The monster jumps a hundred feet into the air, then comes down with a crash on par with an earthquake, even causing water to splash up. At the same time, Douglas and Rachael fall down again but are still held by Ryan, who only slightly looses balance.

“Do you know any way off the island?” Ryan asks his parents and helps then run away from the monster.

“There are boats all around the island. If they haven’t washed away, they’ll be our best bet,” Douglas says as he barely keeps up with Ryan’s pace. By now, water is almost reaching their waists.

“Then, we have to-” Ryan starts to say, but is pushed to the ground by a log hitting his back. This causes him to let go of his parents and fall face first into the muddy water flowing over the island.

Bushes, trees, and small rocks are all being pushed south by the rushing water. Even if Ryan wants to regain his footing, nothing protects him from the disorienting torrent of muddy water. Every time Ryan tries to stick his hand into the ground or grab a tree trunk, the object he’s grasped comes flowing along with him.

Then, the monster jumps into the air for a second time. This time, unlike the hundred feet it jumped last time, the monster jumps three hundred feet high. When it lands, many of the larger trees on the island come tumbling down.

Ryan wants to stand up, to fly, to find his parents again, to kill the monster, but he cannot. All he can do is keep himself from drowning.

Several miles away, on the Canadian side of the Detroit River, a young woman wakes up from her sleep.

‘What the hell was that?’ She thinks and rolls out of bed with an abnormal grace. She spends a few seconds putting on a long brown robe over a hazel tunic. Around her waist, she fastens a belt with a large flashlight-looking tool. A few seconds later, the woman stumbles as the ground shakes once more.

‘Something in the west,’ She thinks and exits her hotel room from the window.

She glides through the air with little difficulty, easily hopping from one building to the next, even as they distance over a hundred feet apart. When she comes across six zombies shuffling on the roof of a building, the woman pulls the tool of her waist and clicks a button on the side.

The resulting electric-blue light sword easily cuts the zombies, and the woman continues on her way.

Back on Grassy Island, Ryan has thoroughly been separated from his parents. A particularly strong and deep-rooted tree was able to stop his being dragged on by the water, enabling him to buy a thousand levels in Swimming. His Locate skill pointed to the southwest side of the island, so Ryan took off flying in that direction.

The number of trees remaining standing on the island could be counted with both hands as the water continuously became higher and faster. Now, in addition to rocks and foliage that drifted along with the water, a new monster appeared, partially submerged in the muddy current.

Ryan saw as the creatures swam with the current, like jellyfish, and piled up on whatever solid mass they could find. Fallen tree trunks quickly became floating harbors for the strange jellyfish. Now, Ryan worried even more for the safety of his parents.

He uses the assault rifle to empty a magazine into the water below him, but Ryan can’t see any change in the swarm of jellyfish. The combination of it being night out, the jellyfish body being black, and the muddy water rushing all around them would make it very difficult for Ryan to see any difference in their numbers. All he can do is hope his efforts are not in vain as he flies towards his parents.