After Fate Fell

47 • MARINA

1 year, 3 months, and 18 days after it all
•MARINA•

I couldn't wait to tell the others of Ella's discovery, but Ella was acting nervous and reluctant. Her excitement when she had bounded toward me and grabbed my arm, literally pulling me along with her so she could show me, is gone. As soon as I saw the sandbar, our passage to our next step, something in her rose out of nowhere, her insecurities took over. And now, I'm the one dragging her along with me, down the dune, to tell the others.

//

After showing the others the sandbar, it took a few seconds until we were all crammed in the car, headed in the direction of our new discovery. Now, as we're en route to our apparent demise--or at least that's how Ella sees it--everyone is excitedly talking, everyone except her. I don't know how I feel about the gleeful chatter... even if we aren't driving to our deaths, we're not driving to an amusement park either. But Ella's silent dread unnerves me. No one else seems to notice it.

We near the coast, and the little sandbar comes into view. As we come closer and closer to it, I can start to put its size into scale. The reaching sandbar is only about the width of two cars, which makes me nervous, because I know it could become more narrow up ahead. I just hope our remaining car can make it through this, and I hope we can too

"Be careful with your steering. Just try to stay in the center of it," I say, my words directed at Six, our most trusted driver. She may not like being bossed around, but she'll take advice from others, as long as you word it the right way. I always get scared that she'll snap, but then I remember that we're so close, and our friendship means more to her than a few words, especially ones meant to help.

"Okay," is all she says, and our tires leave the mainland as we become closer and closer to what we came here for, I almost call it our fate, except I'm so unsure about everything, and that word is aligned so much with death that I decide I can't think of it that way.

The chatter has faded, and there are more mixed emotions in the air. I guess taking that step out onto the sandbar actually made some of us realize that this isn't all fun and games, we're here for something more than adventure.

We move along slowly, the blowing sand thinning, but only giving way to patches of fog that I didn't think possible in such an arid environment. With the fog hindering our view, it's hard to tell how far the sandbar really goes out.

The only good thing about the fog is that it is also making the light much softer, a very large contrast to its blinding effect it had earlier, but the light is still there all the same.

Six slows down a bit more, I can tell she's being much more cautious than she would like to be, but our car sinking into the ocean would surely be the end of us, we would become stranded out here, without having given anybody else knowledge of our wherabouts. Also, we're all in the car too, so if it somehow started sinking while we were still entombed in it, then we would die more instantly. I guess that would be better than slowly fading away. But neither of those things are taking us, because the car is centered on our path, we are all tough as nails, and we won't be saying goodbye to this world anytime soon.

A few seconds later, a few feet ahead, and the view ahead drastically changes. The fog is still there, but the sandbar no longer reaches out into the ocean. Instead, it widens into an island, so wide I can't see the ocean beyond it. And straight ahead, clear as day, the light awaits us.

Everyone is so excited of this newly found piece of land, and the chatter starts again, although more cautious this time. I can definitely say that this is not the outcome I had thought the sandbar would lead to. I thought it was short, just a little arm reaching out maybe a kilometer into the ocean, only to end in waves crashing upon a little mound and only the sea beyond, its reaches nowhere near the light. At best, I was hoping for it to reach somewhere near the light, and we could figure out the rest from there. But not only did it lead us straight to the light without even having to get our feet wet, it had an island on its end. An abandoned island, it appears, as the car rolls along the open sand.

We near a street, covered with stray sand, but clearly a street. There are dilapidated structures along its sides, most of them simply the foundation, cinder blocks barely even peaking beyond the surface of the ever-shifting ground. We drive along the road, everyone's eyes fixated on everything, not missing a beat. Sure, we've seen abandoned buildings before, hell we were in an abandoned city just a couple days ago. This one, though, is different somehow. Maybe it's because we know this place is where the evil that is eating away at Legacy resides.

The street we're on leads to another street, and we veer closer to the coast again, the light dead ahead.

"Maybe we should stop, I think we need to think about our approach before getting too close," Adam says, in hopes Six will listen and slow down. Our eyes all turn to her, but she doesn't seem to listen.

It's then that I notice the look in her eyes, they are glassy, trance-like, and hollow. It scares me so much that I have to look away. We speed up, and then I really know that something is wrong. We're headed straight for the light, which has now come closer into view, it's blinding rays peeking out from behind the walls of an abandoned church, right near the coast.

Everyone is yelling, trying to figure out what to do as the car lurches ahead, Six's foot sinking to the floor.

John reaches out to use his telekinesis, and we all close our eyes as we barrell toward the light at ninety miles an hour.