My father feared the object. I don’t know why. In fact, the whole village seemed scared of it. Yet, no one would explain it. They just said it was ‘adult business’ if I asked and then hurried off, sometimes shooting a glance towards the sea as they went.
In the end, I decided to go and see it for myself.
Moonlight danced off the black expanse of sea as I approached one summer’s night. It was choppy, more so than usual. I wondered if this was a sign; I knew my father would say it was. But then, he saw signs and portents in everything. He even claimed that the poor catch last year was due to islands being built out in the sea, far beyond the horizon. But I didn’t understand that. How could anyone build an island? This was something else no one would explain to me.
But I was nervous, all the same. I had lain on my sleeping mat for hours before I heard my father’s rhythmic snores drifting through the curtain to his room. Only then had I felt brave enough to get up, tiptoe to the front door, and ease open the warped wood into the chill night. I nearly chickened out at that point, but my curiosity carried me through. Now I’m alone on the sand, looking up the beach for a sign of whatever it was that had everyone on edge.
A glint of cold light caught something a couple of hundred meters up the beach. I felt my pulse quicken. It was big, whatever it was. Bigger than my father’s fishing boat. Maybe even bigger than Luis Navarro’s.
I ran barefoot over the sand towards the object, momentarily forgetting my fear, and danced over the bits of driftwood and plastic littering the way. As I approached, I was forced to reassess the object’s size. It wasn’t just bigger than Luis’s boat, it was bigger than his whole home and his was the biggest in the village. Yet, this was nothing like a building. It was black, but a black so deep that it seemed to absorb the night. And it was shaped like a raptor’s razor-sharp claw.
I stopped a few meters away, the object’s monolithic presence sparking a new fear in me; a deeper fear, one that spoke of forbidden secrets and danger.
With the full moon unobscured by clouds, I could just make out some strange and intricate patterns etched into the blackness. They seemed to cover the whole of the object, tracing complex webs and patterns that caught the moonlight, and seemed to pulse with an inhuman life. I felt myself drawn closer, despite the little voice in the back of my head screaming caution. But there was something about it. I reached my hand out, my fingers outstretched, almost brushing the surface.
And then they connected, and I felt a little jolt of something—maybe cold, maybe something else. I could have sworn there was a flash of light along the lines tracing the surface of the object, but I couldn’t be sure. Maybe it was moonlight. But my sense of unease deepened as I stared at those lines, and I could feel myself getting lost in them. Suddenly I knew that I shouldn’t be here. I knew that my father was right; there was something wrong with this object. Something unnatural.
With a last glance at the hulking mass of darkness, I turned and fled.
The next morning, I woke to shouts and what sounded like the whole village outside. For a moment, I thought they knew I’d been down to the object last night. But no; the sounds passed, and I realized they were heading down to the beach.
I heard my father’s voice a moment later. “Tia!” he called. “Tia!”
He stuck his head through the bead curtain. “I’m going to the beach with the others. Wait here.” And then he hurried off, and I heard the front door open, and bang shut.
I waited a moment or two, curiosity and fear at war in my head, and then—as it always did—curiosity won out. I threw on my clothes from last night—noting, as usual, that they were too small for me. Then I ran out the door and tailed the villagers down to the beach.
Others had already gathered there.
Last night, it had just been the strange object and me. Now, that huge object had vanished beneath a giant piece of dark green canvas, erected over it like a massive tent. Surrounding this, hundreds of soldiers milled about, moving between dozens of small tents, tables, and Jeeps that were parked haphazardly on the soft sand. Beyond, the roar of a helicopter caught my attention as it seemed to blow most of the beach up into the air as it took off. And out at sea, I could see a gray ship floating in the distance. No, two ships, one of them much further out.
I stood frozen to the spot, overlooking this scene of madness laid out below me like one of those American war movies. But these weren’t American troops, that much was obvious. I assumed they were Filipino; they certainly looked local.
Whoever they were, the other villagers didn’t like the situation. I could hear dozens of angry voices, and at the head of the group, dragging the rest of them forwards, I could see Luis Navarro. I felt a moment of pity for the soldiers. I had been on the receiving end of one of Luis’s tirades more than once, often when I’d been caught taking something from one of his fishing hauls. But then Luis stopped, and I could understand why. The soldiers had finally paid attention to the group of angry villagers, and arranged themselves into a line, each man (for they were all men, I noted) holding a rifle pointing at the ground.
Luis turned to the villagers and started talking, punctuated with sharp gestures towards the soldiers. But I was too far away to hear what he was saying. The soldiers didn’t appear to like it, though. One of them walked forwards and tried to talk to Luis.
At this point, I lost interest. I knew Luis, and once he had set himself on a course of action, I doubted even thirty armed soldiers would be able to calm him down. Instead, I was much more interested in what was going on at the object.
I retreated a little further up the beach and moved behind the cover of some bushes, creeping closer to the hive of activity next to the giant piece of canvas. No one saw me; I was still small and used to moving about quietly. You had to be, if you wanted to net the little birds that sometimes made nests in the foliage around here.
The soldiers were all focused on the object. This close, I could see that the canvas was open on one side. Inside, there was nothing but darkness visible. But soldiers—important-looking ones—moved in and out, worried looks etched on their faces when they returned. I leant forward to get a better look.
“Hey, you’re not supposed to be here.”
I froze, heart suddenly thumping in my chest. A young soldier—probably no more than eighteen, though I found it hard to judge—pushed his way towards me through the dense vegetation.
“Yes, I am,” I said, weakly, and for lack of something better to say. I was normally pretty good at talking my way out of difficult situations; my father was always berating me for the trouble my ‘smart voice’ brought him. But now, my mind was blank.
The solider ignored this. He reached me, and before I could think about running, he had grabbed my shoulder, and started steering me towards the other soldiers, and the object. “Come on,” he said, as I tried to wriggle my arm out of his grasp.
“Ow, you’re hurting me,” I said, but his grip didn’t loosen. “Let go of me!”
“This area is off-limits,” he said, perhaps by way of explanation. And he marched me towards the central hub of soldiers, eventually stopping before an old soldier—older than my father—with a head of white hair and wearing a large pair of sunglasses. He was reading a stack of papers.
The man glanced up at the young soldier after a moment, and then looked down at me. I tried to free my arm from the young soldier’s grip once again, but he still held tight. Seeing this, the older man frowned.
“I found her skulking in the bushes, sir,” the young soldier said, gesturing to the tree line.
The older soldier turned to look me up and down. “Skulking, were you?” he asked, as the young soldier released his grip on me. I gave him my meanest glare as I tried to rub some feeling back into my shoulder.
“I wasn’t skulking, sir,” I said, as innocent as I could. “I was trying to find my father.”
“Is that right?” he asked, and I knew he didn’t believe me. Even with those sunglasses on, I could see his smirk.
“Well, actually, I just wanted another look at that thing,” I admitted, gesturing to the giant canvas cover.
“You’ve already seen it then?” I thought he sounded annoyed, but I wasn’t sure why.
I nodded. “Last night. It just felt so . . . strange.” I stopped, unsure how to describe what I’d felt. “Like it wanted some part of me. What is it?”
He frowned, and it was a moment before he spoke again. “That is classified,” he said slowly. “But it’s nothing to worry yourself about. It can’t hurt you.”
Somehow, I knew that was wrong. It was impossible to put into words, but there had been some sense of connection last night, some purpose radiating from that object. I tried again. “But when I touched it, it felt . . . cold, but not normal cold. And it was so black. Like it was going to swallow me. And the lights . . . ” I tailed off again.
“What lights?” the soldier asked.
“When I touched it,” I said.
Was that a flash of fear that rippled across his face? It was so brief that I might have imagined it. “That’s not possible,” he said, with a small jerk of his head, and I wasn’t sure if he was talking to me or himself. “They assured me there was no danger—”
He broke off as more helicopters became audible over the crash of waves. I looked up, and approaching from the sea, I saw eight—no, ten—dark helicopters flying straight towards us, skimming mere meters above the surface of the water, throwing up plumes of spray in their wake. The nearest one was almost on top of us.
I looked back at the soldier, and I could see worry lines crease his face as he watched the helicopters approach.
“They’re here sooner than expected,” he muttered. Then, a moment later, he looked over at a soldier who was running up to him. “I know, I know,” he said, waving a hand at the soldier. “Let me handle this.” He glanced at me, and then strode over to where the first helicopter was just setting down on the sand. When no one paid any attention to me, I decided to follow him. I didn’t want any of the other soldiers to lead me away just yet.
I heard soldiers talking as I followed. “Is that the Americans?” one asked. “No, not this quick,” another replied. “It’s got to be the Chinese,” said a third. “Do you think this thing is theirs?” asked a fourth. I wondered if they were talking about the strange object. Was it Chinese? I thought they were involved in making those islands, or so my friend had told me. Though I wasn’t sure I believed him.
As the old soldier approached the helicopter, I saw the blades rapidly spin down, and when the miniature sandstorm had subsided, the door slid open, and three men and a woman got out. Perhaps they were Chinese; I was pretty sure they weren’t American. Not one of them looked like the battered poster of Rambo that my friend had. In any case, I hung back, and waited behind a pile of crates. Close enough to hear them.
The old soldier spoke first. “This is Filipino territory,” he said. “You have no right to land here.”
“Actually, we do,” the woman said. “We’ve already been in contact with your government. This is Chinese property.” She gestured vaguely at the object, under its canvas cover. “And this is now under our jurisdiction.”
One of the men from the helicopter handed over a piece of paper to the old soldier. He took it and eyed it briefly. He gave a curt nod. “I see,” he said. “I’ll have to check this with my commanding officer.”
“Naturally,” the woman said. “We’ll wait.” And the old soldier strode off back towards the object. I saw him take a radio from another soldier and speak into it. I glanced up to see the other helicopters circling overhead. None of them had landed yet. I wondered whether they were waiting for this woman. And then I saw another pair of helicopters approaching from a different direction, still far off over the water, but approaching fast. Very fast.
One of the woman’s companions noticed this too. He nudged her and pointed them out. She said something I didn’t understand, maybe in Chinese. But she looked angry. She started speaking rapid-fire into a radio, as the old Filipino soldier sauntered back over, looking slightly amused. “Looks like the Americans were quicker than you expected,” he observed.
The woman flashed him a cold smile. “So it would seem,” she said.
“Just what is this thing?” he continued, shooting a curious look at the object. Then his eyes jumped over to me, and I ducked back behind the crates, heart racing. A moment later, I heard him continue as if he hadn’t noticed me. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
I risked another look over the crates at the group. None of them were looking in my direction.
“It is nothing,” the woman said. “Part of a failed project.”
“Failed?” the man asked, as the woman continued to eye the approaching Americans.
“Yes, there was an accident.” She sounded distracted to me, and then she paused to issue some more instructions to her people.
“And what, this part broke off, and just washed up on our beach?” He paused. “Odd for the Americans to risk an open confrontation for that.”
The woman paused and seemed to focus her whole attention on the soldier. He didn’t shrink under her gaze, which surprised me. That look would have terrified me. “There will be no confrontation,” she said. “This is the property of China. Any other attempts to lay claim to it would be folly.” Then she turned and began walking towards the other Chinese helicopters that were now starting to land, as if to lay claim to the whole beach, her three companions falling into formation behind her.
“Come on,” the old soldier said, and I looked up to see him peering over the crates at me. “There’s stuff going on here that is apparently above my pay grade. And it is past time for you to be gone, I think.”
I allowed him to lead me back through the camp, passing near to the covered black object, the source of all this activity. But I stopped short as we reached the opening in the canvas, forcing the soldier to stop with me.
“What?” he asked when he looked back at me. But I was staring into the darkness beneath the canvas, utterly terrified and unable to speak. Because I’d just felt something, some vibration, that I knew was coming from the object. And then the soldier looked at the object, and I knew he felt it too. “What . . . ?” he repeated, this time quietly, to himself.
The vibration built until I could feel it as a pressure deep in my chest and then I saw faint lights tracing their way up the patterns etched into the blackness. And in the distance, far out to sea, I saw something rising slowly out of the water. Something impossibly black, and unimaginably big. Far bigger than the gray military ship. I watched in horror as the sea frothed and churned, working itself up into a fury, as more of the great spire-like object pushed its way clear of the restraining sea.
And then suddenly I knew—I felt a connection to that alien object snap into place, and I knew what was going to happen before it did. I screamed, knowing in that instant that my life—that the world—would never be the same again. And then the part of the object buried in the sand lifted slowly into the air. After a moment’s hesitation, it shot towards the vast black bulk now completely clear of the water. There was a blinding flash of light as the piece rejoined the whole, and then deep within the blackness, I felt a window open. And I knew what was going to come next. I knew, and couldn’t stop it. So instead, I whispered a prayer.
I knew it wouldn’t be enough.
