“Time to move, people. Now!”

There was a booming crash as something hit the shallow water like an aircraft carrier running aground. Everyone jumped and, as if on cue, the lights went out again. This time the noise continued as something gigantic was heaving itself up and out of the water with a sound like a hundred waterfalls. There were no guesses as to what its goal was or who it was after, and the continuing noise meant the lights were not going to come on any time soon.

Alex no longer had his night vision scope equipment and he no longer needed it. He turned to the source of the noise as images started to appear. He remembered the discussions and endless reports from the medical teams when his eyesight started to change. He knew normal human beings had a poor ability for night vision in near total darkness. In some animals, like dogs and cats, biological night vision is ten times more sensitive than in humans, and other animals can perceive heat and cold changes in thermal density. They could build up an image that is not quite seeing at all. The scientists had called it “sensing.”

The changes to Alex’s brain were again delivering to the limit of human physical capacity for light and heat vision sensitivity, and the images that were displayed to his brain were alarming indeed. A cold mountain was heaving itself from the warmer water and dragging itself up the beach with a scrunching squeal of crushed sand. It had just under a mile of open ground to reach them, but it confirmed to Alex why there was little large debris around and inside the mouth of the cave—this creature had been up and in here before, and this time the cave was large enough for it to follow them.

Torches flicked on in the cave and though Alex would have preferred the darkness, the team needed the light for comfort. With Alex leading the way, they all moved quickly back and along the side of the cave—all except Tank.

Alex turned to Aimee and yelled over the crushing of stone, “Keep ’em going.”

He took a few steps down towards Tank. “Move it soldier.” When there was no reply, Alex started to bound across the rocks just as Tank pinged him on his mike.

“I’m staying, sir. I can’t keep up and I’m too big even for you to carry for long. I can at least give you some more lead time—but you’ve gotta go now. Please don’t make me disobey an order.” There was a pause as Alex thought about how to respond before Tank pinged him again. “It’s been an honour serving with you.” The comm unit pinged one last time signalling the conversation had been terminated. In the distance, Alex saw Tank pull the device off his head and fling it away into the dark.