by David Tyne
Her eyes jutted upwards to observe my injuries, growing heavier with worry. As usual though, she never let herself stop in the middle of an explanation.
“Delirium's a symptom, not the disorder... Which means the problem may be more serious than what we're seeing. If I'm brutally honest, Daniel... One of us was bound to crack under the pressure sooner or later. I just never imagined it'd be someone like him."
I stared off into the horizon, having a rough time trying to associate what she was saying with my friend, Harry. What’s going on inside his head?
Now that I thought about it, he kept trying to return his thoughts to when Ian was still alive. Even during the outbreak, it was clearly the happiest he’d been in a long time. "Serah," I breathed suddenly. "What do you remember about Ian?"
She also recalled the obvious drama that occurred during the drinking game. "...I only met him once, but I still notice the impact he’s had on you all, every single day. Like a moral compass, everyone seems lost without him. More prone to rash decisions."
“You think we should’ve recovered by now?” I asked, openly. I sensed her shaking head, more through vibrations than actual sight.
“Death by the Lost, we’re already growing numb to that. But when someone is killed, it doesn’t matter whether it’s by a conscious person or their own hand. That kind of loss stays with you, makes your world a little darker.”
She spoke almost from experience, but I knew that talking about it would do us no good. Meeting her and the others after our world had already fallen, any past experiences had been wiped from relevance. We were born again, and the current versions of ourselves were the only ones that mattered.
Amidst the delicate state our crew was in, it felt as though a rather-welcome spanner had been thrown into the works. I felt guilty for thinking it, but I was a little relieved that Harry’s instability might buy us some more time, another day to reconsider heading after Telos.
Shaking the selfish thought from my head, I couldn't help but lean a little more on Serah for advice. I felt bad about bothering her with even more problems, considering the distraught look in her eyes. She hadn't been the same since Beth questioned her morals, forcing her hand into killing that Lost baby in the supermarket.
I moved my attention down to the main cabin, unsure of how to proceed. "How are we going to handle this? Do we tell everyone what's happened? Harry's the only one who knows how to drive this yacht."
"...We'll wait and see what Harry says, once he recovers. Besides, I was talking to one of the guests at the bar last night — she used to go sailing with her uncle, so she might know a thing or two about steering."
I left Serah to finish my leftover breakfast, and went down to the bedrooms to see if Harry was awake. I knocked lightly on the door, took a deep breath and pushed it open.
His dark, baggy eyes greeted me as I closed the door behind me. I joined him in his curled-up position on the bed, leaning against the wall. The whole room reeked of vomit, made clear by the speckled bucket placed beside his mattress.
Neither of us said a word, but I knew he remembered what he'd done. The way he kept stealing looks at the red marks under my neck confirmed it. The longer we sat there, the deeper he buried his face into the safety of his tear-stained duvet.
It was difficult to see Harry looking so vulnerable — usually he had painted himself as an alpha male, completely infallible — now he lay completely broken. The worst part was, I had been standing on the sidelines for weeks, letting him decay like this.
He started to pull away, moving himself under the covers so that I could no longer see how weak he was.
"Harry, just... don't. Sit here, with me." He froze like a deer in the headlights, opting to stay fixed between me and the pillow.
The longer I sat there, the more his sickly condition seemed to dissipate. I had to remind myself that it was only receding, not disappearing. He glanced away awkwardly, and I could barely hear his croaky voice from under the fabric.
"...Sorry."
----
The navigator sat alone in the darkened room; his superior officer had departed an hour ago for his private quarters. Now left to his own devices, the man looked over the strange object that had been stationary on his screen the entire night.
His curiosity had been steadily building the longer he'd stayed awake, and was convinced this sighting was no coincidence. He was in charge now, and had a gut feeling that his supervisor's previous judgement was not only incorrect, but unprofessional.
Glancing back towards the corridor, he forced himself not to worry about taking a detour from the current mission. Flipping the switches at his disposal, he set a course for the mysterious 'blip'.
"Attention, this is Telos-Naval-137. Requesting any Carriers in the vicinity to sweep the area, seeking confirmation ID for rogue operative James Burkley. May not be alone, be on your guard for hostiles. Use full-force if necessary, over."
33 | Pre-emptive Strike
Crouched against the hard wall in Harry’s cabin, my eyes must’ve swept over the rough paint job enough times to wear it down, almost revealing the dull metal underneath. There was a knock at the bedroom door, followed by Beth's blissfully-ignorant voice.
"M-Mister Harry? Everyone's waiting in the cabin for you… They sound pretty mad."
The man of the hour dozed off an hour ago, but I'd stayed with him just to make sure he was all right. My second motive was to avoid the burning questions that our group of rebels would undoubtedly ask.
When are we going to take down Telos?
What’s wrong with the ship’s captain? After that big speech, he won’t even join us?
Why should we bother listening to you?
For the past four hours, I’d been trying to work those out for myself. Having no sudden epiphanies, I decided to quietly slip out of the room to meet a confused Beth.
"Mister Daniel? Oh, I’m so sorry! I thought this one was—"
I placed a strategic hand on the small girl’s shoulder, steering her away from the weakened Harry. "Yeah, it is... I was just checking up on him. Harry's getting a little sea sick, so I’m thinking maybe we should wait a while. Can you tell the others to be more patient? I need to see Mils about something first."
As she nodded and bounced off to the cabin, I had made the decision that I was going to tell Millie about last night. While it would’ve been preferable to wait until we’d resolved Harry's condition, our friendship would only get messier the longer we dragged it out.
There was an unexpected chill in the air as I approached Millie at the front of the yacht; her distant eyes stared out towards the landmass we'd came from, facing an unrecognisable past. She turned around and tried to smile, but her usual apathy took over before I could get a word in.
"I haven't apologised to Harry yet. I don't even know what to say... I really hurt him, Danny. He acts like nothing gets to him, but that’s just a front. Typical guy stuff, am I right?”
I nodded feebly, unsure of how to begin. "Uh, Mils? We need to talk. It's not good. I'm... I really don't know what to do anymore..." I brushed my face with my palms, trying to stay rational as Millie’s serious nature pricked up.
"Woah, what’s with that tone? Is this about Serah?"
“Wha… No! It’s Harry, he’s—” I was about to blurt it out, when Tomás collided with the railing beside her, pointing towards the horizon.
"Guys... We've got trouble!"
Flying alongside a dozen alarmed seagulls, the heavily-armoured Telos helicopter cut through the morning sky, flying over the immediate ocean. After a gawking second or two, Millie’s jaw finally dropped. "What? But... that's impossible! How did they know?!"
The brunette pushed herself away from the edge of the boat, jumping into action as she barked our situation to the cabin-dwellers. Scanning the deck for the most vulnerable passengers, she located and grabbed Jamie and Beth by their wriggling collars.
"Shut up and listen to me. Both of you go downstairs, l
ock yourselves in the engine room. Hide under the boiler, the storage cupboard, wherever. Do not come out until you hear my voice alone. I’m god-fucking serious this time, Bethany. Understand?!"
Beth wiped her face, nodding as Jamie ushered her down the staircase; the two of them threw me a strange look with their broken eyes, far too damaged for their age. I’d never seen Millie this wound up before, either. She didn’t even know the worst part yet.
Our crew was pre-occupied, solely focused on the helicopter in front of us that carried the familiar elongated pod. It was a stroke of luck that I checked our flank, being the first one to notice that the ocean itself parted from underneath us.
A cold-grey war machine rose up from the depths, indistinguishable; after a moment of disorientation, it became abundantly clear that the object was an enormous submarine. Emerging from right under our noses, the yacht’s location must’ve been crystal clear to them for the past twelve hours.
Its sheer scale in comparison to our already-large ship was several times over, once again making us ants in the shadow of Telos’ raised boot.
I had no doubt that this was what we were looking for all along — Harry had intercepted this submarine's radio messages. In turn, the coastal Telos branch had been sending out orders to those black helicopters, deploying those nightmare pods all over Great Britain.
“Crap, crap, craaap!!” Tomás screamed several pitches above masculine, carrying Serah into the safety of the bar despite her protesting that she could walk just fine. “There's no way in hell we can compete with that!! Daniel, you're in charge now — what the balls do we do?!"
Trying not to panic, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes as everything around me fell apart. We’re not ready for this… I knew that we weren’t. What would Harry do, if he was here?
I felt my lungs expand, time slowing down to accommodate the individual thuds of the propeller above. My heart began to beat with each rotation, counting down to my own demise.
That chopper will be here in around thirty seconds. We should get away from that.
No chance. That submarine must be trying to block us in. But why?
It’s an organised attempt. They want something from us. Doesn’t matter what.
Maybe, just maybe… That means they’ll hesitate.
I opened the cabin door to find the huddled ex-prisoners, shouting over their raised voices. "One of you knows how to drive this thing, right? Take us backwards, right into that sub! Now!!"
With a worrisome nod, one of the girls messed around with some dials and switches until we all felt the engines rattle to life. It would take a short while to gain enough momentum.
"Okay,” I breathed, “now we need to take care of that damn helicopter."
Pulling myself outside to the main deck, time was already running out. The chopper arrived into shooting range, which it demonstrated almost immediately with a hail of bullets against the side of our turning ship.
The metal hull stood up against the gunfire unexpectedly well, but I wasn't going to risk testing that theory any further.
"We need... something!” I threw my head into the bar, crouched against the wall. “Anything that we can chuck at that bastard, look around!" After a second of rummaging, Serah tore open the emergency box hidden behind the bar.
"Daniel, here! Take this!" She threw a pistol-like object to the far side of the room, and as I scrambled across the wooden panelling to catch it, I realised she’d found a flare gun. Typically used as an SOS when boats were stranded, I got the feeling that no one would be coming to our rescue this time.
"Only one shot,” I strictly reminded myself. “Better make it count."
While the guests in the steering wheel’s cabin ducked low to avoid being spotted, I darted outside and followed suit, waiting for the helicopter to come closer. I didn't want to risk losing our only chance, by missing the target or firing too early.
Without warning, the yacht began to shake and stutter with a horrible scraping sound, signalling that we'd run ourselves on top of the submarine.
As Millie joined Serah under the bar, I waved Tomás over to meet me. After a moment of hesitation and expletives, he came bursting out onto the open deck, panicking in his exposed state as he slid past the chugging gunfire and landed beside me.
"Tom… You see that?" I immediately redirected him, jerking my hand towards the submarine; more specifically, the hatch fitted to the top of it.
“Eh?”
"There's no telling when it'll go back underwater! Might as well go through with the plan, after all... Take a bunch of people from the cabin, go inside and secure the area!”
“S-Secure?” I heard him repeat, knowing what the implication was. “I didn’t sign up for this, bro! I’m not killing—”
“I’m not asking you to! Just try and shut them down, okay? This isn't a negotiation anymore... They really want us dead, man."
As grim as the command seemed, the musician growled to himself and patted me on the shoulder. Crawling along the edge of the yacht, he moved to recruit some suicidal volunteers.
I peered up from my safe zone for a split second, only to be greeted with a flash of yellow; my skull just barely managed to duck below the deck’s rim, letting the stray bullets whiz overhead. Even with certain death raining down on me, it never sunk in that only one or two of those would be enough to kill me.
This isn’t real… This has got to be a bad dream.
With my flare gun at the ready, I stood up on quivering sea legs. The roar of the helicopter welcomed my presence, only a couple-dozen yards in front of my face as it prepared to fly upwards, directly over our ship.
I raised my snub-nosed gun, squeezing hard with the intention of hitting the rotor and maybe sending it spiralling into the sea with one well-placed shot. The red flare burst out from the deck, sparking into life as it rose into the sky, striking the underbelly of the metal beast.
I could hear the sizzle, penetrating the clasp that held the pod in place. Almost reacting to the intense light, a muscular arm punched through the pod’s reinforced metal and grasped the skids of the chopper with a deformed fist.
It was another one of those monsters. Fully awake, it was now hell-bent on causing complete devastation as it tore open the helicopter’s main door and threw itself against the startled pilot's body.
The Telos employee fell into the ocean, with the aircraft following shortly after; the lack of control created a vortex of wild, unpredictable rotations before it came crashing down beside our vessel. The beast, however, was very much still alive and taking notice of our brightly-coloured boat filled with gawking prey.
With an incredible leap, it practically flew along its own air current for a short period of time before gravity finally kicked in. The entire mass of the creature landed like a wrecking ball onto our main deck, obliterating the wooden panelling beneath it.
Now that I could get a decent look, it didn't seem to resemble the Fenrir or the Harpy — the gender itself was impossible to determine, as most of its skin had been stripped away. The nose was also removed, with two darkened slits in its place.
It didn't look like anything I'd ever seen before. The only 'human' parts were its two arms, two legs, torso and head. Even then, the similarities were too far off. It could’ve easily been twice my size, had it not been resting on all-fours.
The most distinguishing feature was its two bulging forearms, which it used to stand on rather than its hind legs.
Its biceps were almost at bursting point; the amount of muscle tissue pumped into this creature was harsh to even look at. It reminded me of bodybuilders who overused steroids to the point of barely resembling our species. Just a pile of veins mixed in with raw, unadulterated power.
I heard the hatch door of the submarine close, confirming that Tomás and his chosen-few had begun the raid. While I was concerned for them, my own position was slightly more worrying. The creature gazed at me, forcing an intense connection between us.
Usuall
y, whenever I looked into a Lost's ashen eyes, all I could see was its hunger or desperation — they would always act on that impulse, as soon as they noticed my presence. Not this one, however…
While I waited for it to make a move, all I could sense was pure hatred emitting from the monster’s every orifice. To my utter astonishment, it controlled its massive fist towards the attached dog-tags, tearing them from its neck with disdain. They clattered to the floor at my feet, allowing me to see its 'credentials'.
Shez-Ident-0671
N/A
Flesh Quotient: 0.65
Class: Nephilim
There it was again, that mysterious ‘Flesh Quotient’ number. Twice as large as the Harpy’s, twice as destructive in nature. Whatever the true meaning was, it spelt disaster for us all.
I glanced back up at the beast, still staring me down with such ferocious intent. It restrained itself, holding its ground. Waiting for me to make the first move.
"Daniel!! Get away from that thing! Run!!" Millie screamed, almost being eclipsed by the Nephilim's large stature.
I shook my head, confused. "I... I don't understand. It just— It looks like it's... thinking."
She paused, barely considering my observation before rejecting the absurd notion. "Don't be stupid, the Lost can’t think! Just get going!!" I knew that it sounded crazy, but the way it was able to grasp those dog-tags with such finger precision…
It felt like I was distracting myself, but I almost began to sympathize, under the pretence that it was sentient.
If I was turned into one of those creatures... If I went through the same torture, the same agony and mutilation, there was no doubt that I would be driven mad; but there would be only one constant.
I understood now, that inferno of burning emotion behind those piercing-grey eyes. If I was him, or her, I would want me dead, too.