Chapter 562

The old woman, Kokoe, first heard of the troubles out in Lomé. Not troubles, really. Odd happenings. Fishermen said the catches were dwindling. Not slowly, like from overfishing. Suddenly. Like something scared them away, or... ate them.

Kokoe lived a two-hour walk from the ocean, inland in a small village that bore the name of her ancestors, among dirt, trees and mud houses that provided shade and rest. She sold yams and maize at the market, mostly. Sometimes smoked fish when she could get it. But, fish had been impossible to source, the last week or two. She'd heard other sellers complain, saying the cost made it unreasonable.

Kokoe had always been drawn toward her independence. At fifty-six, unmarried and childless, her whole world existed under the umbrella of her mind, something a handful of elders admired about her, and yet so many others within her social network found unsettling. But she found comfort in it. Her thoughts were a comfort that served to soothe.

That night, Kokoe had a nightmare. Giant shadows, shaped like fish, but standing upright, walked the streets of her village. Their skin glinted, like wet scales in moonlight. They carried spears, and their black eyes… their black eyes saw everything.

She woke, the air pressing her in all directions, damp. The world, the very earth, was hot. Kokoe, always wary, but never scared, felt a primal fear coil in her gut. Something was very, very wrong. She just could not yet tell what it was, specifically.

The next day at the market, there were soldiers. A sight unusual for this area, far removed from any conflict that Kokoe, or even others at the market, were privy to. They questioned the fishermen harshly. One fisherman, shaking and sweaty, swore he saw "things" in the water. Not fish. Not dolphins. Things.

"'Things,' eh?" said an approaching officer with a hard hand, grabbing the mans frail shoulder. "'Things?' Tell me old man, what are things?" The man shivered as though locked inside the unforgiving cold of a meat locker.

Kokoe watched from her stall. The soldier's grip on the fisherman tightened. The fisherman, in clear distress, whimpered. He spoke of shimmering forms under the surface, of eyes that seemed to glow with a malevolent light. The words did not seem to soothe the military official.

The officer scoffed. "Drunk, probably." He turned to his men. "Take him away. Find out what's really going on." The soldiers, unmoving in their display of professionalism, immediately acted. They were not brutal with the old fisherman, but their forcefulness needed no exaggeration.

Kokoe felt a dread deeper than the well in her backyard, digging into the depths of the earth below. The heat turned up a notch, adding a layer of discomfort onto her rising panic. She returned home without selling anything that day, taking the backroads through the woods as she did. She just wanted to be away from any form of civilization.

News, even in the rural spaces, travels with unnerving efficiency. It wasn't word of mouth so much as… a feeling. An undercurrent of fear that moved like the Harmattan wind, touching everyone. The ocean was no longer safe.

"'Danger… Danger,'" The winds themselves sounded this message now, over and over. It wasn't in any real language. But rather a primal awareness, a thrumming fear shared by those in the village.

People avoided the beaches. Coastal villages, once alive, became ghost towns. Whispers replaced conversations. People left for larger communities, or fled further inward, their fears growing into a communal certainty that grew louder, and louder.

One morning, Kokoe woke to an eerie silence. No birds sang. No insects chirped. The air was still, thick with a metallic tang she didn't recognize. It was a scent alien to her reality. The absence of other signs of life only made it more stark.

She stepped outside. Her neighbor's house stood empty, the door swinging open. A child's woven doll, made of twigs and fibers, lay abandoned on the dirt path, where the neighbor's child must have dropped it as the family, likely, left in a panic.

Kokoe walked towards the village center, her bare feet kicking up small puffs of dust. The emptiness pressed against her. It was a physical weight. Then, she saw them. In broad daylight, walking among the silent structures where people used to call home.

They were the creatures from her dream. Fish-shaped, but walking upright. Tall, taller than any man, their skin a mosaic of greens and blues, reflecting the sun. Their eyes, black as obsidian, surveyed the village with what looked like grim satisfaction.

"'It is ours, now, sisters,'" Kokoe could just make it out as two of these horrific creatures ambled past, seemingly unbothered by her presence in the doorway to the small and empty clinic that stood nearby. The voice was androgynous, neither female, nor male, guttural, yet understandable.

One of them stopped, turned its head slowly. Its large, lidless eyes fixed on Kokoe. The fish-person stared. Kokoe, to her credit, stared back, unable to tear her mind, and body, away from the intense fixation. She couldn't bring herself to show them her fear.

"'You remain? Brave… foolish… woman…'," the Fish-person hissed, their speech alien yet the meaning sharp, each tone scratching its way into her mind and piercing the folds of her internal comfort, disrupting, destroying it.

Kokoe stood frozen, her tongue heavy in her mouth. She thought of running, hiding. But where to go? The world had transformed in days. All those stories, legends… were they real? Of things older than people. Angrier. Hungry.

The fish-person took a step closer. Its spear, tipped with something that seemed to shimmer even in the bright sun, came up, though more as a signal than any true threat. Kokoe saw a hint of some recognizable gesture behind the alien facade.

"'We claim this land,'" The creature managed. "'This water. This world. You… will… serve,'". It rasped. And with a tilt of their strange head, it continued to march up the way. The second of its group rejoined them in a casual, smooth gesture.

Serve. That word… Kokoe felt her body convulse, react instinctively to something in its depths. Her hands, as though separate, removed an aged fabric, woven many times before, from the satchel at her side. She threw it at the foot of the soldiering creature.

Kokoe remembered tales of her grandmother. Stories whispered in the dead of night. Of ancient beings that lived in the sea. Beings of immense power. Beings that could be… appeased. And even then, the old woman shared the stories with reservation.

"'Gift,'" Kokoe offered her voice small and brittle, not how she would have wished it to sound, but true to the fear in her core, nonetheless. "'We… gift... you...,'" her tongue fumbled around for any coherent word, and finding only that one, it stuck.

The fish-person paused, turned its monstrous head. Its eyes narrowed, if such a thing were possible. It bent, picked up the cloth, studying it with an unsettling level of intelligent consideration, at least, through a perspective that could best approximate Kokoe's.

Another fish-person arrived, this one larger, heavier, and seemingly carrying an aura of importance, wearing what looked to be crude, salvaged diving equipment over its slick scaled head, in a manner that seemed ceremonial. They seemed to ignore the interaction behind.

"'Time,'" It grated, directing the other creature's actions. Then it seemed to notice the exchange between its underling and Kokoe, cocking its strange, metal-adorned head slightly as it stepped, heavy and ominous.

Kokoe swallowed hard. Her gift, an ancestral cloth, generations old… was it enough? Or would it serve no end? The old stories provided scant details on exactly what offerings served this cause. Her grandmother told so very few of the stories.

The large, leader-like fish-person's black eyes flicked down to the cloth, then back to Kokoe. A low gurgle came from its throat, the closest a biological abnormality of this variety could seemingly manage to represent laughter. Or, was it something else?

Suddenly, spears were leveled. Not just at Kokoe. But at everything around. At the houses. At the empty market stalls. At the ground itself. They didn't do this in malice. But, at least, through what lens Kokoe could provide, in declaration.

"'Too… late…'," the leader managed to grate, his gaze fixing intensely upon Kokoe. Kokoe, alone, in a silent world claimed by the sea. All who left, now spared this. All who survived this.

The spears, without warning, struck the ground. Not stabbing, nor thrusting, no violence, as such. Instead, with each piercing blow, they pushed in, past dirt, deeper down. Until they disappeared fully into the soil below, taking with them anything attached.

The earth rumbled. Kokoe fell to her knees, feeling the world tilt. The sky turned the color of churning seawater. The ground opened beneath her. Not cracking. Dissolving. Becoming liquid. Becoming ocean, within and outward.

Kokoe watched, her scream lost in the roar of the transformation, as the land was absorbed, swallowed. The houses. The trees. The whole world becoming water. Claimed by these creatures. These things from her nightmare. Now from the real.

She tried to stand, her motions losing themselves in this terrible force, the fish-people having already forgotten their interaction, having already continued on with their tasks. One of them paused as she moved.

"'You.. flee.," it managed, almost a sound of genuine surprise. Kokoe, trying now to push forward, lost further agency. Her efforts futile. Her world claimed.

And she was pulled down. Into the cold, dark, rising water. Not flailing. Not fighting. Submitting. Accepted. Absorbed. With only one fleeting regret: not knowing how this began… just that she remained, forever, in this final, terrifying ending, in the waters.