Night Swimming / Chapter 13
What We're Fighting For
Jason & Katie - The Almost Normal Date
The Waffle House on 441 glowed like a beacon of normalcy at 2 AM, its yellow sign promising grease and comfort in a world gone cosmically wrong.
“This is stupid,” Katie said, but she was smiling as Jason held the door open. “We’re three days from potential apocalypse and we’re getting waffles?”
“Exactly why we need waffles.” Jason slid into the booth across from her, the vinyl squeaking with mundane reality. “When’s the last time either of us did something normal?”
She thought about it. “Define normal.”
“Not involving shadows, drug deals, or existential terror.”
“Then… never?”
The waitress—Dolores—poured coffee without asking. Her shadow moved correctly, tied to her feet like shadows should be.
“Two All-Stars?” Dolores asked, like the world wasn’t ending.
“Yeah,” Jason said. “Extra bacon on mine.”
“Same, but extra hash browns.” Katie wrapped her hands around the mug, letting the heat ground her. “Crispy.”
Dolores nodded and shuffled away, leaving them in the fluorescent bubble of almost-normal.
“So,” Katie said, “is this a date?”
Jason choked on his coffee. “I mean… do you want it to be?”
“Smooth, network mastermind.” But she was still smiling. “I’m asking because if it is a date, I should probably mention I’ve never actually been on one.”
“Never?”
“When would I have? Between surviving shit at home and selling drugs to stay alive?” She shrugged. “Romance wasn’t exactly a priority.”
“Fair.” Jason stirred sugar into his coffee. “I went on one date. Sophomore year. Sarah Chen told me I was ‘too intense about weird stuff.’”
“Were you?”
“I brought my conspiracy theory notebook to the theater.”
Katie laughed—real laughter, not the bitter kind. “Yeah, that tracks.”
The food arrived, and they ate in comfortable silence. No shadows moving wrong. Just bad coffee and perfect hash browns.
“What if we survive?” Katie asked suddenly.
Jason looked up from his waffle. “We will.”
“No, I mean… what if we actually survive? What happens January first? Do we just go back to dealing drugs and pretending everything’s normal?”
“Do you want to?”
She pushed hash browns around her plate. “I don’t know what else I’m good at.”
“Bullshit.” The word came out hard. “You’re brilliant at reading people, organizing escapes, keeping everyone steady. Those skills don’t only apply to cosmic horror.”
“They’re not exactly resume builders.”
“Says who?” Jason leaned forward. “You could do anything. College. Run a business. Help other kids. Hell, you could run the whole state.”
Katie studied him over her coffee mug. “You really believe that.”
“I really do.”
Something shifted in her expression. “What about you? What’s Jason Amano doing after the apocalypse?”
“Assuming we prevent it?” He grinned. “Expand the network for good. Connect the outcasts. Create something that lasts.”
“With me?”
The question hung between them like tomorrow’s promise.
“If you’ll have me,” Jason said quietly.
Katie reached across the table, taking his hand. “I’m complicated.”
“I like complicated.”
“I have trust issues.”
“I’ll earn it.”
“I might try to run when things get too real.”
“I’ll chase you.”
She squeezed his hand. “Even to the bottom of cosmic horror pools?”
“Especially there.”
Dolores appeared with the check, pretending not to notice their joined hands.
Outside, the Florida night pressed humid. Real stars visible, not the weird geometries appearing lately.
“So was it?” Katie asked as they walked to the car.
“Was it what?”
“A date.”
Jason opened her door, then second-guessed. “Sorry, is that weird?”
“What’s weird?”
“Opening doors. Chivalry shit.”
Katie stared at him. “Jason, you watched me fight shadow monsters. You think I can’t open a car door?”
“Point taken.” His face reddened. “I’m bad at this.”
Katie got in the car and waited for him to walk around. When he slid into the driver’s seat, she was studying him like he was a new species.
“You know what’s funny?” she said. “I’ve been thinking about kissing you for weeks, but now I have no idea how that works.”
“Same.” Jason gripped the steering wheel. “Do we discuss it first? Or just go for it?”
“You want a manual for kissing?”
“For all of it.”
Katie laughed. “You’re overthinking.”
“I overthink everything.”
“Yeah, I noticed.” She took his sweaty hand. “I don’t know the rules either. Never wanted a boyfriend until…”
“Until?”
“Until you coordinated our escape from shadow monsters without making me feel like I needed protecting.”
“That’s specific.”
“Most guys make me feel weak. You make me feel stronger.”
They sat in the parking lot, hands linked, avoiding eye contact.
“Want to figure it out together?” Jason asked.
“After we save the world?”
“Before, during, and after.”
Katie squeezed his hand. “Deal. But Jason?”
“Yeah?”
“Next time, just kiss me. Don’t ask for a manual first.”
“Noted.”
They drove back through empty streets, hands linked awkwardly over the console. Three days until cosmic extraction, but tonight they’d learned to be scared and hopeful together.
Amanda - Kitchen Sanctuary
Amanda’s hands moved with practiced precision, slicing plantains at exactly the right angle while Crystal watched from her perch on the counter.
“The trick,” Amanda said, “is the oil temperature. Too hot and they burn outside while staying raw inside. Too cool and they just get greasy.”
“Like dealing drugs,” Crystal observed. “Too aggressive and you get busted. Too passive and you get nowhere.”
Amanda laughed. Two weeks ago, she’d been horrified by illegal activities. Now she taught a drug dealer to cook while planning cosmic warfare.
“My abuela taught me this.” She dropped plantains into oil. “Every Puerto Rican family has their version, but ours is best.”
“Obviously.” Crystal hopped down to peer into the pan. “What makes it different?”
“Secret ingredient.” Amanda pulled out a small bottle. “Garlic oil infused with oregano from her garden. She grows it in coffee cans on her fire escape, claims the city air makes it stronger.”
“Urban terroir.”
“Exactly.” Amanda flipped the plantains. “She brought seeds from PR in her bra in 1962.”
Crystal grinned. “Your grandma’s a badass.”
“All Puerto Rican grandmas are badasses. It’s a requirement.”
They worked in silence, Amanda frying while Crystal smashed plantains. Garlic and oil drowning out ozone from shadow encounters.
“I’ve been thinking,” Crystal said. “About after.”
“Yeah?”
“My family acts like I’m dead. Two years, no contact. My sister pretends she doesn’t know me.” She focused on smashing plantains. “But watching you cook… maybe family doesn’t have to be blood.”
Amanda’s hands stilled. “It doesn’t.”
“The crew feels more like family. Jason checking on everyone, Katie protective, you feeding us, Josh teaching chemistry while dying inside—”
“The boy’s got it bad.”
“So bad. But my point…” Crystal gestured with the smasher. “This is what we’re fighting for. Not just the world—us. Chosen family.”
Amanda pulled Crystal into a fierce hug, not caring about the oil on her hands. “Yeah. This is what we’re fighting for.”
“You’re getting plantain grease in my hair.”
“Family privilege.”
They finished cooking golden tostones. Amanda made mojito sauce—garlic, oil, lime, generational secrets.
“Teach me more,” Crystal said. “Whatever happens New Year’s Eve, I want to know how to make this. Want to carry it forward.”
Amanda taught her—oil temperature by water’s dance, perfect smashing pressure, acid-garlic balance. Recipe becoming heritage.
“My abuela said cooking is love made visible. Feeding people fights despair.”
“Then we’re warriors.” Crystal stole a piece, burning her fingers but not caring. “Fuck, that’s good.”
“Language,” Amanda said automatically, then laughed. “Who am I kidding? Pass me one.”
They ate tostones in the kitchen. Outside, reality breaking. Inside, oil and garlic and chosen family made sense.
“After we save the world,” Crystal said, “I want to learn to make mofongo.”
“Deal. But first, we need to survive my teaching you about sofrito.”
“Is it complicated?”
“Everything worth doing is complicated.”
Crystal nodded, understanding this was about more than cooking. “Good thing we’ve got time.”
“Three days.”
“I meant after. All the time after.”
Amanda smiled, seeing Sunday visits, crew meals, chosen family. “Yeah. All the time after.”
Josh & Dom - Brotherhood of the Broken-Hearted
“She’s not even that pretty,” Dom said, passing Josh the joint.
They sat on Dom’s Civic hood behind the abandoned Kmart. Stars looked geometric, but Josh ignored that.
“Katie’s gorgeous and you know it.” Josh took a hit. “Perfect pixie dream girl who tastes like rebellion.”
“Objectively, sure. But my ex Melissa? Actually perfect. Brazilian, legs for days—”
“Like the universe was ending?”
“I was gonna say like water flowing, but sure, apocalyptic salsa works.” Dom took the joint back. “Point is, they’re never as perfect as we think they are when we’re in it.”
Josh laughed bitterly. “Easy to say when you’re the one who did the dumping.”
“Who said I dumped her?”
That got Josh’s attention. “But you’re… you. Confident dealer guy who probably has three girls waiting.”
“Had. Past tense.” Dom stared at geometric stars. “Melissa left for a pre-med student. Said I was wasting potential.”
“Harsh.”
“True, though. What was I offering? Baggies of mid-grade?” Dom shrugged. “She wanted stability. Can’t blame her.”
They sat passing the joint. The Kmart loomed, empty and wrong beyond bankruptcy.
“Here’s the fucked up part,” Josh said. “I can’t even hate Jason. Good guy, treats her right, saving humanity. What kind of asshole hates that?”
“The kind whose girl he’s dating.”
“She was never my girl.”
“But you wanted her to be.”
“So fucking bad.” Josh flicked ash. “My shadow stepped out of a mirror to tell me I’m wasting potential. My cosmic reflection thinks I’m pathetic.”
Dom turned to stare at him. “Your shadow did what now?”
“Long story. Point is, even interdimensional horror thinks I need to move on.”
“Damn.” Dom whistled low. “That’s worse than getting the ‘let’s just be friends’ speech.”
“Right? At least you got dumped by an actual person. I got dumped by someone who was never mine and counseled by my own bitter reflection.”
They laughed, sound echoing off Kmart walls. Good to find absurdity in heartbreak while the world ended.
“You know what, though?” Dom crushed the roach under his heel. “We’re still here. Still fighting. Still making it work even with the rejection.”
“Technically, I’m fighting cosmic horror with weaponized heartbreak.”
“That’s metal as fuck, actually. Using emotional pain to create chemical weapons? You’re like… the emo Batman.”
“Never say that again.”
“Emo Batman with a chemistry set.”
“I will literally poison you.”
Josh smiled. First time since Silver Springs, the weight felt manageable. Not gone, but bearable.
“Thanks,” he said.
“For what?”
“Not trying to fix it. Everyone else gives bullshit advice. You just get it.”
Dom bumped shoulders. “Brothers in broken hearts. We’ve been there.”
“Brothers in broken hearts. I like that.”
“Could be our rap name if we survive the cosmic horror.”
“Bold of you to assume either of us can rap.”
“Bold of you to assume we’ll need talent after saving the world.”
They headed back, windows down, bad rap blasting. Stars wrong, shadows moving, three days to extraction. But they had brotherhood and understanding from shared pain.
“Hey Josh?”
“Yeah?”
“After we save the world, we should get really drunk and write terrible poetry about our exes.”
“Only if we burn it after.”
“Obviously. Cathartic destruction is the best destruction.”
“Now who’s being metal as fuck?”
“Emo Batman and Metal Robin, saving the world through chemistry and angst.”
“I’m definitely poisoning you.”
But Josh was laughing, and for now, that was enough.
Melissa & Flick - Sibling Warfare
“Remember when monsters were imaginary?” Melissa asked, checking her flashlight for the hundredth time.
Flick looked up from his map of network positions. “You mean like Tuesday?”
“Asshole. I’m being nostalgic.”
“Hi Being Nostalgic, I’m Flick.”
She threw a battery at his head. They’d turned the living room into “command central”—two siblings pretending competence.
“I’m serious,” Melissa said. “Remember when you were seven and convinced the shadow in your closet was trying to eat you?”
“It was a very suspicious shadow.”
“So I stayed up all night with a flashlight. Shadow knight, protecting the realm.”
Flick’s expression softened. “You never slept. Just sat there with your Lisa Frank flashlight, making shadow puppets on the wall to prove shadows could be friendly.”
“Turns out I was preparing for this moment all along.”
“Shadow Knight Melissa, defender of annoying little brothers.”
“The most annoying-est.”
They worked in silence. Melissa organizing weapons, Flick updating his map. Jacksonville, Gainesville, Tampa, Miami—network spreading fast.
“I’m scared,” Flick said suddenly.
Melissa looked at her brother—really looked at him. Eighteen years old, trying to act tough, but still the kid who’d needed shadow puppets to sleep. “Me too.”
“You don’t act like it.”
“Because someone has to be the shadow knight.” She sat beside him. “But between us? I’m fucking terrified.”
“We have better flashlights now.”
“Industrial-grade shadow-killing flashlights.”
“Very adult.”
They leaned together like during hurricanes and parents fighting—all the monsters that turned real.
“If something happens—” Flick started.
“Nothing’s happening to you.”
“Mel, I’m serious. If something happens, I need you to know… you’re the best sister. Even when you’re being overprotective and annoying and trying to control everything.”
“Those are my best qualities.”
“I mean it. You could’ve kept me safe. But you trusted me.”
Melissa grabbed his hand, squeezing hard. “We’re a team. Always have been. Shadow knight and her faithful squire.”
“I thought I graduated to fellow knight.”
“Maybe junior knight.”
“Knight-in-training?”
“Probationary knight status.”
“I’ll take it.”
The scanner crackled. Miami: nightclub nexus. Orlando: shadows in theme parks. War bigger than Ocala, but less alone.
“Remember what Dad used to say?” Flick asked. “Before he left?”
“‘I’ll be right back’?”
“The other thing. ‘Faldones stick together.’”
“Pretty sure he stole that from the Fast and Furious movies.”
“Still true, though.”
She looked at their hands—her chipped polish, his skateboard scar. Protected each other from all monsters.
“Promise me something,” she said.
“Anything.”
“When this is over, we take a vacation. Somewhere with no shadows, no cosmic horror, no drug networks. Just beaches and terrible drinks with umbrellas in them.”
“I’m eighteen.”
“I’ll get you a virgin piña colada.”
“Deal. But I get to pick the music for the drive.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Shadow knights don’t get to be music dictators.”
“They do when their squires have terrible taste.”
They bickered, planning impossible vacations while preparing for war. Outside, shadows lengthened. Inside, siblings held the line—together, annoyed, unbreakable.
Crystal - Water Meditation
Crystal floated in the apartment pool at 3 AM. No residents, no questions—just her and spinning thoughts.
The pool: exactly 72 degrees. Every Florida water body synchronized now. But still home.
Swimming since before walking. Dad said Nguyens were born for water. Later, escape from disappointment, expectations, the looks when she brought girls home.
Now different pressures. Tomorrow: network coordination. Two days: Silver Springs assault. Drug dealer turned underwater operations specialist.
“This is what human feels like,” she tested Jason’s words.
Was it? Abandoned by blood, held by chosen family—human or something else?
Her phone buzzed. Another cell reporting. She’d check later. For now, water holding her.
“I’m diving into cosmic reality,” she told the water. “Swimming through broken physics with heartbreak-powered flashlights.”
The water lapped against her ears, almost like response.
Two years of silence from family. No contact even with Florida’s “anomalies.” They wouldn’t mourn if she didn’t surface.
But Amanda would. Katie. Jason. Josh. Dom. The Faldones. Family without paperwork.
She sculled slow circles. Water supporting perfectly. Constant.
“If you’re listening,” she said to the water, “we’re not afraid. We adapt. Survive. Find family and fight scared.”
Shadow passed overhead—wrong for bird or plane. Crystal didn’t flinch. Let them see her floating fearless in their synchronized water.
Phone buzzed again. She dove deep, touched bottom, shot up. Breaking surface—practice for leaving worlds.
“This is what human feels like,” she said again, and this time she meant it.
Dripping chlorine, she checked her phone. Miami found underwater access. Perfect. Work to do.
She sat pool-edge, feet dangling, watching stars. Some moved wrong, but real ones stayed steady. Two days to cosmic horror. Tonight: water, stars, her people.
“Thanks,” she told the water, then headed inside to plan impossible things with her chosen family.