Zoë Davis

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A wicked sun bore down on the sauna of Carson’s lifeguard hut. With every sluggish second the air thickened with the throat-numbing tang of salt and joyous shrieks from the beach below.

At least some people were having fun.

He slugged a mouthful of flat soda. Even at this distance, Carson sensed regret radiating off two dads buried up to their necks in sand. A smattering of young women were simmering contentedly on striped towels, and a ten-year-old was learning what paranoia felt like after a friend told him if he pissed in the sea, it’d turn red.

Other people’s emotions. Raw, uncensored, always in his head. 

His mum called it a gift, but at sixteen, it was a curse. She was a nurse; people respected her, whereas last week, Eden Turnbull, classmate and new beach attendant, hid a rotting mackerel in his first aid kit. The week before, she’d papered the entire hut in soggy bog roll. 

Carson couldn’t read her. She was probably dead inside. Not that he needed a psychic link to discern how she felt about him.

He glanced at the emergency control panel. Thoughts of pressing that red button slinked through his mind. Rogue tidal surges were rare, but not unheard of. If he raised the alarm, he’d experience the resulting panic in high definition 4K. Those revenant dads would rise, clawing from their sandy graves to scoop up the kids, while in a flail of oiled limbs, the ladies would abandon all decorum… and bikini tops… trampling picnics to reach the higher ground.

Pure chaos. But the aftermath…

The silence. 

The unadulterated peace.

Carson exhaled as if it were the most wicked thought a lad could have.

“Hey, dickhead. Permission to come aboard?” Eden didn’t wait for a reply, she claimed the second chair, slinging a bulging cool-bag across the table. “I was wondering when you’d break.”

“I… what?” Carson stammered.

“Snap,” she replied. “Your aura was throbbing.”

“My—”

“Resonance.” She scrunched her fingers. “You want them gone, don’t you? The ants and all their noise?”

“How do you—?”

She bulleted an ice-cold cola at his chest. “I’m an empath too. Kinda. Unlike you, I make use of it. I’ve been priming you for weeks. Tick… toc…”

Her eyes gestured towards the button. “You scared?”

“Of you? Yes.”

“No, pressing it. Feeling it,” she bit her lip. “I want you to choose yourself for once. Think of it like a plunge pool. The shock is electric and then—” She gripped his arm. “It resets everything.”

“I can’t…”

Eden raised a bleached eyebrow. “I’ve brought enough lunch for two. Thought you might be hungry. I know I am.”

A wave was coming. 

“… … Fuck you.”

“Yesss.”

Carson closed his eyes. 

He didn’t count, and neither did she. 

He simply allowed the weight of his hand to drop back against the detonator, and as the siren wailed, to her smooth, tanned, thigh… and between. 

After all, there was no use fighting nature.

Zoë’s prompts were: by the sea, an empath, an alarm/siren

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