Clear Water, Hidden Danger

Chapter 4 – The Break

It happened before anyone could move. No warning. No reason. Just sudden violence.

A metal chair scraped hard across the floor.

All of us turned.
Sharon was on her feet now, stiff and unsteady, like her body was reacting a second behind her mind. Her hair clung to her face. Her eyes were wide and vacant.

“Sharon, take it easy,” Dave said, hands raised, voice gentle. “You need to sit back down.”

Her breathing quickened. Short. Uneven. She looked from face to face, then locked on Mark. Her pupils were blown wide, the color around them nearly gone.

“Sharon,” Mark said carefully. “You need to calm—”

She lunged.

No scream. No buildup. No hesitation.
She grabbed a torque bar from the tool rack beside her and swung with full force. The metal met Mark’s skull with a sickening crack. He dropped instantly. Blood spattered across the floor in a red arc.

“Sharon!” Dave shouted.

She turned toward us, chest heaving, the torque bar gripped in both hands. Her face was blank. No rage. No fear. No recognition. Just emptiness wearing her shape.

Two engineers rushed in. The first grabbed her arm. She hit him square in the chest so hard he folded. The second tried to take the bar from her, and she slammed him into the wall with a force that broke bone on contact.

Dave and I went in together.
It felt like fighting someone with twice her strength. Every movement was jerky, wild, and far too strong for her size. We tried to pin her, but she threw us off, snarling through clenched teeth.

The sound she made was not human.

“Hold her!” Dave yelled.

It took four of us to get her on the ground. Her back hit the floor. Legs kicked. Arms thrashed. She snapped her teeth at the air, spit foaming at the corners of her mouth. I forced her wrists together, pinned them with my knee, and locked the cuffs tight.

She jerked once more. Then a second time.
Her breathing slowed. Her head rolled to the side. Her eyes stared past all of us as if nothing in the room existed anymore.

Mark lay ten feet away, unconscious but breathing. Blood slid down his temple, pooling at the edge of his collar. One engineer pressed a rag against the wound while another checked his pulse.

“What the hell was that?” Dave asked, voice shaking.

“She just snapped,” someone said behind us. “Looked right at him and lost it.”

I stood over Sharon, heart hammering in my chest. Her skin had gone gray at the edges. Her fingers twitched against the floor in tiny, rhythmic taps.

“RJ,” Dave said quietly. “Get the radio. Call this in.”

I grabbed it, cycled through every channel.

Static.
All of them.

“No response.”

Dave pulled out his phone. “We’ll call from outside.”

No signal.

The engineers checked theirs. One managed a half bar long enough for a single call. His face drained as he listened.

“My wife says the animals in town are acting strange,” he said softly. “Everything is silent. Dogs. Birds. Cattle. They are just standing in the streets facing the same direction.”

That chilled the room.
Whatever this was, it was not just happening here.

Dave rubbed a hand down his face. “Then it is everywhere.”

Mark groaned and shifted. He blinked through the blood and tried to sit up.

“What happened?” he asked weakly.

“Sharon happened,” Dave said flatly.

Mark winced, pressing a hand to the cut on his head. “She hit me?”

“Yeah,” I said. “You’re lucky she didn’t finish the job.”

Sharon stirred again.
Her lips pulled into a slow smile that did not belong to her.

Dave stepped back. “She’s awake.”

Her eyes drifted toward us. Pupils still blown wide. She whispered something under her breath. Too soft to make out.

I leaned closer.

It was not English.
Not words.
A low, rhythmic hum building under her breath.

The same rhythm as the tremor.

I stepped back and looked at Dave. “We need our families here.”

He nodded, jaw tightening. “If it is happening everywhere else, they will be safer behind this fence.”