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(3) Calico J is Unimpressed

This is why I shouldn't be our leader. Still, I did wake him up, so I relay the whole experience in as much detail as I remember. Which isn't much.

"So you heard it twice," says Calico J when I finish.

"Or imagined it."

"Meg, I know I say the opposite to the others all the time because Ditzy is slightly insane and Patrick has anxiety, but seriously. I trust your perception way more than theirs. If you heard it twice, you heard something, and it wouldn't be the weirdest thing that's happened to us in the last six weeks."

I can't argue with that part, at least.

Calico J glances back across the room. Patrick has reappeared in his corner, and I startle as I spot Ditzy leaning in the doorway to the kitchen. I didn't hear either of them arrive. Calico J raises an eyebrow at Patrick, who shakes his head.

"Thoughts, then?"

Patrick's fingers dig into his upper arms, hard enough to make me worry he'll bruise himself. "Why would it even want to talk to us? And why Morse code?"

"Ships." Ditzy's head snaps around; she was watching out the kitchen windows. The neighborhood we're in is dark, but electricity has made a guest appearance somewhere in the town tonight. There's enough light pollution reflecting off the clouds to make Ditzy's smile look like that of a serial killer, a mad scientist, or both. "Isn't it the first language an entity made of water would learn if it's used between ships?" she says, and I opt for mad scientist. For now. "The ocean is full of them."

"We don't know if it's connected to the ocean," says Patrick.

"We're on the coast and it's in the water. Ocean."

"We don't know for sure."

"Its also in the rain," Calico J reminds them. "And all fresh water that we've found. The ocean is the only place we haven't proven it. Well, seen it."

"Because we haven't checked," says Ditzy. "Maybe it moved inland. Found out humans like fresh water better."

"That assumes this thing is sentient. Which... you know what? I wouldn't even be surprised."

Ditzy's far too cheerful about all this. "Takes a lot to surprise us now."

"Perks of the apocalypse that they don't teach you in school."

It's sarcasm. Nothing any of us learned in high school even remotely prepared us for this, and my first week of an Outdoor Recreation, Parks & Tourism degree got as far as the syllabi before the world shut down. It's funny how real life puts education in perspective. I might have learned something useful if we'd gotten to the end of the first month, but given that I already know a crampon from a carabiner and some of my classmates did not, maybe I'm kidding myself on that, too.

Calico J rubs his face again. "Okay, let's say just for theory's sake that this... thing, whatever it is, is sentient. It shows up, knocks out most people, finds a household of survivors, and tells them to run. What motivation would it have for that?"

He glances at me first before following with the other two. I want to tell him he's the one going to school for graphic design and creative writing. He knows how books and comics and character arcs and motivations and all that other fancy stuff he talks about works. But I'm also drawing a complete blank and don't want to point that out, so I say nothing.

Ditzy, luckily, is more than capable of filling a silence. "Maybe it likes us," she says with a cute shrug. "Or at least likes Meg. Oo! Meg! You were a competitive swimmer, weren't you? And you do all kinds of backcountry stuff. Maybe you like the water, so it likes you."