The ground was covered in water. Gerald Hamilton couldn't tell how much, but based off of how it sloshed against the top of the bottom shelf of the bookcase, he would estimate about a foot.
Which was bad. Very bad.
Stomatapods, or Mantis Shrimp, are neither shrimp nor mantids. They derive their name from their eerie resemblance to both a shrimp and a mantis. Gerald thought they looked like evil lobsters with mantis claws. The ancient Assyrians called them sea locusts. They usually grow up to a foot long, but one species, odontodactylus Scyllarus, has been known to grow up to 15 inches in the nutritious muck from the runoffs into the Ala Wai canal of Hawai’i.
Gerald didn't know if this was the species he was facing. He did know one thing, though: these were bigger than 15 inches. Much bigger.
Alright, he knew two things: that the mantis shrimp that had come in with the flooding were bigger than fifteen inches, and that the only way out of the house from here was through the den. The den was lower than the rest of the house, surrounded on all sides by steps: the water level was much deeper there.
Gerald cursed himself silently and leaped to a nearby chair. He proceeded to island hop from object to object until he stood, on the wet bar, looking into the den. A few sofa backs and the top of the television peeked up at him through the murky water.
They weren't the only things peeking up at him.
The mantis shrimp’s eyes are the most complex in the animal kingdom. Their visual spectrum is far larger than a human’s, and they possess vision so sharp that scientists are currently using them as a model for next, next-generation high definition technology. Both of their compound eyes have trinocular vision, and their mobile eye stalks make it so that they are able to see independent of one another. Gerald could feel thousands of compound eyes fix on him.
There was a brief moment of absolute silence, before they charged at him all at once. He swung from the bar around the door frame, knocking drinks over and causing them to shatter against the table and go splashing into the frothing water. He swung onto the top of a cabinet and jumped from there onto the narrow spine of the back of a sofa. He realized he was stuck going this way, and had to think quickly. There was a bookshelf within jumping distance of the cabinet. He would use that. He jumped back to the cabinet, but hit the wall so hard that it knocked the bookshelf down, splashing tremendously. The mantis shrimp turned to him.
From what he could see of their claws, he could deduce that these were smasher-type stomatapods. This meant that they could move their claws quickly, smashing into prey. In some instances the claws accelerate faster than a bullet.
The mantis shrimp began pummeling the cabinet at faster than fifty miles per hour.
The movement of the claws is actually so fast that it causes the tiny little bubbles underwater to implode in a burst of light, in an effect known as sonoluminescense. It is not known exactly how sonoluminescence happens; some say it is actually a form of cold fusion, while others hold that it is caused by quantum tunneling. Either way, sonoluminescence is a good thing for stomatapods, because the shock wave is enough to stun or even kill prey even if the attack misses.
Gerald could see sparks of blue light burst out underwater as the cabinet was being pounded to smithereens. They were beautiful.
They would probably be the last thing he would ever see.
Light is not the only thing released by sonoluminescence. It also releases heat. Thousands of kelvins worth of heat.
The combustion triangle is a model used to explain how fires are started. At one end of the triangle is heat. At another is an oxidizing agent, usually air. The other end is fuel. In this instance, the fuel was provided by the alcohol that was spilled from the wet bar as Gerald swung from it.
The world caught on fire.
There was a shrieking sound as dozens of crustaceans were boiled alive. In the end, Gerald received several third degree burns on his arms, legs and face, but at least he came out with his life.
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