Nnedi Okorafor - Lagoon

There.

His guardian. Dragging the four other boys down the street. The mute boy raised his hand and waved, before being overcome by a fit of coughs. He wished he could scream. He needed to scream. He glanced at the house, looking for the woman-like creature with the sweet voice. If he could only hear her speak again, he was sure he could force his voice to work. But she was gone. There were people on the lawn. Some trying to get into the house. There was a group of people embroiled in a terrible fight. Why was everyone fighting?

He could not think about that now. He tried to run toward his guardian but the people around him were running in the opposite direction. People on the other side of the crowd must have tried to come toward his part of the crowd, because now the boy was pressed between five older boys as the crowd squeezed. He couldn’t see his guardian any more. He struggled, but his feet weren’t even on the ground and the crowd was moving away.

When it released him, he ran. A woman fell right before his eyes, wisps of smoke issuing from a bullet hole in her leg. She was one of the women wearing the men’s clothing. The boy ran and ran. As the sun went down, the boy would witness more than his mind could contain.

It was different for Fisayo, the younger sister of Jacobs. The Yoruba woman who was the smart secretary by day and prostitute by night. Since seeing those three people taken by the fist of water the night before, she hadn’t felt like herself. Seeing the footage her brother had shown to the Black Nexus only made her feel more hopeless.

She stood on the concrete walkway that ran alongside Bar Beach. Less than twenty-four hours after the creatures had invaded the water, she had returned to the beach out of habit. Since dropping out of university, this stretch of sand was where her future resided. She would walk it until the day some man wanted more than just to have sex with her. Since she’d put aside her dream of being a nurse, she’d embraced the idea of being a wife, like her mother. A woman who minded the home, the children and lay on her back for only one man. The prostitution was just to make ends meet until that time came.

The time had already come for Bunmi, her best friend, the person who had first shown her how to exchange sex with men for money. Bunmi, whom she no longer heard from. Bunmi, who lived in a mansion on Victoria Island with a rich and powerful businessman she’d met while walking along Bar Beach. The future would come for Fisayo. Bar Beach was where she knew her destiny waited for her.

Nevertheless, after the great boom last night, seeing the shape-shifting creature skulk out of the water and then the three people kidnapped, she’d started wondering if her future was somewhere else. Something else. She had started walking and her legs took her to Bar Beach. When she got there, she barely recognized it. The waters had crept more than halfway up the sand. There were barricades set up in front of the concrete walkways, closed beachfront shops with signs up that said “KEEP OUT”. And in front of the barricades, every hundred feet, stood armed soldiers. The one she approached was young, probably no older than twenty. He was sweating and shifty-eyed. He clearly didn’t want to be on duty.

Why are there soldiers on the beach? she wondered. And barricades? As she approached the young man to ask him, her phone went off. The caller ID said “unknown”. When she opened it, she saw the face of an angel. A serene African woman with dark skin and perfect braids. She reminded Fisayo of an old photo of her grandmother when her grandmother was young.

“That’s the girl from the beach,” she whispered. And from the footage Jacobs had , she thought . My God.

This woman on her cheap mobile phone that couldn’t do more than make and receive phone calls, gazed at her as if she could actually see her. Fisayo froze. If she had looked up, she’d have realized that people walking up and down the street had also stopped and were looking at their phones. Two cars and a truck on the road nearby had pulled over. Hawkers had stopped hawking.

Then the woman on her phone began to speak. Right there on the walkway, Fisayo sat down. Today, she was wearing jeans, a gently fitting red blouse and gym shoes, instead of her usual tight short skirt, breast-popping top and pumps. So she was comfortable as she heard the most horrifying thing in her life. The alien woman had hijacked her phone. She was speaking about taking over Nigeria. Fisayo shut her phone.

She got up. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. This was the rapture, the apocalypse, the end. She opened her mouth to take in more air. She wanted to get to the beach and stand before the water. She wanted to be taken, like those three people who’d been embraced the night before. What have I done that is so terrible? she wondered as she stepped up to the soldier. Selling my body? It is just a body. I have a pure heart.

The soldier was staring at his mobile phone, his mouth hanging open, his gun leaning against his leg. His hands shook. Fisayo could hear the strange woman speaking on his phone, too.

“We do not seek your oil or your other resources,” the woman was saying. “We are here to nurture your world. So, what will you do?”

“What the hell is this?” he whispered, looking at Fisayo. “Is this a joke? Are we under attack by terrorists?” Her heart leaped. His eyes were filled with raw fear. One could not gaze into such eyes and not feel the same thing.

It was hard for her to speak but she did. “I… I don’t know,” she said. “But I know that—”

BOOM!

They grabbed each other and dropped to the ground. Fisayo screamed, clutching the soldier. Her head was vibrating. The ground was shaking. The young man, who smelled like sweat and soap, was shuddering and holding on to her, too. Everything trembled. Birds and bats fell around them. These were followed by smaller creatures, mosquitoes, flies, gnats, which fell to the ground dead. The concrete walkway cracked beneath them. Car alarms went off. Two cars on the road crashed into each other. Several people fell over. The air began to stink of fish.

And then it stopped. Fisayo thought she might have gone deaf. Her ears felt plugged and the young man was speaking to her. All she heard were muffled sounds. He was helping her up. Her nose was bleeding, as was his.

He was asking her something. She squinted, straining to hear him. “Are you all right?” he shouted.

“Yes!” she shouted back, wiping the blood from her nose.

He grabbed his gun, looking beyond her. She turned and gasped. Four men were fighting. There were several naira notes on the ground. Two of the men were grabbing at them. Another two were trying to stop them; one picked up a large rock.

Fisayo turned away before the man brought it down on the other man’s head. The soldier started running toward them, his gun in his hand. Not bothering to remove her gym shoes, Fisayo turned and ran past the barricade onto the barred Bar Beach.

Aside from the surf being way too high and starting to flood some of the beachside restaurants, the water seemed normal enough. It wasn’t boiling hot or freezing cold. It was still clear and wet. She touched the water that lapped at her shoes and brought it to her lips. Still salty. A low wind blew gentle waves on the water and the sun was setting.

“Take me!” she shouted at the ocean. The air smelled cloyingly fishy yet the more she inhaled, the clearer her mind felt. Clean, clean air. “Take me!” She threw off her gym shoes and socks and moved into the water.

Dead fish, large and small, littered the sand and the gentle waves that moved in and out. She saw a deflated jellyfish and the lumpy red and white claw of a large crab. She splashed past them. “Please! Take me, o!” she screamed, crying. Her head ached, her nose was still bleeding and the world was still muted.