by D.C. Clemens
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Crippled II
It had been two days after the overthrow of the Tower when bitter rumors began to make their rounds. It was reported that the scope of the infection was worsening. The infection was heard to have made its appearance where neither the Towers nor the Injectors had been confirmed to have shown themselves before. It was difficult for me to comprehend at first, given how little I wanted to ponder worsening conditions, but I had to consider that escape from the infection could be made impossible if the Towers were capable of saturating much, if not all, of the atmosphere with their miasma. And if that was possible, how long did we have? Still, these were simply rumors and the hearsays originated from another continent. All I could do was hold on to the present.
It was not long afterwards that I was standing outside at the bow end of the ship, starboard side, absorbing much needed sunlight alongside Siena and my mother. A considerable amount of our time in the open air was spent watching Dayce and Eloram joking around with a few soldiers they had befriended. It was never difficult for Eloram to make friends, which I thought fascinating, seeing as she was more bashful than most. They were cheerful and laughing aloud and I didn’t bother wondering why. It reminded me that a little joy was still possible in this malevolent world, and it would not need much of a chance to flourish again.
“Are we slowing down?” Siena asked me, cutting off my mother in mid-sentence.
I perceived our backdrop more closely to find that the Arians was indeed losing its speed, detectable by the steadying breeze and slower passing water. It was rare for Injectors to attack a moving ship, so it was a rule not to tempt them with a mired target, making it unwise to do what it appeared we were doing. Feeling the momentum at my feet abating, I saw an apprehensive sailor appear from below deck and run up to one of his fellow comrades in the group of seafarers Eloram and Dayce were merged with. The sailor then whispered something that entirely changed the listener’s once placated expression. The sailor hastily departed back down the stairs as soon as he had relinquished his words, while the other turned to his company to excuse himself and left to join the messenger, both now wearing the same agitated countenance.
Siena saw what had transpired as well, for just as both soldiers disappeared in the dwellings of the lower deck, she said to me, “I’ll go check to see what’s happening. Stay here.” She proceeded to follow the footsteps of the mariners.
I was about to trail her, more out of habit than anything else, until I recognized that Dayce and my mother would not feel safe alone. The Arians came to an unconditional halt within a few minutes of Siena’s leave. The wind was unusually repressed, making the sea and world seem unpleasantly still and lifeless under the heat of the day. I suffered through this calm oppression until Siena made her return some twenty minutes later. Her face inherited the same aspect I had seen spreading to the other crew members.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“It’s the engines,” Siena answered, her worrisome face transpiring to her voice. “Someone has…. sabotaged them.”
“Sabotage?” I repeated, furrowing my brow at hearing that specific word. “Are you sure?”
“I checked with a few soldiers who were there or heard it from someone who was. A Special Forces fighter entered one of the engine rooms and apparently set off some grenades and plastic explosives he planted. He then began shooting everyone he saw until he was killed. No one can understand it. He didn’t appear to be infected, and those I spoke with said he never exhibited any signs of mental instability. I don’t know what to make of it.”
“Have you heard how long it will take to fix the damage?”
“Nothing definite.” Her hands began to tremble. “But I know we’re stranded for at least a day or two.” Her concluding words mimicked her shuddering body and she crossed her arms across her chest, an act I recognized whenever her dominant emotion was unfiltered fear.
Seeing her reveal her frail condition, something she rarely exposed for the sake of the group, I went to hold her in my arms, hoping to bring her some comfort. As I stood embracing her, my peripheral vision caught something reflecting the sunlight on the eastern horizon. There was no true skyline, for it was difficult to know where the cloudless sky ended and the sea began in their harmonized state, but I did see that there was something that preserved their dividing line, and I was witnessing its growth. I pulled away from Siena somewhat and curled my fingers around the railing. Suddenly, in an epiphany, I identified it to be a large navy ship. I was almost ready to be relieved by that discovery, but a strange feeling came over me when I saw that the ship was not parallel to our own. I would not claim myself as an expert on military formations, but seeing the other ship’s bow heading straight for where I stood activated an alarm bell in my head. Completely letting go of Siena, I turned around and walked up to the two soldiers in Dayce’s group.
Pointing to the ship of interest, I asked them, “Is that normal?”
I gathered their attention easily enough and they looked at the ship that seemed to be being drawn to us by a lengthy string. They lingered on it for few seconds before giving each other an uneasy look, answering my question. The two of them next started to attract the attention of others nearby, who became just as gripped as we were.
“It’s a G-class destroyer,” I heard someone label it.
“Why is it moving so fast?” another wondered.
A sailor, who was standing a couple of people in front of me, was holding binoculars and pointed out, “There’s another ship further out, but that one is going toward the carrier north of us… and both of the inbound ships are being escorted by some choppers.”
Closer and closer did the nameless ship creep, showing no signs it was deviating from its collision course. The uneasiness I felt all around me had become a silent terror as we comprehended that there was nothing I could do to alter its course. The hush of anticipation was sharply broken when the alarm in my mind transferred to the Arians’ horns, each blaring a shrill siren that could awaken the monsters of the deep.
Eloram, who was holding Dayce in her arms, frightfully asked Siena, “What do we do?”
Nearly drowned out by the siren, I just heard someone yell out, “Incoming!”
I saw bodies all around me drop to the floor. I was going to do the same if I wasn’t forced to do so an instant later by a pulsation of dense air. It was just before the ground welcomed me that the sound of an explosion pounded out every other sound from my ears and replaced it with a high-pitched ringing. The floor quavered, although, I could have mistaken it for my own quaking body. I couldn’t make out what I was seeing for the first few seconds. Sometimes I saw images, but I might as well have been looking at a hundred shredded abstract paintings at once. My body would not heed to my instructions, but I somehow sensed it was more a consequence of a dazed mind than from a severely wounded body. I could smell the hot smoke, and it was rapidly becoming stronger.
I wondered how it was I got there. I couldn’t remember. I was just lying there until I felt my body rise from the ground, though not from my own power. In some ways, I felt as if I had been sleeping. I felt the soporific smoke stroke my face. I opened my eyes, realizing they had been closed. I saw the face of the person who had aided me to my feet and I thought he looked familiar. I wanted to thank him, but the words were replaced by coughing. He was wearing a sailor uniform with binoculars dangling from his neck. Everything started to become more distinct; the screams, the sirens, the blaze burning the side of the control tower. A terrible fright ran up my spine when I caught sight of Siena holding a bloody faced Dayce. It was such a deep color of red streaking down his forehead, that it was the only color I could see, everything else becoming a shady gray.
“Dayce! Are you okay?” I shouted, thinking I sounded like someone else.
He slowly opened his eyes and he could barely keep them open, as if it took every ounce of his strength to do so. He turned to look at me and
seeing all the blood made me believe I was going to cry. I wished he would smile, knowing it was a futile wish, even compared to the other absurd wishes I had made. He looked at me with a confused gaze that would not relent. I noticed the sailor who had helped stabilize me was now steadying Eloram. I saw where her gaze traveled and I heard her scream even before it left her throat.
“Oh, Dayce!” she cried out, while the sailor kept her from falling. “I’m so sorry! I fell and I couldn’t-”
“Elo-” I began to say, but a loud crash violently vibrated the entire deck.
The origin of the impact was right above me, where I saw that a helicopter had plowed into the side of the control tower. Fiery fragments were hailing down on us as the attack chopper largely remained intact and began to spin out of control, passing over us to its final end. It belligerently struck a stationary helicopter no more than forty feet away from where I was having trouble standing. No sooner had these new flames begin to dissipate when missiles arose from the sky itself and started striking all along the deck, sending fresh plumes of hot fervor into the air. I felt the scorching heat from the liberated detonations scrape my skin and watched as a throng of people were running, burning, and dying on every side of me. A sailor, whom I had never seen before, or perhaps his mien had altered far too much for me to recognize him, beckoned me and others to head below deck. I grabbed a still stunned Dayce from Siena’s arms and we advanced to the stairs, Siena helping my nearly immobile, but uninjured, mother. I looked back to the sea, despite the chance that it could be my final sight, and glimpsed the destroyer. There was no way it was any more than three minutes away.
On reaching the stairs, we were met by a voice stating, “Head for the well deck! Hurry!”
We came to the bottom of the stairway, feeling as if I had just ran across the gateway of death, only to find that it was only one of many. The lights were flickering clumsily, showing our ship’s weakening strength, except when they would become outshined by an occasional turning red light, as if we needed to be reminded of our danger.
My mother asked, “What about Bervin and Delphnia?”
I turned around to hear Siena unhesitatingly reply, “I’ll go get them!”
I couldn’t feel that much, not my heart palpitating, not my body aching, not the sweat that oozed uncontrollably from my skin, but what I did feel was the unyielding knot in my stomach that only grew tighter when she made the resolution, and I felt the sting gore right through me. Equal to an impulse, I said to her, “There’s no time to go back for them! We might not even reach the well deck in time ourselves!”
Siena’s face formed into one of apprehension and shock. I knew what her eyes were troubled to see; to see someone not willing to attempt to risk her life for that of others. There would be no argument and no chance for her to go against my desire. I could not risk the chance of not ever seeing her again. Still, I could not face her shaken stare and I turned my face elsewhere. Before she could render a word of protest, I grabbed her arm, maybe with more force than was necessary, and forced her to move with me. We moved through the halls, through the indecisive lights and the red beams, through the piercing sirens and the deafening explosions that continued to strike from every direction. No matter how fast our legs strode, it always seemed we labored through the gelatinous air and were in opposition against a reality that fluttered at twice its usual speed. This was not to mention the myriad of sailors and soldiers alike who were roving up and down the cramped halls, likely knowing, as we did, that they had little hope of ever reaching their destination before the Arians encountered its irrational sibling. With each fateful encounter we suffered against the wrath of a missile, our balances were temporarily lost, compelling us to slam a wall at times and further slowing our pace.
Then, just as an ember of salvation ignited when the confines of the well deck came within my aspiring sights, it burned out. I felt the most viciously adamant tremor shove the entire ship to my right, vehemently hurling everyone to the hallway floor. The destroyer had finally arrived and was certainly living up to its designation. Fortunately, my presence of mind was still with me and I was able to shield Dayce from experiencing the full brunt of the ground by adjusting my fall enough to land on my right shoulder. I looked at him to see his small eyes open meagerly, only to drop again. I thought I heard him groan, but the sounds of our carrier’s demolition, expressed through the concentrated grating of metal somewhere behind me, obliterated all other noise in my sagacity.
At the same time, while I felt the entire Arians careen farther to the west in an unrelenting motion, I also noticed the stern itself was commencing to drift in the opposite direction of the whole. Standing and turning to behold the well deck, I saw that it was becoming filled with the element of the ocean as it started to slant from the constant heaving. The pining hope I had to reach its boats of deliverance were being buried below sea level right before my eyes. Gradually, as if my senses had finally returned from a black hole, the sounds of the roaring water washed into my ear drums. We were trapped between the submerging well deck in its last belches of life and the destroyer’s callous incursion, still heard by its sharpening call, as the metal innards continued to pulverize themselves. I didn’t have time to deliberate a plan of escape, for as the cringing vibrations reached our bodies, so did the stern continue to list on its side and so deeper did it sink. Standing upright was becoming a strenuous task, if not completely impossible to accomplish. We all had to lean against the wall on our right and place our feet on the opposite wall for some stability. I shuddered with every harsh groan the walls echoed with and I was beginning to truly believe we would drown in the water-packed steel coffin.
To release me from musings of my demise, the stern gave a sharp, staggering lurch to the east in an attempt to return to its original position. The unbearable scraping noises took a different and slightly more bearable pitch with the adjustment. The seeping in of the rushing water now had an unwavering rhythm, one that made me afraid of looking at the well deck. Despite the stern being released from the unwanted forces that had been pushing it, stabilizing the ground somewhat, it was too late for it to go back to its initial bearing. The stern was simply struggling not to wholly yield to the sea for as long as it could. Amid all that was befalling, I had the courage to look at the well deck with my better foothold. The water was surging into our domain after it surpassed the well deck in its relentless vigor. The ocean was determined in claiming our vessel as her own and there was nothing the Arians could do but surrender to her.
“Go back!” I boisterously yelled to the girls, though, considering I said it as loud as I could, it was heard by everyone in the vicinity.
The newfound and, most likely, only too brief, reasonable evenness of the floors permitted us to move briskly through the hall, the roaring surge behind us providing more than enough motivation to have us move at our quickest pace. Every so often I would become charmed by streams of light ahead of us. It was not unwelcomed, as it was now the chief birthplace of illumination, but as we were within the labyrinths of a ship, I could also say it was unanticipated. The farther we traveled, the more radiant the light became and the more it resembled natural sunlight. It did not take long before we were forced to come to a halt behind a crowd and where I discovered the inexplicable entryway of the enigmatic daylight. I gazed with copious scrutiny and still it did not seem possible.
Laid out in front of us was the flank of the destroyer. It had completely cut through our Arians, creating two halves of it, and it was now moving inside the chasm it had carved. Not including all the heads in front of me, I calculated we must have been separated by no more than three yards from the destroyer’s hull. Jumping into the water at that moment was senseless, for the propeller blades would not be sympathetic to our plight. So here we all waited for the betrayer to pass by in its entirety to make our escape, the last that was left in our hands. The seconds passed on and I felt every single one of them bury deep into my being and take awa
y another year of my life. Dayce’s eyes were no longer closed. They stared blankly at the destroyer as it floated past our sinking scrap of steel. I analyzed every facet of the warship as it leisurely slipped in front of us, as though it cherished nothing more than for us to behold its triumph. It was crumpled in places and tarnished in others. Nowhere was there a space left untouched by the ruthless impact it bestowed to us, though I imagined its bow was left unrecognizable. The battle scared machine was supposed be one of our own, yet, there it was, the reason of our ruin. By the time my eyes finally saw the end of the procession, marked by the flood of more light, I felt as thin and frail as if I had lived five years too long. The roar of its engines steadily became fainter and I began to hear both the swirl of the water echo again through our open encasement and the ripples of the ocean as the destroyer was dragging it behind.
When the ship left my line of sight, I began to hear splashing. The crowd in front of us had wasted no time in making their exodus. I noticed those in the decks above us were also doing the same. It was not long before it was our turn to join the departure of the Arians. Dayce was awake, but he was under no condition to swim on his own. Providentially, I was not insecure in my own swimming capacities, it being the only form of exercise I did, so carrying him did not at all daunt me. My mother was the same as I, or I was the same as her, for she was the one who first motivated the activity. It was not a hassle for us to receive the sea, since it was already greeting our ankles. Eloram jumped in after me and I felt that she would have followed me even if I were to swim to the poles. As for Siena, she was the best swimmer I had ever known. My body welcomed the water for its warm and soothing influence on my strained and weary muscles. Under vastly different circumstances, I would have felt reinvigorated as soon as my form felt the therapeutic magic of the ocean, but even the most powerful enchantments would not have been able to recapture the years that had so suddenly left me. All we did, and all we could do, was swim.
It was unwise to linger near the plummeting stern more than was necessary, for jumpers continued to fall and fill the crevice between the halves of what was once the Arians, which were no more than forty yards apart from each other. People in the bow end of the ship were also leaping into the water, their half, likewise, becoming gulped down by the watery leviathan. When I felt I was far enough away from the most crowded section of the channel, I stopped and looked at the scene behind me. Amid the two descending halves were hundreds of crewmen, soldiers, sailors, and refugees treading water with more waiting to fall, and still more already waiting for rescuers of some type to show themselves. The destroyer was still moving away, but it was tilting on its portside as it did so. It too did not have long before it yielded to its stark lesions.
Only seconds went by before I saw our former stern submerge entirely beneath the sea’s surface. Many kinds of debris reshowed themselves, not desiring to know the secrets of the bottom of the ocean. They were eagerly held on to by those that were near. One sailor, who must have seen I was holding Dayce, came to us and generously gave his life vest to him, which I could not be too indebted for. It wasn’t until my burden was lessened did I realize how tired my arms were from carrying him all the while. A circular flotation device also made its way to us, which humbly allowed us to clamp on to it.