It was a usual night for the Cardinal Station. Every single train was running on time, every single passenger was in the right place, and every single person seemed to be satisfied with their rides. Nothing appeared to be out of place, which was beyond good news for the last few hours the railways were actually active. 

    The station staff’s only eyes were on a pair of passengers that were still sitting, waiting for the 11:00 PM train to Jaywick - and for good reason, too. The kind of people who would wait for the 11:00 PM train to Jaywick in the Cardinal Station - and with it, the following 2:00 AM arrival in Jaywick - were implicitly very strange people burdened with a very strange sort of business. Strange business did not often grace the working hours of the Cardinal Station, so a glance or two that way was a welcome change of pace.

    The first passenger most noticed looked to be much younger than the other in appearance. They looked like a child, even - their bright eyes, prim skin, and shorter stature all contributing handily to the perception. If they weren’t, they’d be an awfully childlike adult - but stranger things and stranger times have fallen upon the Cardinal Station, so no one cared. 

    The second was most definitely not one. They were spindly, worn, and stuck with such a certain gait that made the creaking in their legs almost impossible to dismiss. It was no question that this passenger was the older of the two, no matter how old the first one actually happened to be. They had seen their day, and it took only a look to tell that that day was not today.

    The two were high in conversation, talking about all manner of things. The movement of the moon, the song in the tides, the whispers in thunder - nothing was out of the picture. It was only when one little question came up when the pace of the conversation ground to a halt.

    “What happened the last time you were in Clearwater?”, the first passenger asked.

    “Are you willing to listen?”, the second passenger replied.

    “I mean, I think so? Yeah, sure, go for it.”

    “Good. Now, I think the time I knew was going to be my last in Clearwater was the time the town hall meeting was louder than it had ever been…”

.

“Is it some kind of demon?”, yelled one of the more distinct voices in the crowd - notably disturbing a few others, as they didn’t have much reason not to believe it. 

    “Is it the wrath of God?”, added another voice - disturbing a far larger swath of people, as they had just enough faith to believe it.

    “No, no, no - we don’t know what it is,”, crowed a voice at the head of the crowd, trying to ease the chaos of it all.  That voice was the voice of Clancy Clyman, the resident mayor of Clearwater for the past forty years, and it was in a tone he hadn’t used in all forty. “We can make assumptions about this roaring noise until the cows come home, but we cannot say for sure what it is yet. I’ve tasked researchers to find out, but until they come back, we must keep calm.”

    The calm in the room, running in the face of his behest, was not kept. Theories were slung around the room like branches in a storm, spearing the ears of the gullible with a new type of anxiety at nearly every single turn. It was almost like a sort of dance between those who needed answers and those who felt as if they had them, with one party darting around the floor for information and another party darting for whoever was left darting. 

    “Is this about the fish dying?”, one gravely, rasping voice cried.

    “Is this why my birds have chosen to fly away from me?”, another shrill, waspy voice added.

    “This has to be what’s behind all those recent storms!”, a more confident, yet still shaken voice declared.

    For Clancy, this was beyond a disaster - at least, at first. No one could agree on what the roaring was, sure, so no one was going one way in regards to the issue - but the beauty of it lied in that. SImply put, if no one was going just one way, then no one’s anxieties would be targeted on just one thing. He could buy the time for city researchers, weather public relations in the chaos…it was all hunky-dory. He had it made.

    “Alright, folks, listen up.”, Clancy spoke up again, cutting through the crowd by way of having his microphone hooked up to the loudspeakers in the hall. “We’re going to meet again, same time, same place, two to three weeks from now. My men should find things out by then, and with that, I can lay out the true circumstances that we’re in. Clearwater, know this, everything is going to be-”

    Right in the middle of Clancy’s speech, the answer to everyone’s question came in a deafening roar. It came from everywhere, drowned out everything, and seemed far closer than ever before. After weeks and weeks of hunting down the little town of Clearwater, it was apparent whatever beast that that roaring came from had arrived. 

    “Now, just stay calm-”, Clancy tried to muster, before getting cut off again.

The entire building began to shake in ways Clearwater citizens hadn’t seen in several decades. The movement of the ground had enough force to nearly break the decades-old foundation, but fortunately, it didn’t. 

Only the roof collapsed.

    Assorted members of the crowd were knocked to the ground by the falling debris. Those who weren’t were stirred up into a panic, looking for a way out. Chaos and confusion reigned, and - to those who looked up - there was a solid enough reason for it.

    Looming above the wreckage stood a monolith too strange to pin down as any one creature. It shared a facial structure with horses, a wingspan with Quetzalcoatlus, a body with a bear, and a spine-laden tail that rivaled the length of a reticulated python. Its eyes stared down on the crowd, the six black beads in the beast’s possesion choosing to all focus on different things. Its immense neck craned over the roof, bending in ways that would require more joints than most biologists would know what to do with. Its rough and scaly skin shone in the pale moonlight, making even the most lustrous of metals seem like dull, colorless lumps. 

And God help those who heard the sound it made.

    The beast started by almost splitting its jaw open, in a motion that would’ve broken the same part off of any other creature. Its throat began to rumble for a bit - rattling even the flesh inside - and then came the clamour. A sound somewhere between a howl, a roar, and a screech pierced the ears of all in the vicinity - at least, all of those who could hear. Those who couldn’t were still knocked to their feet by the air’s violent undulations, as if they had swam into a riptide - or as if a riptide had swam into them, to be exact. Though, getting blown down wasn’t the worst thing ever  - far, far from it.

The worst thing was the fact that people knew that very sound.

“It’s here!”, a chorus cried, right as people took it upon themselves to run away from the thing that felt  so set on Clearwater. Entire families were tripping over each other to get away. Valuables and memories became deadweight in the helter-skelter of it all, but everybody was too concerned with their own lives to care about that all too much.  

Except for Clancy, that was. Clancy was different from most, considering the fact that he was missing something very crucial; a self preservation instinct. He stood in front of the beast, boldly and truly, resolute in his cause - no matter what came to pass.

“Take me. Take everything I have. Do not take these good people.” 

Those were the only words out of Clancy’s mouth that met the beast.

It looked down upon him, every eye a different lens, and seemed to consider just what he said. Perhaps it was actually processing his deal, perhaps it was evaluating the unusual behavior of the primate before it, or perhaps it was doing something entirely different - but nonetheless, his speech caused pause in the creature.

Another roar rose from the creature after a few moments, and then it ran off back to wherever it came from in the first place - or at least, that’s what Clancy thought.

Those who were still near the Clearwater ports knew different. The waters fled the harbors in moments, building up as a wall on the horizon. That wall quickly towered over most of the buildings in Clearwater, casting a tall shadow over the town. 

That tall shadow crashed down in moments, and Clearwater was a town no longer - merely only a concept that lived on in the minds of its people.

.

    The two passengers and their conversation both came to a hush. The older one seemed satisfied in their story, and the younger one couldn’t muster a more astonished look.

“That’s…lovely, that.” The younger passenger readjusted themselves in their seat, readying for their next statement as they turned to face the older passenger. “But, Clancy - I figure you’re fine with me using that name - I think that night went a little differently, at least for me.”

    “Oh, it’s all a matter of perspective, my boy,”, Clancy remarked. “We were in different places, different times - really, it makes perfect sense why you think that. It-” 

    “No, I mean it happened completely differently! What you just told me was wrong - seriously wrong!”, the younger passenger piped up. 

    “Really, then?”, Clancy asked.  “Tell me. Tell me what I saw was wrong, and what happened didn’t happen.” 

    “I will, then!”, the passenger piped up. “The real night started at that town meeting, where things were getting heated…”

.

    Hushed whispers and slightly less hushed bouts of bickering filled the tense air in the meeting room that night. Everyone was either ready to run away from the little town of Clearwater, or two steps away from fighting those who were on there way out. It was a dire set of straits, but considering the important matters up for discussion in the town hall, no one was quite set on resolving them immediately.

    “Now, does anybody have anything they’d like to bring up?”, a mediator at the front and center of the hall asked, with a tone as careful as could be. 

    “Yeah, are we that sure about our flood protection?”, one voice asked. “The weather’s been getting worse, and nobody’s quite that sure about the levees anymore.”

“Oh, you’re concerned about flooding?”, another voice asked the first. “Pay attention to the day to day, first - the fisheries aren’t pulling in even half of what they used to, and the markets are nearly bare!”

    “Calm down, calm down,” the mediator piped up. “I know there’s been some odd happenings around lately, but we must stay strong.”

    It was then that I stepped in, trying to give my two cents. “What about that wild creature’s attack just two days ago? Multiple people caught that thing on video, what do you have to say about it?”

    The mediator stepped back for a moment to speak with someone I couldn’t quite see nor hear. They seemed to chatter for a bit in the hushed whispers of the hall I’d heard just a little while before. Something told me that they didn’t know what to do, but since I didn’t hear the actual hushed whispers, I couldn’t say for sure - even when I felt sure enough. I listened as close as I could, though, and I made sure to listen until those whispers began to die down.

    “Ahem!”, the mediator piped up, only moments after the whispering ceased. “The creature is a matter for another time. The city is at stake, and we cannot concern ourselves with the random attacks of wild animals at this time.”

    It was an answer, at least. It was an unsatisfying half-truth spat from a mouth that was just trying to hang on to their station by the skin of their teeth, but it was an answer. Knowing that, I sat back down. I could see that many people were standing up - some were even yelling, now - but I still sat down. The leaden feeling in my legs kept me bound to my chair, even when the heavier feeling in my gut wanted anything but.

“We hear your concerns, we hear your concerns, and we can assure you,”, some official started, almost roaring over the crowd. “We are going to address them, and we will do so whenever we get the chance.”

There it was - another answer. A truth, devoid of meaning and devoid of substance. These days, it was the best I could hope for.

“If we may offer some closing words,” another official started - without ever finishing. 

They were cut off by a roar that was even louder than before. It came from vocal cords that were not human, and judging by the hush that came over the room, people could tell as much.

After that roar, I could hear the sounds of tumult. The bulletproof glass in the hall began to shatter, with screams of both aggression and desperation following it. Distinct voices became nothing more than beserk tangles of fearful cries. With each step I took, I could feel the ground itself shake below me, as if it was getting ready to open up.

I couldn’t tell you if it did or if it didn’t though; I was too busy running. 

.

The two passengers came to another hush, at that point, but Clancy seemed more confused at that point. Judging by the face of the younger passenger, this was something to take pride in.

    “Well now…what exactly happened differently, then?”, Clancy questioned.

    “You’re asking the wrong question.”, the other passenger plainly replied.

    “Be that way, then.”

The two sat quiet for a while longer - right up until the station’s clock hit 11:00 PM. Right then, the silence between them was dashed by the hiss of the Jaywick train pulling right into the station. Fortunately enough - at least for those who worked the night shift -  the passenger pair boarded wordlessly and the train took right off, largely restoring the quiet in the area.

    Some distant roar still cropped up off and on though, but that - in the mind of the staff - was completely fine. Stranger things and stranger times had come to the Cardinal Station, and any employee worth their salt didn’t mind them coming again - nor did they mind the hazard pay that came with them.