Page 25 of Hunted By Fae

The east coast is submerged in the blackout.

The west coast is following close behind.

Darkness is advancing from both directions, closing in on us.

When we sped out of the campsite, panicked in our horror, we thought we had hours, maybe moments, before it swallowed us whole.

The radio did, too.

But then it halted.

Didn’t stop, exactly.

Just suddenly… slowed.

The radio says it slowed all over the world.

I listened to that transmission.

Cuddled up to Bee on the double fold-out bed in the camper, I let that news wash relief down my icy insides. The dread started to fade. Tension in my muscles softened.

I let a smile touch my lips.

And the kicker—my soul returned to my body.

What an idiot I am.

The blackout slowed, but it didn’t stop.

And every day that has passed since, it only seems to darken,thickeneven more.

Now, a week after the blackout first touched the sky of wherever exactly it came from, it has spread across most of the world. Within just one week, every country, every sea, every island, every ocean, will be taken.

The blackout is coming.

And I watch it advance.

A slow-moving, inevitable end.

Out here, in the tumbleweed town on the west coast of Washington, I sit on the damp sands of a beach, not the sort of beach I would visit for a nice day out, but the kind where people used to ride their horses and fly kites, sometimes visited by the locals in the town over the road, and travellers stopping for a rest.

Now, it’s visited by us.

Five women on the world’s worst vacation.

I jerk with a scoff.

Happy birthday to me, right?

Not the way I pictured celebrating my thirtieth. That’s a hard age to swallow as it is.

A huff deflates me.

I tug a grey cap over my braided hair. The shade pulls low over my brow, shielding me from the sun’s glare.

The shade is welcome, and I hate that I think anything negative about the sun.

I should be nothing short of eternally grateful for these final moments under the sunrays, in the heat washing over me, watching light bounce on the surface of the waters.