Pieces of colorful glass fell from the windows and flew everywhere.

Five living beings, two human adults and two human teenagers followed right behind by a strange greenish lizard, were running through the open gallery right above the main nave, heading straight for the little door at the end of the corridor. The reason? Well.. a gigantic tower of water that had just started to force itself through the shredded windows,filling rapidly the empty church.

Miles was the first to reach the little door while the others sprinted in right behind. Inside they were greeted by a discreet wooden stair that lead straight toward a closed manhole... which, of course, was locked.

«I need something heavy» urged the man -who's name was Rich- from atop the stairs gesturing frantically with his hands. «We have to break the padlock!»

The others all started to search for something useful.

«That!» exclaimed the woman who accompained him pointing at something under the stairs.

«Yeah, there» said Miles grabbing whatever the thing was -a brick- and giving it to Rich, who started bumping it on the padlock.

«That'll work! That'll work!» approved the woman.

The others remained silent, watching him doing his job while the whole building throbbed, trashed and lamented under the powerful strikes of the water.

The sound was terrifying. The internal structure of the building contorted and cried as if on the verge of collapsing, the floor trashed under their feet menacing to slip away at any moment.

Caitlin sat terrified at the bottom of the stairs while the still unnamed woman stayed a few steps ahead. Miles, on his part, started to pace in panic between the Venetian blinds and the door. Fear the building would collapse on them grew every passing second.

Rich persisted with his fight against the padlock, while the outside fight among the waves and the building seemed equally to never end.

Then, like it all started, it slowly came to a stop.

The floor stopped trembling and the internal structure of the walls quieted its piercing screaming against the water... even Rich halted his personal war against the padlock as if fearing the slightest sound would've made the entire building collapse on itself.

The steeple was becoming silent. The rumbling of the water and the occasional complains of the structure were the only sounds they could hear now.

It was as if time had stopped.

In the silence of the tower, Caitlin's hid her face behind his hands and started sobbing desperately.

The other woman, noticing her, gently held her trembling figure in a comforting hug.

«Hey» she whispered caressing her head. «Don't cry»

«I want to see my dad» choked out the girl. The woman placed her hands over her cheeks, gently forcing her gaze into her own.

«Ssh» she said «Cait stop...you're going to see him again, I promise»

«How can you be so sure?» lamented her with a cry. «You don't know what happened to him!»

The woman embraced her again, and Caitlyn kept ceying leaning on her shoulder.

«I do know that» insisted the adult «You've got to believe me, You're gonna see your dad and I'm gonna see my son»

«You don't know that! You don't know what happened to them!» the girl repeated between sobs.

«I do know that» insisted the woman, speaking mostly to herself this time.

Miles watched them without knowing what to do. Caitlin was his friend. He was the one supposed to comfort her, supposed to tell her everything was going to be okay. The only thing was... he knew perfectly well that at the moment he wouldn't have had the strength to do none of those things: his family was who-knew-where too, maybe in danger... and it was mostly because of that he didn't feel capable of assuring her about their safety like that woman was doing. His parents -as Cait's dad- were on the ferry last time he had seen them. The mere thought of their helpless boat being trashed around by a givantic wave of furious water made him shiver with terror, If the boat was still around when the tsunami had hit the coast...

No, he mentally scolded himself. I shouldn't think that way, I HAVE to be positive. For them... and for Caitlin. It's not the time to think about the worst. They're safe, they made it in time.

But that only made his eyes water with sadness.

He looked away. He didn't want to cry, not when doing so was the least thing his friend needed.

His gaze trailed toward the two adults occupying the chamber with them.

What about their families and their friends? Maybe even they were worried about who they were risking to loose... still those two seemed so focused on the present, on what they were actually doing, that if they were afraid or worried they weren't showing it. And Miles decided it was better to follow their example than give up on panic.

He diverted his gaze from them and glanced at the little window above the door to inspect the abusive ocean that occupied the presbitery.

A gust of relief soothed monetarily his system as he realized the water was starting to calm down.

«It's over» he thought out loud. And then realization bloomed in his chest with hope «Hey! I think it's over» he repeated for the others with a small smile.

«No» said sadly the woman. «A Tsunami comes in sets: there's gonna be a wave, then another and another one» she explained while absently caressing Caitlin's head who, with the news, started to cry even worse.

The smile in the boy's face was long gone when Rich started again his bumping against the padlock. Nope, they weren't safe yet.

The boy's gaze trailed out of the window again. The water was still stirring with movement... and he finally knew that it wasn't going to be otherwise anytime soon.

Still, this wasn't what worried him most: in fact, a familiar tingle warned him about an undesired presence. Big, angry and powerful.

«Oh my gosh» the words escaped from his lips before he could even stop himself.

«What?» asked the woman. Miles gave her a scared look, not knowing what to say.

How could he explain the fact he could feel the creature's presence when neither him knew how it was possible?

«Wait there» whispered the woman to Caitlyn before aproaching Miles in front of the door.

The woman's gaze trailed out of the window, finding only a few moments later what had just startled the boy: a greenish silouette surfaced out of the water for a brief second, then it disappeared again.

Fear and realization shadowed her eyes: one of the creatures -one of the ADULT ones- was there.

Miles had known about its presence even before seeing it. It's electricity was just enough to switch his danger radar on... and let's not talk about what it was doing to his brain: it was overwhelming. Even if he was used to feel those creatures, its presence and closeness scared him ten times more than the whole tsunami problem.

It was looking for something. Food, he understood. It was hungry -really,badly hungry- and its electric charge was already set to zap everything that looked like meal.

Then, a strange thought flashed in the beast's mind while it inspected the water: in Mile's mind it felt a lot like confusion and a bit like curiosity.

He could feel what the creature was feeling... and the creature was feeling like there was something familiar in the place it was now in.

Miles felt it approaching, but before he could understand what was happening, the creature poked out of the water right under his nose and smelled the air like there was something really interesting in the immediate closeness of the gallery.

It knows we're there... it's looking for us, he assumed terrified.

Miles couldn't understand exactly what the thing was thinking, those creatures had a completely unusual way to communicate -especially sinced he was a human- but he knew for sure that whatever were the creature's thoughts, he couldn't do much if it choose to fry them in pieces.

And the fact even Nim was nervous about its presence didn't realx him at all, by the way.

Miles and the woman remained still as stones in a sort of silent agreement: better not cause the tiniest sound if they wanted to stay alive. The creature was still sniffing in their direction and Miles was almost sure it had found them -he even started to feel the usual buzzing sound that announced an electric charge ready to strike- when something captured the creature's attention: another string of thoughts... another creature.

Miles was used to feel more than one of them at a time, it was like they were always connected together... but this time it was different. Usually, even with Nim, the others' thoughts where faint echoes, like a sort of background buzz inside the mind of the one he was focusing on... but this time the string was intrusive, like its owner was nearer to him than all the others he'd ever felt. It wasn't an echo as it should have been, but a literal silent scream, soundless but powerfull, a strong emotion that reached every bone and cell, a strong feeling with a christal clear meaning: Go away.

And the creature did.

«It's gone» breathed the woman, still shocked. Miles exchanged a scared glance with her, then returned watching the now empty pool of water outside the door like it was about to explode.

Something had just saved them, something had just shooed the creature away. Something that had talked.

With words.

Nim purred quietly in the corner of the room

Was it your doing? He mentally wondered, still shoked, but the question occupied his mind shortly, because after a few seconds the world started to tremble again. Only, this time, no words were exchanged between the people inside the room. The only one who actually was being quite noisy was Rich, who was still fighting against the padlock.

Then, like she'd just snapped from a nightmare, the woman raced at his side urging him to hurry up.

«I'm doing my best!» snapped Rich trying to hit the brick harder. «I'm almost there»

The others were all on the stairs now,

«C'mon Rich!» repeated the woman.

Bonk bonk bonk... SQEECK

«Done!» announced the man opening the manhole with a quick movement of his arms.

The others started to climb out, one after the other, while he stayed on top helping them getting out.

Glass broke behind them, but they all made it out in time without a scratch, followed right behind by Rich who closed the manhole behind them. They ran through another ramp of stairs before climbing out of another manhole and finding themselves on top of the steeple.

Miles and Cait crouched on the floor beside the bottom of the roof, while the woman positioned herself at their back embracing their trembling figures in a protective way.

«Get down!» urged Rich pressing them all against the concrete.

They stayed that way. One squished beside the other, Cait and Miles holding hands while Rich's arms stayed one on the woman's shoulder and the other embraced the kids. Caitlyn was crying while she embraced Miles, who -even if was trying to ba brave- felt ready to break down too. Even the adults were silently lamenting.

Fear was in everyone.

No one spoke, there was no need to.

They were all waiting.

Waiting to die, to live, to reach the tiniest hope they could made it in one piece.

It seemed to last forever, the building felt like collapsing once or twice, but in the end it never did. Like it happened before, it all started to fade. At first faintly, then all became quieter and quieter 'till, at some point, the trembling stopped once for all.

«Good» said Rich instinctually, starting to relax a bit «Good»

Caitlyn trembled like a leaf beside Miles while the woman breathed quickly in and out.

«Alright... you okay?» Rich asked at no one in particular.

«Yeah,yeah» quivered Cait.

They were still ALIVE, realized Miles with relief. Then a familiar purring made its way between the thobbing sound of the whining building and his relief became a bit closer to joy.

«Nim» he called with a smile. The little creature jumped on the floor from the eaves it was sitting on, landind right in front of the boy with a delighted purr.

He was happy they were safe... and Miles was happy to see him.

«eehhr... he's cool, right?» said Rich cautiously.

«Good boy» said Miles to Nim, not diverting his gaze from the creature's eyes nor answering the man's question.

But Reach quickly forgot. He stoop up slowly, glancing worriedly at what was behind the handrail that prevented them from falling over the edge of the steeple.

The others quietly followed his example, standing up one after the other. Hundreds of feelings flashed in their hearts while their eyes stared in dibilief at the landascape.

Fear.

Worry.

Amusement.

The sight in front of them was in one word unreal.

Roofs and treetops were the only hints suggesting that under the gurgling water once there was a city.

«It is...a new world» someone said.

And it was.

The end of a world.

The beginning of another.


a.n.:

I'm back! (yeah, I know what you're thinking: who cares -.-" )

Anyway, after this chapter I'll go straight to the real story (this was only a sort of recap).

Next chapter proper presentatations -well, after all those four don't know each other as much as we know them u.u- and maybe an eventual solution at the steeple-problem.

Will our heroes finally find a way to get off the -ah-ehm stupid ah-ehm- steeple after almost ten years of being stuck up there?

You'll know next chapter ;P

Thanks for reading! (even YOU who didn't leave nothing writtent, by the way ;D)

And a special thanks to EpicShadowNinja for the support ;)

Ps: i know that in the episode there was only one manhole and then the characters went immediately out on top of the church... but it seemed a bit unreal to me considering the height of the steeple so I've decided to make the stairs a little bit higher xD