They should have though because salt has been used for years to ward off evil. And as the oceans are drained and filtered to be made drinkable, the evil that was trapped there is unleashed.

They weren’t anything like the deep sea creatures people had postulated had to exist; but they also weren’t like any of the human-like, sometimes even handsome, demons that many a religious painting liked to paint them as; they also weren’t anything goat-like or fiery or hell-like. They were a multitude.

One was more just a void. At least that was mostly what humans could comprehend. A darkness so black that nothing escaped it, like a tiny black hole but without the gravitational pull and instead with screams from somewhere unseen in it or behind it or wherever things went that fell pray to this Void.

There were also the shadow creatures that clearly resembled creatures from horror stories with long, unescapable tentacles that were hungry and seemed to be parts that split of that main Void.

There was also an evil that just presented through an icy cold; a cold that froze you and everything around you in its place and while you couldn’t perceive it yourself, you just disappeared after the cold was gone again. Frigid didn’t really have a perceivable form but they were limited to a certain volume that grew when it found something to consume and shrank as it moved around and covered new land, never to nothing though. There was a core, colder than anything else in the galaxy that was indestructible and that worked like Void did just with temperature and movement.

Void and Frigid had mostly traveled separately when they were still caught below the oceans, they only occasionally met up but when they had noticed that they could come up farther and farther toward the surface and therefore the warmth and the light, they had met up again and made plans to ravage earth together once they were finally free.

—0—

Paul Zimmerman had been working at the docks since he was a little boy. His father had had a little business there, selling food to all the dock workers and incoming seamen and he’d helped out there since he could remember; first it was just after school, and once he was done with that, he worked there full time. Paul loved his job, they were right by the sea, he could prepare pretty much anything he wanted to as long as they had the ingredients and he could, at least in theory, make his own hours. Over the years it had become much more difficult to sell all of his food though; not because their quality got worse or because they bought more food than before but instead because fewer and fewer fishermen went out to sea to try and catch something, there just wasn’t enough out there. And after a while, once the seawater started to get turned into drinking water, it got even worse. There were barely any ships leaving their docks anymore and many ships that were expected to arrive at their harbour just didn’t make it across the ocean anymore. All of it was very bad for business. Which is why Paul found himself in the midst of a protest outside of the machines that were cleaning and desalinating their water when They came.

—0—

It would have been a massacre, had Void and Frigid been humans doing their deed. Instead it was a painful disappearing of everyone in their way. First the ones closes to the coast, their screams just riled Void and Frigid on, encouraging them to not just move in but instead send out some slivers of theirs to touch and frighten those humans that had kept them locked in for so long.

—0—

Paul heard the screams and something primal in him shivered and then immediately had him ready and in fight or flight mode. Every muscle on his body was tensed as he was frantically looking around, trying to make out what had happened to those screaming.

It was a protest he was at, and those screams could just have been something completely normal concerning a protest but Paul’s gut instinct was telling him something else. He was sure that whatever this was, it was bad, really bad. And not only was it likely at fault for all those boats suddenly sinking but he was also sure that it was coming for them, for him. And so he ran.

This was, of course, easier said than done. A mass hysteria had already broken out and people were pushing against each other, trampling over those who had fallen and generally not caring for anyone as long as they themselves got away. Paul was one of the lucky ones who had been close to the edge of their mass of people and after elbowing his way through six rows of people running slower than him, he was ahead.

He knew that he couldn’t go to the docks and his little house there since whatever it was seemed to come from the water but he had a friend that didn’t live too far away, that he could probably reach if he just ran fast enough.

—0—

Void and Frigid split up after a short while. The hysteria was more fun than particularly delicious for Void and so he agreed to move ahead and keep everyone crowded in, as Frigid got to enjoy the exquisite flavor that the panicked running and fighting created.

—0—

A tendril slipped across Paul’s leg and it was probably the weirdest feeling he had ever experienced. His leg, below the touch felt like it just didn’t exist anymore and promptly Paul stumbled. He just got his hands under himself to prevent his chin and nose from directly hitting the pavement but as soon as the person behind him ran over him, his head hit the street anyway. His nose broke and started bleeding profusely, his hands were scraped open already and now his forehead looked similarly. He still couldn’t feel his leg but a look down told him that it was definitely still attached to him and before he could even try to right himself again, the rest of his body started disappearing and then he was no more.

—0—

Void had enjoyed that first person particularly. There was just something so exhilarating about finally getting to consume people again. And this man, lying on the floor, was just the very first of his coming meal.