Chapter 563

The North Sea wind whipped Byunua's blonde hair across her face, stinging her cheeks. The sky above the usually placid waters churned with an unsettling green-grey. It wasn't a normal storm. She had lived by the coast all her life, she knew the sea's moods. This was something… different.

Her phone had no signal. That was not uncommon near the dunes, but the complete lack of any notification bars gave a sense of being disconnected. Byunua held up the useless piece of technology before shoving it back in her coat.

She had come to the beach to clear her head. School felt oppressive. Everything did. Her classmates behaved more animalistic. She saw, not quite with fear, the differences becoming visible in their faces.

It began about two weeks ago. Small changes, a classmate cracking a raw egg, shell and all, into their mouth during break. Her neighbor was standing for hours on end staring at a fixed spot up above, not even reacting to noise or light.

Byunua's best friend, Maaike, confessed she preferred eating bugs she collected in her garden over store food now, a wide-eyed acceptance of her own change was present in the statement. Byunua hadn't answered, only left the video call with increasing unease.

Byunua wrapped her arms around herself. The wind grew colder, bringing with it the sharp scent of ozone and something else, metallic and vaguely repulsive. The waves crashed higher, their foam tinged with the same odd green as the sky.

She saw something move. At first, Byunua thought it was a seal, but the form rising from the water was too… elongated. Too angular. It resembled a human figure, but distorted, limbs stretched out like those of an artist's figure drawing exaggerated beyond what seemed possible.

Another figure rose, and then another. They stood at the water's edge, seemingly unaffected by the ferocious wind and waves. Their skin was pale, almost translucent, reflecting the strange light from the sky. They looked slick.

Byunua felt a primal terror, the type that roots one to the spot. She wanted to run, but her legs wouldn't respond. She could only watch as the figures began to walk toward the beach.

One of the things stopped, and in that movement Byunua caught a further look. The limbs appeared double-jointed. Or lacking joints entirely.

They made no sound, their advance silent except for the pounding of the surf. It hit her like a hammer. The sound, once, it came. But now it sounded... muffled.

The first figure reached the dry sand, its feet - or what should have been feet - barely leaving any marks. Byunua saw its face. It had eyes, large and black, lacking any visible pupils. It was, in this manner, an incomplete face.

Its mouth was a thin, lipless slit. It opened, and a low, resonating vibration came.

"Where… hide?" The question-sound, for Byunua could make out nothing human out of the odd vibration the figure had let out, came low and slow.

Byunua realized, with a dreadful lurch, that she could feel the question more than hear it. It reverberated through her very bones.

The other figures were on the beach now, forming a semicircle around her. She turned in place as to confront all equally.

"What… are… you?" Byunua's voice trembled. She couldn't understand why she could feel their other message and not understand this sound that was being made now.

The first figure, no longer ahead and having let the others reach a uniform position, tilted its head, a movement that was oddly fluid and reptilian.

"You… become." The sound vibration carried those new words.

Become… what? Byunua thought of Maaike eating insects, of her classmates, and for once, truly connected these dots.

The other figures began making a soft, chittering sound. It was both horrific and hypnotic. It sent new waves of vibration through Byunua's senses. She suddenly saw an image of worms burrowing into her arm in an empty mind's vision.

One of the figures took another step. Byunua instinctively flinched.

"Resist… delay," vibrated from another one. They'd seemed to take note of her actions, having expected them.

Byunua finally found her legs and, having no sense for what better choice there may be, began running away from the water. Away from the figures. Towards the dunes.

The sand seemed to pull at her feet, slowing her down. Behind her, she heard the chittering grow faster, though there still was no other noise of them advancing.

She stumbled, falling to her knees. She pushed herself up, hands scraping against the rough grains. A tear fell, though the pain was not the reason.

Then she looked up. Atop the nearest dune, silhouetted against the grotesque green sky, stood another figure. Identical to the others.

It raised a hand, an arm far too long for any normal being, and pointed at her. Byunua felt pressure around her chest from that mere act, like she had run at full speed and was unable to get air anymore.

Byunua turned and, to her horror, looked up the dune that blocked her new escape path as a second of those things had come up behind. They are blocking. She looked at the second one on the other dune.

"No escape," vibrated all, at once. The message filled Byunua's head, causing her pain that made her clutch the sides of her head.

The figure on the first dune started moving down the sandy incline with an unnerving, flowing speed. It, and the one that had reached that second dune not a moment after.

Byunua backed away, scrambling on her hands and knees. "Please," she managed to sob. A desperate plea against the change that the creatures were proposing and enforcing.

"Evolution… necessary." That was the answer from these many others that she got. It echoed around her, bouncing between the dunes.

The first figure reached her. It stood over her, its shadow falling across her like a shroud. Byunua realized what the metallic smell was: the way she was, they were becoming.

"Pain… brief." Byunua understood these words even more deeply than the ones before. She could barely tell whether the figure communicated them, or they were from within her now.

The figure bent, reaching towards her with one of those impossible long, slender hands. Byunua squeezed her eyes shut, tears streaming down her face. She understood the fate that was set for her.

She felt a touch, light as a feather, on her forehead. Then, an unbearable, searing heat ripped through her skull. It was as if her brain were on fire.

Her screams were swallowed by the wind and the chittering sounds. They grew fainter, a fading echo of the girl she had been, drowned out, and quickly drowned out again.

The sensation of burning lasted for what felt like an eternity, and yet probably only seconds. Then it was gone, replaced by a strange emptiness.

Byunua opened her eyes, no longer capable of controlling that. She no longer felt the cold, the wind, or the sand against her skin. She felt… nothing.

She, no longer Byunua, rose to her feet, her movements oddly fluid and jointless. She did this with her "feet," still feet-like, only very slender, no longer leaving much marks, no more falling.

Her body, now reshaped, stretched and lengthened. Her skin lost its color, becoming pale and reflective. Her hair fell out in clumps, swept away by the relentless wind.

The one, still-standing dune figures, joined those beside the shore. It looked out, and all looked up at the eerie sky above, where those lights formed a circle and shot bright green rays into all directions.

Byunua's perspective was not her own anymore, there was only an action left to fulfill.

It made no sound, the wind was still there but no longer carrying a roar for it. This Byunua lifted her arms. She no longer was able to know which sex, shape, form she belonged to. She wasn't able to care.

With no regret, as the final feeling in her to be dissolved, that now non-person began to walk towards the sea, joining the others of its new species, the other first. The wind that was roaring was no longer being registered.

As a final horror, before, one moment before the first thing's legs disappeared into the foam and before hers would, it felt something wet falling on the top of her head, above what now remained from her face. It felt similar, so vaguely similar to... water... to... a tear. And it could not tell why. But only it was the only of her kind experiencing the anomaly. As it did not feel like... hers... anymore.

Behind them, up from those dunes, and the ones to the sides, a countless group of these tall figures were now appearing. The chittering sounds of their mouths reached everywhere. They, too, turned toward that direction, toward the end of that dry land.

The new Byunua reached the water. The strange green-tinged waves washed over its feet, leaving no trace behind. She knew it was walking forward. It did so because it was the only action it knew. She walked to merge into it. She joined them. It had become that too, now.

The original "Byunua" was, along with all of her thoughts, finally completely gone now. Lost forever. Her. That word's original meaning meant nothing to the it that kept on going forward into the waves. Swallowed by the evolving sea and absorbed to a new beginning. Her evolution to an end. To walk toward her absorption, now. It began a new age.

The last things any human may ever have, such as memory, love, hate... even suffering. Byunua's final unique gift, taken from her, left no trace or sense in the things, the only thing there now was, those things on that beach that began to change Earth. Those, and those beyond that beach that were becoming like them. The change had only began.