Chapter 1

Her hair was soaking. Her shoes splished and splashed in the mini-puddles that formed on the ground below her. The sound filled the empty white noise surrounding her as her clothes stuck to her damp skin. It was as if her skin was trying to push through her clothing and reveal itself to the world.

Thunder struck, louder than a jet plane, but she was unfazed. Her slow walk continued as she sloshed through the – what now felt like mud – trail. The sky was practically black above her, as was the surrounding area. She stared at the invisible ground as she walked, her hands clutching nothing as they slept in the green pockets. Her unblinking eyes pierced the darkness. A puddle appeared in front of her and she chugged through it. The rain deafened her ears and numbed her skin; she could hear every drop of rain, which began to sound like nothing. She could feel the very air around her. The walk continued on.

After a while, the ground became more visible. She paused and, without any care, raised her chin up. There in front of her was a gas station. She looked at it for a few seconds, dropped her chin again, and kept walking. As she walked closer to the station, the light began to illuminate her which revealed her black hair plastered to her back. A dingy-green hoodie covered her torso, as well as her soaking wet clothes, zipped all the way up, and the hood hid underneath her straight and glossy hair. The dark jeans stuck to her legs, and her sneakers were completely flooded.

She pushed the door open, and a bell rang faintly as she took a few steps inside. The clerk at the register saw her, magazine in hand with her legs reclined. She was a young woman, with bright blonde hair and a boring outfit. A pink T-shirt with the company's logo on it and some jeans. Without looking up at first, she began greeting the soaking wet stranger from behind the counter.

"Hel-... hello...? Are you alright miss....?" The girl, dripping on the floor, just stood there with her back to the clerk. After a couple seconds, faster than light, she turned around. The clerk screamed. The girl smirked and approached the counter. The clerk screamed even louder and struggled to get away from her.

The girl kept walking to the counter, and then stepped directly through the wooden barricade. Water gushed everywhere, on the computer, the floor, the ceiling, and the window. Screaming manically, the clerk got out from behind the counter and made her way to the back door.

The girl followed the lady's footsteps with only a lazy stroll. She heard two voices as she neared the door that was just pushed open. One was the lady's voice: confused and frightened, the other was panicked, yet commanding.

"What's wrong!?" to which the lady answered with more screams. The wet girl rounded the corner and saw the two turn their heads towards her. The clerk stood staring in horror. The other, an older gentleman, was wearing a black shirt as well as a dark green baseball hat. He looked fearful as he scooted the clerk behind him. He had short black hair and a five o'clock shadow. He looked at the girl with defiant confidence. "Who are you!?", he hollered, "What do you want?!" His voice quivered only slightly. She inhaled deeply, and grew in size, her clothes sank below her in a damp mess and her skin seemed to no longer contain itself. His eyes grew wide, and he froze. She looked like she was entirely made of water. There was a brief pause, then the wet mass answered his question.

"Death." There was another moment of silence, then the water's body rose up and swooped down right towards them. The clerk behind the man covered herself with her arms and ducked, but he remained standing. Right before she reached the two with her snarling jaws, she hit something, a wall. She could not see it but she could feel it pushing her further away.

The man was still staring at her and began to walk forward. The wall pushed more and more. As she fought against it, she could feel it was enveloping her on all sides. A sudden realization dawned on her and her eyes grew wide. She had to get out. Quickly, with all her strength, she dived down below her. Another wall. She tried the other four directions, but each one was blocked by something she could not see. The closer the man was to her, the smaller the invisible space seemed to become. She was surrounded and trapped. Then the man spoke, though he had trouble at first due to a dry throat. He coughed and regained himself.

The man dug into his left back pocket amidst the ear-curling screams, while maintaining his casual stroll. The space surrounding the watered girl continued to shrink until it was only a small sphere floating in the air. He found a small writing pad and slowly flipped the pages, while silently humming. After a few seconds of page flipping, "Ah. Here you are." He continued pacing around the now floating orb of water that had a face following him, he clicked his tongue in his mouth. "You are quite the convict, seven people killed – only within the last few weeks. I've been following you for the past few days." He put his small writing pad away and looked at her in her huge, beige-ish colored, watery eyes. He could hardly tell but she blinked as he looked at her. The water began to slosh around as she tried to escape.

The man looked away from her and started to speak again. "Don't try to escape, you won't get out." The water in the orb sloshed around for a few more seconds, and then fell silent as he continued on, "Now, I'm going to tell you what happens from here on out. I'm going to store you into that container over there." He gestured towards a sophisticated-looking box. "You'll get in there, I'll lock it and you will remain in there until I can get you somewhere far away from here. Deal?" She replied with an ear-curling scream, the clerk covered her ears at the sound of it, the man stood defiantly against the sound and a smile crept onto his face. "If that doesn't suit you, I could make that space you're in right now as big as a Planck length and accidentally lose it," he said threateningly while air quoting.

There was no vocal reply, but he could sense that was their sign of showing agreement to his terms. He turned and grabbed the container. The orb followed him over and the water rushed into the container, not splashing or making a mess. It immediately leveled out and he looked into it as a face appeared on the surface. "I hope you don't get sore." The face snarled at him and he covered the top of the container with the lid. He grabbed the sides of it set it down, and stared at it for a few seconds. He then turned his attention to the woman, whom was still on the ground. She looked more confused now than afraid. He grabbed a metal folding chair from a corner and sat down, looking at her, she began to get up on her feet. He smiled at her, clasped his hands together, and rubbed them. His smile was surprisingly charming.

"Soooo..." he began, his eyes darting over her. He made note of her name-tag "...Gretchen.�� his left eyebrow raised, "What did you see, just now?" She was dumbfounded at the question. She began to speak, but only made a wheezing sound and coughed. After wetting her palate, she tried to speak again. "What kind of a question is that?!" she sounded offended.

He chuckled to himself and leaned in towards her. "Just, ya know," his head gestured towards the container, "what do you think you just witnessed?"

"Well," she started, while looking up at ceiling, "I saw this girl enter and she… became water." Her face matched the expression of only moments ago.

"Then what?" His voice was calm.

"Then, I ran back here and you were here. It's as if you knew she'd be in here." Her volume rose as she pointed a finger at him. "Why were you even back here?"

He got up and looked her in the eyes, "Is anyone else working here tonight?"

"No, it's just me."

He wasn't satisfied, "That can't be true. What if something were to happen?"

"You mean like how that," she pointed at the odd box, "just happened?!" He continued.

"There would need to be someone else here, wouldn't there?."

She was growing scared, "My co-worker left about a half-hour ago. He always goes on a late-night run with his pals. In exchange, he works a couple hours for me that I get paid for."

"So, he wasn't here," he made a gesture to encompass the building, "for any of this?" She nodded and began to lose herself.

He turned around, grabbed the container, and jerked his right wrist towards his mouth as he walked out of the back room and the gas station itself. He approached his car, parked on the wet pavement, and opened the passenger-side door. Placing the box in the car, he heard a creaking noise behind him. It was Gretchen.

"What is that thing?" she asked from afar, her voice lightly echoing around the area. He looked at her, looked around, sighed, and closed the door behind him as he walked to the other side of his car.

"You don't want to know." He stated as he dipped his head under his roof and hopped in the front seat and turned the car over. The engine sprung to life. She knocked on his window and he rolled it down.

"Please tell me."

"Gretchen," he paused and took another sigh, "there are a few ways you can tell others about his night. The first is you can tell someone what you think you saw, and have that same person look at you like you're some sort of freak. Or, you can keep it to yourself, and eventually forget about this night entirely. There may be a wet floor in there, but that can easily be mopped up." He revved the engine and she took a step back from the car. "The choice is yours."

With that, the vehicle began to move, and in a just a few seconds, he was off on the highway, heading southwest. This was more complicated than he bargained for. He had to get out of Pennsylvania, and be a state over from there.

The clock changed from 4:42 to 4:43. Zenith let out another heavy sigh that turned into a yawn. The car's calm hum was almost enough to put him asleep. He hadn't slept much in the past few days after he'd been assigned to detain his prisoner in the box next to him. There was no other noise except for the occasional sloshing of water he could hear from the container. He checked his watch to make sure the car's clock was correct, sure enough, it was. He yawned again and shook his head as it left his throat, trying to wake himself. In an attempt to do so further, he turned on the radio and found something that was acceptable for him to listen to. He listened in on the music that played and began thinking about a few days ago while the car traveled southwest, away from any authorities.