Liquid Premonition

It was foggy, but Jason paddled out anyway. A blue octopus tugged on his leash, then climbed up on the front of his board. The octopus started making a loud, high pitched whistle. No waves came and the ocean was a strange kind of still. A few seconds later a reef emerged underneath him.

“Embido says you’re the one,” a voice said from behind.

“What?” he turned to see a giant octopus perched high on the reef then stumbled and fell. He tore a hole in his wetsuit and cut the back of his leg. Blood poured out and he watched as it pooled on the reef.

“Don’t worry about that,” the giant octopus said, “You’ll be able to heal it soon enough.”

“What?” Jason said again. His heart was pounding and he was out of breath. “Who’s…who’s Embido?” he asked.

“The one who chose you,” the octopus said. He pointed at the blue octopus, then he reached up with one of his tentacles and pushed it out toward Jason in a flash. The lights went out.

When he woke up he was lying on the beach next to his surfboard, he reached back to the hole in his wetsuit where he had cut himself on the coral, but the cut was healed. Was it a dream? He didn’t know, but he didn’t want to go anywhere near the water again for a while. He grabbed his surfboard, when it touched his hand, it was stuck to his palm. He screamed, his entire hand turned surfboard white. “What the fuck?!” He threw the board on the ground and jumped backwards and watched his hand turn back to normal, suddenly he was surrounded by a cloud of black vapor. Maybe it wasn’t a dream.