grace.
Rod screamed as he was thrown down to the ground. Ollie jumped up and raised his hands.
Branches snapped off trees and charged at the figure like spears.
But oh, he was fast.
He dodged and ducked like it was nothing. And soon Ollie went flying too.
All three tried to get up. They tried to charge him again.
