My balance shifted as I stepped down for the next step, and I froze, unable to move as a sudden uproar exploded in my mind. I cowered, hands over my head. It was the collective. Something had happened in the ever-after. Thoughts of revenge and joy were a slurry of contrasts. Trent’s hand touched me, and like a knob twisting the focus, it swamped me.

I woke up at the bottom of the stairs. My elbow hurt, and I stared up at Trent as he held my head to his chest. He looked scared. I was too.

“Trent, what’s going on?” I warbled, and his expression hardened.

“I don’t know.” His eyes looked deep into mine until he was sure I was okay. “I’m carrying you to the couch. Don’t try to stop me.”

Fear kept me silent. The memory of being helpless sifted to the topmost of my thoughts, scaring me even more as he lurched upright with me. I knew how to be passive. I knew how to be still to preserve my strength. That didn’t mean I liked doing it. This too will pass, I thought, pinning my fraying calm to it. Something had happened. I was okay. But it might happen again.

Trent set me gently into the cushions. It felt different from this morning, and I pulled my knees to my chin, making room for him as he pointed the remote and turned on the TV.

A sitcom blared out, the laugh track sounding trite. Trent began flipping through the channels. My tension wound tighter, fear growing as I put distance between myself and both the attack and the outcry from the demon collective. I couldn’t have been the only one who’d felt it.

Trent paused at a news station. The woman was professionally charming, and the man flirted harmlessly as they discussed the new school format being implemented. “Nothing on ICTV,” he said, arm extended to change the channel.

“Try the weather channel,” I said, eyes fixed on the screen.

“Are you serious?”

I nodded. “They don’t have to check the validity of their stories like the national news.”

Frowning, Trent looked at the back of the remote where Takata had taped a mini guide. “Okay. The weather channel.” Arm pointed, he clicked again.

“... strange phenomena in the sky observed over the Atlantic Ocean tonight,” an uncomfortable-looking woman on the beach was saying, the wind shifting her jacket even as her eyes kept darting to the surf. “Experts at the local marine study outpost are trying to link it to the sudden crab migration you see about me.”

She jerked, kicking at something outside of the camera’s lens. “The beaches are covered with the rarely seen but not uncommon tomato crab. Most mass migrations are tied to full moons and high or low tides, and it has local and international animal behaviorists stumped.”

And the woman standing there with them creeped out, I thought.