A woman wrapped in ratty, sunbleached rags adorned with dried bits of colourful seaweed slowly approached the door of a hut made of straw and tree bark. Her mess of hair was riddled with intricately woven braids, white feathers and gray mud-sealed dreadlocks.

She hesitated before her knuckles rapped against the door frame, then stood still as the sounds of an old man rousing from a deep sleep came from inside. When the door finally opened the man looked the woman up and down, his hair was just as long and ornamented, though it had lost all pigment long ago and it mingled with an equally decorated beard.

"Marika," the man said, "why be wakin' I 'fore the light comes?"

"'Pologies, Cap'n." Marika bowed her head and put her hands together in front of her. "Rifters be comin' back, gotta catch be intristin' ya, Cap'n."

"Kinda catch?" The old Captain stood up a little straighter.

"Catch you been huntin' 'fore I bin born." Marika bowed a little lower and Captain closed his eyes with a long sigh.

"Praisin' the days and the light!" The man raised his hands into the sky, even though it was still dark. "I knowed it'd come. You be takin' I?" He looked down at Marika and she stood up straight.

"Yessir, Cap'n, sir." She turned and made her way down the beach, sure footed even in the loose dunes of soft sand.

Captain followed behind Marika, moving a little slower than she was. He looked out over the ocean and into the night sky, his eyes full of tears and dreams. The rift seemed especially beautiful to him that night, as if its brightly colored borders had been electrified.

"Delgen's hut's da place." Marika nodded over her shoulder. "closer'an a hydro glider flies."

When they reached Delgen's hut, he was waiting at the door for them. Without a word exchanged, Delgen led the Captain right to the back of his home, to the bed of palm fronds on which a rather clean looking man lie quite unconscious and mumbling to himself.

"He said a thing?" Captain asked and Delgen shook his head.

"Dat's some kinda mumbo jumbo he got." Delgen put his hand against the clean man's forehead. "Troubled dreamin' since his findin'. Not a word other'an ta scream an'such.'"

Captain knelt beside the man and pulled back the covering of woven grass. The clean man was entirely naked and Captain inspected his body. There was a scar across the right side of the man's chest and Captain ran a finger along it, humming to himself.

The man's eyes opened and he sat up like a jolt of electricity had shot through his spine.

"What? Who? Oh God!" He noticed he was naked and pulled the grass blanket back over top of him. Captain and Delgen leapt backwards in shock and the man held a defensive hand out in front of himself. "Who are you? Where am I?"

Marika almost instantly came forward with a bowl of steaming soup. Captain stopped her and took the food, then stepped forward and grabbed hold of the man's hand, putting it against his own chest and making prolonged eye contact before saying, "Cap'n," and thrusting the bowl towards the man.

"Uh. . . Okay." The man said and accepted the offer. Captain then put his own hand on the man's chest.

"You be. . . ?"

"Jericho, Hugh Jericho."

Captain laughed out loud and slapped his knee, then gestured towards Delgen, "He be Delgen. She, Marika."

"Delgen. . . Marika. . . Cap'n. . . Now, where am I?"

"Jericho," Captain said and moved a little closer, "'memberin' a thing from 'fore bein' riftside?"

"Uh . . . Do I remember anything?" Jericho said and Captain nodded. "How much do you want to know about?"

"Beginning to end, true tales of you an you." Captain stood up and found a stool to perch on.

"Beginning to end huh?" Jericho laughed. "God knows that's quite a story. . . I mean, I guess I can tell you what matters, since. . . Well, it seems like you've been quite hospitable, right? Hmm. . . Where to start. . .

Well, we could start when I was a boy. Maybe we'll start with the day the sky split open."

---

Maybe we'll start with the day the sky split open. There was this sound, like a vicious explosion that shook the building and threatened to split our eardrums. I was the first to my feet, I raced the others to the deck and we gawked at the scene before our eyes.

Out over the ocean, a tear, a festering wound in the sky.

"It's beautiful." I remember my sister saying.

Then we heard the sound again and we saw a flash. It was as if a technicolored bolt of lightning seared through the beautiful blue I'd come to love and pried open the universe to reveal a bright but frightening landscape I'd never known before. The bolt hit the water on the horizon and we all held our breath.

A wall of water came rushing towards us over the otherwise calm ocean scene. I'm embarrassed to admit it now, but I was terrified.

As the wave collided with the apartment building, the sound was immense. Glass shattered and people screamed. The entire foundation shook and the steel support beams creaked. Water rushed around me from every direction as the floors above us tore free with the force of it. Most of my family washed away as I held onto anything I could. Debris battled with my bones and my muscles screamed to work with no oxygen as I felt myself drowning.

Then, as suddenly as it was there, the water was gone and only my brother and I remained. The water hadn't pulled back entirely though, a quick glance out the broken window revealed that the shoreline had disappeared. Just past the walls, about half a foot from the floor, was nothing but water.

"What's that?" My brother pulled on my arm and I turned to see the blue black creature crumpled on the floor. Of course, now we know them as riftmen but just imagine what two young boys like us were imagining. We prodded the dead thing with bits of broken wood, we inspected the milky white folds of skin that ran from wrist to ankle, the deadly teeth that easily could have torn us apart. It was so human and yet . . . So very much not. . .

We built a raft, my brother and I, and we paddled away from the place where our family had died, the place where we'd seen our first riftman.

It wasn't until we were about to run out of supplies that we found the houseboat. It saved our lives. Burnt to a crisp from the pounding sun, dehydrated and malnourished we climbed up onto our salvation and instantly made ourselves at home.

Life on the boat was great. It had bottles of water, and even fishing lines. Granted, it took a long time to learn how to use them properly, but eventually I was catching us dinner everyday.

Sometimes, the things I reeled in seemed. . . off. Like they just didn't belong, but at my tender age I never thought much about it. Anytime that I pulled up something with a tentacle that didn't belong, or too many eyes, or no eyes at all, I would just throw it back and try again.

And then yet another stroke of luck, we were taken in by Grant Halloway. One of his raiding parties found us and we were given a real home. I watched as the handful of people around Grant grew larger, and our community began to form. What started as a series of boats lashed together with extension cords and frayed rope became a floating village. We were all working together, we were surviving.

That is, until the second time I saw a riftman.

My brother and I were fishing alone off our house boat. The adults were occupied with their jobs; repairing other boats, mending clothes that we fished from the sea. They were busy and it felt good for us to help.

"Do you see that?" I asked, shielding my eyes from the sun. on the horizon I could see a V of water shooting into the air.

"Is it a person?" My brother asked.

"It's too big to be a mutie-fish," I responded.

As the thing came closer I was able to make out its long arms, cast backwards as huge flaps of flesh billowed out before it. It skated across the surface of the water as if it were ice, casting the V in its wake.

"Take this." I handed the wrench which Grant had given me to my brother. I grabbed a hammer and we pulled back into the shadows, glancing over our shoulders along the length of rope which tethered us to the others. Did they see it coming? This could be our opportunity to prove our adulthood.

The thing was several feet away when it threw its arms in front of itself. The wind passed under the things skin and lifted it from the water. It glided into the air and then plummeted onto the deck of our boat.

It landed between me and my brother, who swung his wrench. It made contact with the monster's spine and it doubled over in pain. I hit it with my hammer and the thing's huge gaping mouth let loose a terribly high pitched scream. It turned around and slashed its curved claws at me, snapping its sharklike teeth.

My brother swung again and the monster fell to the ground. He raised the wrench into the air again and the thing squawked like a seabird, then chirped a sound similar to a dolphin and every other sound filtered from my mind.

"Wait!" I said and held out a hand to stop my brother from hitting the thing again.

. . . Peace . . . The sounds around me returned and I don't know why, but I knew the voice in my head was from this beast in front of me.

"Peace?" I said out loud and the thing breathed what I assumed was a sigh. Green blood was seeping from its mouth and coating its glistening flesh. it clutched its ribs and the sounds around me disappeared again as I heard the voice.

. . . From. . . there . . . It reached out a long finger

I didn't need for the thing to tell me, I knew it had come from the dazzling rift in the sky. I reached for its hand and it latched on to me. The pain was unbearable, I screamed as a jolt of electricity leapt through every nerve in my arm, up over my shoulder and into my brain, which was when everything went black.

When I came to, my brother had his back to me, he was covered in green blood and the thing had been beaten to a gruesome and frightening death.

"What happened?" I heard Grant screaming as he pulled our rope. Three other men pulled along with him as the rest of the adults screamed for our safety.

"Why did you kill it?" I demanded of my brother.

"What?" He jumped and spun to look at me. "I . . . I thought you were dead. I thought it killed you. What else was I supposed to do!?"

I took a deep breath, the images I'd seen still swimming in my vision.

"Hugh, Caleb! Are you boys okay?" Grant demanded again as he hopped into our boat.

"It didn't want to hurt us . . ." I told Grant as he eyed the dead riftman. "It was coming to figure out what was happening to the sky."

My brother stared at me and I knew he thought I was crazy. Almost as if I wanted to disprove him I went on.

"The rift, in the sky. It happened the same way for them. First there were the sounds, then the lightning, then our sky was inside theirs. After that, the water fell out through the horizon and now a lot of it is here."

"You're scaring me." My brother gripped his wrench tighter. "What are you talking about? How do you know that?"

"It told me!" I pulled at my hair and paced. "It told me everything, all it wanted to do was make everything right."

"Okay, okay, so let's say for a second here that you're right and this guy is from some other world on the other side of the rift. Does that mean there are more of them?" Grant asked me, grabbing hold of my shoulders.

"Lots more." I nodded, covering my eyes with my hands. "And they know this one's here, they think it's coming back and when it doesn't . . . They're going to come looking."

"But you said it didn't want to hurt you! We can just . . . explain," another one of the men said, "it was a mistake, why wouldn't you attack a monster like that? You were defending yourself!"

"That won't matter . . . " Grant shook his head. "If we see anymore of these monsters, I can guarantee they won't be coming in peace."

Caleb gulped and stared out over the water at the rift. "What do we do?"

As he stood up straighter and stared out at the horizon with my brother, Grant said, "get the hell outta here."

---

Jericho's eyes fluttered and his head spun.

"Sleepa comin' for ya, Jericho." Captain said and stood up from his stool. "Be restin' till the light comes. Such a talkie's for day times I be sayin'."

"You guys are so weird. . ." Jericho shook his head and laid back down. "But. . . Thanks. . . For everything."

"No needin' for thankies." Captain tipped his head and he and the others left Jericho to rest.

"So?" Marika asked as the three of them found themselves on the beach, again watching the ever present rift. "Jericho bein' the catch you wantin'?"

"He be I's catch." Captain nodded and started off towards his home. "No good if'n he dunno it."

"What I be doin' widda rift catch?" Delgen demanded, "If'n he goes mumbo jumbo, huh? What I be doin'?"

"I be worrisome 'bout that, Delgen." Captain said, still walking away.

Marika and Delgen stared at each other, then at Captain as he disappeared.

"Speak'a mumbo jumbo," Delgen said, "Cap'n seemin' mighty jumbo says I and I."

"Speak'a things not with I, Delgen." Marika turned on him, her eyes ablaze, her fingers clenched tight.

Delgen rolled his eyes and lifted his hands in the air. "You and you know I bein' untrue."

Marika didn't say a word, she just continued to stare into Delgen's eyes. After a moment she tore her gaze away and walked slowly towards her own home, grumbling under her breath.