Page 7 of Elemasters

“Dusty! Over here!”

Dustin nearly broke his neck from the speed at which he whipped his head around to see Chris and Bailey in the speedboat, riding parallel to the shoreline, with Bailey waving her hands frantically to get his attention. Dustin’s happiness to see them was immediately undercut by the realization that he was the one with the speedboat keys… until patting his pocket revealed that Chris must’ve stealthily lifted them without his notice.

Before Dustin and Chloe could hop aboard, another voice called out to him; this one a familiar baritone.

“Yo, Dustin! Hold up!” James was sprinting toward them, kicking up sand like the Roadrunner as he went. Despite it all, he was still clinging to a beer, “looks like I got left behind!”

Dustin just nodded and motioned for James to come along as he and Chloe waded into the surf, slogging their way to the speedboat. The water was bitterly cold, and it immediately rushed through the strategic holes in Dustin’s leather pants, chilling him to the bone. He ignored the cold as best he could, scrambling up into the boat and hauling Chloe in after him. James followed a second later, still somehow grinning, and before anyone could say a word, Chris slammed the throttle and got them the hell out of there.

For a second, it felt victorious; the wind in their hair, ocean spray on their faces, and the sound of sirens quickly fading into the background. It was almost enough to make Dustin think they’d gotten away with it…

Until another spotlight hit them out of nowhere.

“FUCK!” Chloe squealed, ducking as low as she could, “they’re fucking chasing us!”

Sure enough, one of the police boats had peeled away from the others, and was now gaining on them. The sirens started to shriek, and Dustin’s heart nearly punched a hole in his chest just so it could escape.

“This is the Pacific Cove Police Department. Kill your engine immediately and prepare to be boarded!”

“Fuck. That!” Chris said, hitting the throttle even harder. The speedboat groaned as it was pushed past its limit, reaching a speed that made everyone lurch forward and brace themselves against anything rooted to the ground… everyone except James that is, who was whooping and howling like he was having the time of his life.

“Chris slow down! You’re gonna flood the engine!” Dustin shouted, his voice barely audible over the competing sounds from the speedboat and police sirens.

“I’m not facing mom’s wrath if we get arrested!” Chris shot back, his eyes locked on the darkness ahead of them with fiery determination. Dustin pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration, before turning back to see how close the cops were…

But what he saw was certainly not what he expected.

A wall of dense, white fog; much thicker than what was normal in Pacific Cove. It was sudden and pervasive, crawling along the water’s surface like the limbs of a giant spider as it enveloped everything around them.

“Whoa… did anyone see that fog bank before we hit it?” Bailey asked, her eyes darting around rapidly.

“No,” James said, his tone finally serious, “there was nothing there. It just rolled in out of nowhere,”

Suddenly, the speedboat started to slow down; the sound of the engine softening into stillness.

“Why are we stopping?!” Chloe shook Chris’s arm, “we don’t know if we’re in the clear!”

“I didn’t do anything, look!” Chris gestured to the throttle, pushed as far forward as it would go, “I have no fucking clue what’s going on,”

“You probably flooded the engine. Would be a shame if someone warned you about that,” Dustin mumbled, rolling his eyes.

“I didn’t flood the fucking engine! Do you hear sputtering?”

“Well then how the fuck else would you explain it?”

“I don’t know. You tell me since you know every fucking thing,”

“Guys, chill for two seconds!” James cut in, ending the twins’ argument before it could spiral further, “what the hell is that?”

Dustin looked in the direction James was pointing, and his breath caught in his throat. The overwhelming fog was slowly beginning to lift in front of them, but instead of seeing the shoreline of their town… instead they saw a series of ornate buildings, floating on the surface of the water like the laws of physics obeyed them and not the other way around. Each building was made of pale stone that looked like moonrock, topped with a sloped pagoda-style roof carved out of glittering silver and trimmed with glowing lanterns that swayed in the wind.

It was a huge and sprawling complex rather than a singular building; it looked almost like a village had somehow risen up from the seabed.

“That’s… a palace? A Chinese one, ancient too. Like, maybe Qin Dynasty? Maybe earlier,” Dustin said, mostly to himself as he continued to examine the structure.

“Oh my god we’re dead. We fucking died and now we’re in Heaven and I have to answer to my Chinese ancestors and I don’t even fucking speak Mandarin,” Chloe rambled, anxiously tapping her nails against the side of the boat.

“We’re not dead, we can’t be. I definitely wouldn’t be in Heaven if we were,” Chris narrowed his eyes on the building as the boat continued to drift closer to it, “Dustin, you’re sure it’s a Chinese palace?”