Tidal-Bore

21. Carried Away

TW: Character Death

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As it was with immeasurable amounts of water that gushed in through a narrow opening to come down onto a city and destroy everything in their vicinity, they were faster than the limited feet of some meagre humans.

Wooyoung failed his physics class, but this didn't come as a surprise.

The moment he heard the noise of splintering wood behind him, he sent a prayer to the heavens.

The water engulfed them a fraction of a second later. It shoved them along, so eager it carried them instead of swallowing them, before the rest caught up and chomped down on their bodies with transparent jaws.

Wooyoung lost the ground under his feet when he was held weightlessly. The water was agitated with this extra space, throwing and twisting him around until he lost all sense of up and down. His eyes were tightly shut as he curled into a ball, protecting his head from the worst brunt. The pressure seemed to crush his ribcage, but he refused to let go of his breath as he was whirled through the city at high speed.

Only survival crossed his mind. He couldn't bring himself to reach for the others, couldn't worry about them. He had his laptop over his head, hoping it would do anything to save him.

The lethal roller coaster slowed when the water spread out and lost traction the more it settled around the dome. Still, the houses sped past, and it was only a matter of time until Wooyoung would get caught on a ledge.

When his tumbling, whirling body abruptly crashed into resistance, Wooyoung startled so badly he thought he got speared by a shark. His lips opened when pain split down the middle of his back, taking his breath away as if the water tried to crack open the shell of him. He narrowly missed a deadly impact with the building by curling up, but his back throbbed in agony.

He had luck under his circumstances. The water swashed over the building behind him for a moment too long and lost the speed it needed to carry him across. Trapped by the stream, he got pinned against the wall, then the main flood carried away to spread elsewhere. All that remained was water as high as Wooyoung's knees that slowly rose with the multiple holes in the shell.

Wooyoung lay sunken against the building, gasping for breath. His back hurt as if hit with an iron beam, and he struggled to sit upright without doubling over with a moan. His entire frame was soaked and shaky, but he was alive.

He was alive.

Disbelieving his luck, he lay there, half unconscious, as he recovered from the shock and the pain. For now, the water was shallow, but he had to hurry to the bunker. He had to check on his friends. Now that the initial wave had carried off, the steady flow wouldn't hurt them until the buildings created a lethal current.

With a groan, Wooyoung straightened. His fluttering lids found the shell to check on it. It was dim and weak with the damage it sustained. The technicians worked as hard as they could, but sharks kept drawing near to snap at the vulnerable humans.

Hopeless, Wooyoung blinked against the light from above. How was this supposed to work? How could they get rid of the sharks and stop the flooding at the same time? Was this worse than the other times the shell got damaged? Was this the end?

The answer to his question surged from the depths Wooyoung feared so much. The ocean was dark, hiding its secrets from view for no light to penetrate. Only the flickering glow of the shell could expose what was going on outside.

A gigantic creature, long and flexible like a serpent from ancient myths, wound through the water. Its body was flatter and not as round as that of a snake, and the long back fin swished like fire above it. Big, empty eyes and a horrific set of needle-like teeth sat in a long head. The jaws were parted in attack and closed around the body of a shark right in front of Wooyoung's eyes. Like a plaything, it threw the pierced, limp body around, before letting it sink in a cloud of its blood.