"Water has no memory: that is why it is so clear."
- Ramon Gomez De La Serna
HE was watching the waves impact the rocks with the same ferocity echoing in his mind. Violence behind him. What fascinated him was the calm between each wave. The water cleared and the seabed appeared, with its inhabitants, seaweed, anemones, fish, crabs, urchins... Then another wave would come and that small world exploded in a whirl of foam. It repeated to infinity.
The TANNED BOY peeked over.
Two pebbles rolled down from under his shoes. They flew long before splashing in and disappear. After a long contemplation, the Tanned Boy backed away from the edge and looked up at sunset, cloudy and gloomy. Then he started walking down the cliff, to the beach.
He entered the forest. He was beginning to feel cold. Sure, with those rugs he was wearing he couldn't face the night outside, he couldn't do it even if he wanted to. He knew they were tracking him. He wasn't surprised to notice a truck parked on the side of a trail snaking in the woods.
He sneaked in. The guys from the truck - two of them - turned their flashlights on and scanned the vegetation. Tanned boy hid behind a tree trunk, but he could hear their steps getting closer. His heart was hammering inside his chest and he held on to it, afraid it was going to jump out. He looked around: no escape.
He dashed. They immediately pointed the lights at him and gave chase. He climbed down the stream's edge, going under the stone bridge. He had to be careful not to slip on the stream bed's rocks. When at the deepest point he felt trapped. The two thugs were on him and they would have caught him, so he dived and let the current take him. He emerged on the other side of the stone bridge and panicked to grab a hold to get out. The thugs were still on him, though. He braved up and ran into the forest until his lungs broke.
The route brought him to a farm.
He hugged a wooden fence to catch his breath, with his face brightened by the remaining rays of light from that mousse of vanilla, cream, and blueberries that the clouds appeared to be. But the sky wasn't what got Tanned Boy's full attention.
There were corpses in the field.
They couldn't be haystacks. The thugs were catching up, so he vaulted over the fence and forced himself to walk amongst the carcasses. They were the farm's animals, butchered by frantic rifle rounds with no order. He had to cover his mouth and nose to filter out that stench. He couldn't wait to reach the barn, but once inside he wished he wasn't, when faced with the horrific sight of a farmer that had hung himself in the middle of the barn. Tanned Boy paled, for how much a tanned boy could pale, and petrified in repulse.
Then at the boots steps in the mud he looked behind: the beams from the flashlights were scanning the field he just crossed. Tanned Boy had to keep moving. He exited the barn and ran towards the house, when he heard screams from the road.
He hid behind the house's corner and watched the road: there was another truck on the side. The headlights were irradiating the silhouettes of people running in the adjacent field.
Then the shots.
Tanned Boy hid and shut his eyes. He shrieked at every shot and covered his ears with growing force, aware that he wouldn't be able to tone out the firing, but could at least try to ignore the hurtful screams of the people.
Until there was no more firing.
Then he opened his eyes and peeked again and with heart in mouth he came across a kid not much older than himself, pale and wearing a hat. He was panting and scared. He stumbled against Tanned Boy shoving him to the ground. Tanned Boy rose on his knees and crossed gaze with the equal-in-age. The latter was about to flee but changed his mind. He put his index finger on his lips and sneaked under the steps of the house porch. Tanned Boy followed him under that narrow space full of cobwebs. He felt itchy and a pounding heart when he heard the thugs run to the house to sorround it. Their boots ploughed the dirt and devoured the grass in the garden like hounds hungry for the bare foots and scruffy shoes of the fugitives, pagans with no hope that didn't know where to run to anymore. One after the other they hunted and rifled them out there, with no hesitation. One after the other the carcasses dropped to the ground. One of them was still alive and was moaning like a child with a bad tummy. One of the thugs stopped above him, pointed his rifle, and fired a shot that stopped his moans and froze him on the spot. Then suddenly the body shrieked in a spasm and slowly relaxed.
Tanned Boy and the other kid watched the scene with eyes like snooker balls made of glass. Their eyes met and the other kid again put his index finger on his lips, moving nothing else. They would hide under there.
At least until the thugs shove their flashlights in.
The two kids rolled away and ran out, to the woods, but the field was wide. Tanned Boy split from Pale Boy and jumped in the cattails of an irrigation ditch, splashing blindly in the muddy and turbid water. Shortly after even Pale Boy jumped in and they continued their escape with muddy water to their chest, ambushed by mosquitoes and flies, but at least the flashlights couldn't reach them.
They climbed out of the ditch. The thugs were far and they could sigh in relief. They were drenched and muddy from neck down and bent down to catch their breath. Then Pale Boy stood up and held his hand. Tanned Boy barely managed to shake it and reply to Pale Boy's shy smile - he even struggled to see him in the dark - that they were engulfed in a spotlight bright enough to blind them. They instinctively turned around to look, shielding their heads, as if it helped at all against bullets.
But nobody fired on them. Someone barked something in an incomprehensible language, with a loudspeaker. The kids didn't dare flee this time. They stood still and helpless. A pair of boots ploughed mud towards them and something shielded the spotlight, creating a halo around it. The long coat of the military uniform and the gestapo hat gave the burly man a demonic presence. So intimidated, the kids didn't notice the two soldiers that grabbed them from behind. In less than a heartbeat they found themselves in the covered back of a truck, together with a dozen of pagans, resigned and traumatized.
Nobody spoke during the trip through the farmlands. A few moans, but not a word. Death was hovering with the living, already browsing the most appetizing souls like produce at a market shelf. And the eyes of the truck's prisoners crossed and share terror and desperation. Tanned Boy sighed off in liberation and with it his bravery and tenacity drained off his organism making room for a mysterious sense of peace that relaxed him during the rest of the trip.
They arrived in the square of the town's seaport.
There was buzzing movement. Thugs everywhere, thugs sitting at desks in the middle of the square, thugs with hounds on a leash, even thugs with their kids happily along like on a holiday. Streetlights flooded the ghostly evening mist and Tanned Boy hugged himself in the pinching cold, accentuated by the sight of pagans ordered in files all across the square. Tanned Boy noticed a precise order in the files. Three files, men, women, and children, for the train on the only platform, and three identical files for the ramp to a large cargo ship, anchored at the main dock, taking all the space.
The smallest kids were being led in a single file out of the square.
They stopped the truck and thugs unloaded the pagans under supervisions of two armed soldiers. Nobody cared if Tanned Boy and Pale Boy were shaking in the cold from being still damp. The soldiers had been busy beating whoever moaned or refused to obey, while the thugs just needed to get the paperwork done and make it all go smooth. The thugs led Tanned Boy to the children file for the cargo ship but Pale Boy for the one to the train. They cross their gaze and their worry rose with every further step that made them apart. Pale Boy was the only familiar face now, he couldn't let him go. Tanned Boy held his hand towards him and made himself some space with moans and grunts from the kids in front and behind, so he could keep Pale Boy in sight. The boy behind him pushed him but the one in front caught him and feathered his fall. Tanned Boy crossed his gaze silently. The boy's eyes from under his blonde fringe leaked sadness. Tanned Boy let himself go in a soft cry, covering his mouth, leaning down, trying not to make a scene and respecting the queue.
Suddenly he heard commotion. He turned his gaze and noticed that in the file for the train, adjacent to theirs, some individuals were getting worked up and were disrespecting the queue, which stopped. The one Tanned Boy was in didn't so he lost sight with Pale Boy. Thugs came running first, starting to bark orders to the men. Some calmed down but others kept revolting. The soldiers converged, so, using the distraction, Tanned Boy noticed that Pale Boy was drifting off the file, hiding behind any barrel, desk, and crate he could find on his path. But they pointed a spotlight on him and at first he froze. So did Tanned Boy, earning him a shove from the following kid, an insufferable black-hair tough boy with an angry face. Tanned Boy retaliated the shove and gained a few moments to train his eyes back on Pale Boy. He stood with heart in mouth and hope in eyes. He rose his hands and covered his mouth.
Then Pale Boy dashed and Tanned Boy held his breath. Pale Boy ran his lungs out across the square, leaving the pagan files behind, and most of the soldiers and thugs, heading for the train cars, the least watched area as they were still empty. He could sneak under a car and keep running to disappear in the alleys or jump at sea. Anything could be possible once beyond that obstacle.
But the shots.
Pale Boy slipped and didn't get up.
Tanned Boy stood there waiting. Unbreathing. He felt the need for air but couldn't bring himself to, until he was shoved again against the Blonde Boy, hugging him in a reflex. He prostrated on him starting to cry and this boy welcomed him and pulled him back up.
"Shhhh!"
They all whispered, even Blond Boy.
Tanned Boy was sobbing, but stopped, and stood up, in time before a thug came checking, walking hand-in-hand with his child. They were dressed up nicely, with an elegant dark hooded coat and shiny shoes, uncomparable to the pagan broken ones.
Tanned Boy regained composure and pretended to be fine but Father Thug and Thug Son examined him long, following him alongside as if watching a black sheep, until the ramp to the ship, at which point they stood there watching him walk on it, handing him off to the supervision of the thugs on the ship.
Tanned Boy closed up, following the queue passively to the registration desk on the main deck. When it was his turn, the thug sitting at the desk gave him a disinterested and annoyed glimpse and scribbled something on a notebook, and then on a label that handed to a colleague. This one tied the label to Tanned Boy's neck and sent him to chase the queue down the corridor.
He went back in the queue behind the Blond Boy who turned around seeing him and crossed his gaze. There were armed soldiers onboard too. The file got up to three doors. From them kids came out dressed differently, with a black-striped shirt white shirt, numbers on chest, the convict clothes.
It was the Blond Boy's turn.
Tanned Boy said goodbye to him in a sorry tone. He watched him disappear behind the door. Then it was his own turn, and the thug called to him to another door.
Inside was simply a room with a thug behind a desk, a wardrobe behind it, and two thugs on the sides. They closed the door and immediately immobilized him. They put him in front of the desk and the thug sitting there pulled the label out of Tanned Boy's neck to shove it in a drawer and pulled folded clothes from the wardrobe and put them on the desk. They forced him to lose the dirty rugs and wear the shirt, that even if it was dry and clean, it was still rugged.
Once out he felt the shame engulf him as he watched the other kids queuing for the same treatment. He ended up in a comparment in the ship's bowels along with other kids, all boys, and when they closed the door, the only contact with the outside was a ventilation shaft on the ceiling. In the compartment was nothing, not even a bench to sit on or handles to hold. There was no heating or soft padding, just cold metal on floor and walls and stale humid air. Yet he was one of the first to catch any sleep.
He woke up when the door came open.
A thug came in and examined the kids shoving a cosh. In the door another thug guarded with another cosh, and in the corridor was an armed soldier. He could see outside was pitch black and the only light was the dancing buzzing orange lamps of the corridor. The walls were humming from the ship's powerful engine and he could feel the faint waving.
The thugs selected a kid and forced him out in screams and closed the door leaving the rest in the dark.
From the ventilation grill they could all feel the moist breeze as if a dragon was breathing on them, and from the deeper bowels of the ship they could faintly hear moans and cries of hurt souls.
More and more the kids in Tanned Boy's comparment began to whisper amongst themselves. He couldn't understand what they were saying so he snuggled in his corner to cry alone. At one point a sweaty hand landed on his shoulder and he froze. The companion sat next to him and whispered something but Tanned Boy couldn't understand it. He kept mute. The night went slowly. There was nothing else to do but get depressed.
Then the door opened again.
Everybody got scared immediately, aware of their fate, but was also a chance to memorize faces to voices and know each other better. Same procedure as before: another kid was selected.
WHen they closed the door the banter was louder. At some point one of the kids lighted a match. Finally they could see each other in private and start to plot. Tanned Boy felt excluded but Blond Boy stood with him. He was the smallest of the bunch, they were both the smallest, even if not by much.
They were all particularly interested in the ventilation panel. How to blame them, it was the only escape route other than the door, and they all knew what lied beyond that one. But how to reach the ventilation? It was at least 2 metres high and locked with screws. However the young geniuses though of a plan.
They rallied. Tanned Boy was tasked with lighting the matches. There weren't many in the box.
Tanned Boy lighted the first one.
The first three stood next to each other against the wall and two more climbed on top of them.
Tanned Boy lighted the second match.
At that point Blond Boy grabbed the hands of the two kids that climbed to be pulled up, when they heard the door unlock.
The human pyramid crumbled in panic and the match light shrieked to darkness. The door opened and back came the orange light and the shadows of the thugs.
The kids knew the procedure by now. They crouched against the wall and waited for their fate, helpless. Blond Boy hugged Tanned Boy, feeling vulnerable, and he held his hand. Maybe Blond Boy was sensing he was next.
The thug stopped in front of them and pointed the cosh at Blond Boy, that was already sobbing. Tanned Boy tried rebelling but the cosh against his chest shoved him back against the wall and the thug's eyes so full of hatred and superiority made him fall into a dark well of shame from which he couldn't climb out of, so he spaced out as his last friend was forcibly pulled away by the thugs.
The door closed again and back came the darkness.
It was just Tanned Boy's cry and and an abyss of dry mouths and bitter lips.
After a while they tried the pyramid again.
They convinced Tanned Boy to take Blondie's place, so the pyramid took shape again, with the same three at the base, two on top, and one lighting matches. They couldn't afford losing anymore members.
They pulled Tanned Boy on top of the two kids at the second level and for a moment the pyramid leaned forward towards the center of the room. The breaths were hold in a group gasp. Tanned Boy flailed his arms looking for balance as the match light created spider legs of shadows on the walls. Tanned Boy wanted to get off. The panel was right behind his head but suddenly it felt so far and unreachable. His companions were whispering the same thing over and over, probably the obvious, to reach for it.
He tried, and did. He didn't let go and kept hanging off it. The group stood with hearts in mouths. Then the panel grunted, stressed by the kid's weight. Maybe it was about to come loose when...
The door opened.
Tanned Boy panicked and fell heavily on the floor, firing up the thug's anger, whom rushed in and coshed him up.
Tanned Boy screamed in pain and braced to protect the most delicate parts. It wasn't much the pain to make him cry, but the disappointment of failing to escape in time.
As if the beating wasn't enough Tanned Boy was also selected as the next candidate to be taken away. The thugs dragged him out, in the corridor, with the soldiers escorting all three. They came out on the main deck, at the pinching cold of a ghostly night. The ship lights reflected on a vast mirror under them, beyond the parapet, that faded away into the darkness, to then give rise to a fountain of fireflies above their heads. Weren't for them and the reflexes on the water Tanned Boy might have thought they were floating in the void of a limbo.
A maternal gentle voice warmed him up from his own bowels, like a feeling. Tanned Boy felt tired, pained, and discouraged, but the warmth made him forget all that. They walked for a while and he got an idea of just how big the ship was. Then they climbed down a stairwell and entered below deck.
The voice became louder and this time it was in his head, like the memory of a distant mother, a childhood time of play and dependence. She was calling but not saying anything. It was a visceral feeling. Maybe he was losing his mind. But at least it helped him distract from that uncomforting fear that kept rising up his spine vertbra after vertbra as they approached the destination, even if he didn't know where it was or when they would get there.
That voice still. Not saying anything intelligible. Sounded like a chant, an indistinct aural vocalization that enchanted him. Somehow he felt he was understanding its meaning. He felt attracted by that voice, and at that point he stopped caring he was still being dragged by the thugs, he walked passively, with his gaze elsewhere.
Until the ship shrieked.
It was coming from below deck. First it was a shriek, then it became a vibration.
Darkness fell and so did the gate of chaos. Even the alarm started sounding, a tropical bird whining up cycles, underlined by a roaring repetitive whistle calling everybody to attention.
Shortly after the lights came back. The soldier climbed up the stairs to go check what was going on, while the thugs talked to each other about it, agitated enough to ignore Tanned Boy in a corner, not that he was feeling like wondering around, still hurting and scared. But the seed of escape had been planted and it was waiting for a concrete opportunity to blossom.
The lights were flickering as if the belly of the ship was being tickled by a divine hand. The thugs were looking at each other with growing fear. The wheel had been turned and now the hunters were feeling like trapped prey. Tanned Boy found courage watching the soldiers running on main deck. Were they possibly abandoning ship first? He waited. He knew then the right moment would have come.
It came.
The ship shrieked again. The walls and floor vibrated again. The hum coming from beneath became louder until it was a screech. The ship sounded like she was screaming in pain while being torn apart.
Tanned Boy didn't hesitate this time. As soon as it was dark he took advantage and ran down the stairs, advancing in the decks below. The lights came back and the thugs went after him. He didn't care about the alarm anymore. He kept descending to the last floor. There were just a bulkhead and a hatch, nothing else. He felt trapped for a moment, but then he tried the hatch handle and found it surprisingly easy to turn. The hatch was heavy but he managed to lift it enough to make room to scoot under, and closed it behind him. He heard the thugs boots climb down the stairs and stop beyond the latch he just closed as he started running away.
Corridor was long and dark, only the rotating orange lamps of the alarm on the ceiling, making him anxious. He got to the end of the corridor and while he was opening the next latch to scoot under, he noticed there was another identical corridor beyond it, but this one flooded and the floor was a long puddle. He proceeded nonetheless, worried the thugs might catch up with him, and heard that voice again. It clentched his bowels and blocked his breath. To get free he had to go in a specific direction. It was like a calling.
He came to a junction. Proceed along the corridor to the next latch or try the one halfway, on the right, characterized by a flashing red light on top of it. It didn't look promising but once he was in front of it he just couldn't go on. He was hypnotized by the flashing red. The thugs' boots were approaching.
He had to open it.
He turned the handle and the hatch unlocked. Tanned Boy shrieked and the sudden crash of air that engulfed him. The hidden room beyond the hatch had been under pressure. He realized the room was more flooded than the corridor and water started pouring out of it. Inside was a flight of stairs going deeper into the ship, and it was completely underwater and bubbling from the frenzy of flooding the room and now also the corridor. Tanned Boy felt guilty for worsening the sinking situation and changed his mind and returned to the corridor and got to the other hatch but he froze. He couldn't even turn around, the thugs had got there and he had to get into the room and shut himself in.
He felt he screwed up big time.
He frantically looked around for another escape route but there was only the flooded flight of stairs that had at least stopped bubbling. He got closer. The water level was already at his waist before even starting to go down. It was cold but he really felt just how cold when he climbed down.
He dived his head in to inspect the length of the passage. The corridor itself was dark but he could see light filter in from the end, a dozen meters maybe. He could do it. He breathed in and dived.
When he emerged he found himself climbing another flight of stairs. There was only the rotating orange alarm lights, and he started feeling nauseated and claustrophobic, so he took a minute to rest against the wall, ignoring the cold. When he started again he continued along the next corridor, it was also partially flooded, a long puddle that reflected the rotating alarm lamps, giving him the impression the floor was made of glass and another corridor lied underneath his feet. Tanned Boy hugged himself hearing the floor scream. Whoever was down there wasn't doing so good. Not that Tanned Boy was safe, at any time a thug or soldier could come around to him.
The mysterious voice warmed his chest again. He rested his hand on his heart. It was pounding fast, but he felt that voice wasn't just the concretization of his fears and worries.
Something was calling out to him.
He went on.
When he got to the next hatch he turned the handled and immediately water flooded in, making him slip. He fought against the current to turn the handle more and make room under the hatch for himself. The water got to his waist in a flash, but the current had faded and at some point it stabilized. The room beyond the hatch was immense. An enormous dark cargo hold illuminated only by the rotating alarm lights. At the center were catwalks. Tanned Boy realized the hold was deep and it flooded like a giant pool. The hatch was on the other side but he couldn't reach it without swimming in.
He looked behind, the corridor he came from.
He waited.
Suddenly he heard voices and steps and someone dived in the corridor puddle, disturbing the water. Tanned Boy feared for who it was coming, so he turned the handle and hatched himself in the hold. He gained some time but he had to hurry.
He vaulted over the parapet and dived in the water, starting to swim clumsily toward the catwalk in the middle. He was trembling from the cold but he had to endure.
Suddenly he felt something brush against his ankle. He froze and looked down, but he couldn't see anything in the dark waters, an abyss that could be infinite for all he cared, only his imagination and common sense could see the real metal bottom. Whatever had touched him wasn't th...
It pulled him under.
A whirl of bubbles.
Air rushing out.
His arms flailed for something to grasp. Water got in his mouth and he wanted to cough it out but couldn't. And he felt that avid hold around his ankle. And then also the other ankle. He couldn't swim. He went down. The rotating beacon faded. For a moment he gave up, then he felt the intense pain in his lungs and found the will to struggle. He used up his last energies to free himself from the hold and when he did he stopped to float in the void. He noticed the rotating beacon from the alarm reflect on a silhouette swimming skillfully around him, studying him maybe. Terror unleashed energies he didn't know he had and he dashed for the surface.
Air!
Not wasting time, he grasped for the catwalk and pulled himself up, lying on there to rest. Only after the chest pain faded and he had caught some breath he let himself to a cry of relief.
How will he reach the hatch?
He was halfway. That thing would have caught him again. He watched the hold for some time, looking for an answer. He noticed chains hanging from the ceiling. Though he couldn't do a Tarzan and reach the hatch, the chains didn't get that far.
Then he had an idea.
He watched the water looking for that thing. Maybe he could trick it. He climbed the catwalk barrier and reached the chain, then he climbed on it and hung over the barrier to dangle his foot in the water. He hung more and dipped his foot in, as bait, watching with all his attention.
Suddenly he noticed the thing rise from the abyss, the orange alarm rotating light reflected on what seemed like arms, black hair, and... a face? Didn't matter. He pulled his foot away and grasped the chain to scan the water. The thing had tried to catch him but was now sinking back down uncaring.
That's all he needed to know.
He rushed back to the catwalk and went to grab the opposite chains, careful not to slip. When he was as far as possible he stopped and looked down. He couldn't see that thing, but it was also true he couldn't see deeper than 2 or 3 meters. In a leap of faith he jumped in the water and swam with all the strength he had. The hatch closer and closer. He reached it and pulled himself up, but felt his ankle grabbed once more.
He stuck to the barrier and struggled hard, scared but also angry. The thing pulled him in the water but he didn't lose grip of the barrier, he got down to his neck, still fighting. He managed to kick that thing and get free. Immediately he climbed and vaulted over the barrier, just in time to notice the thugs get inside the hold from the other side and lay eyes on him. Tanned Boy smiled, confident the thugs would have struggled just as much as he did to get here and, still panting, he turned the handle on the hatch and got in, entering an identical hold. Tanned Boy was disappointed and discouraged, asking himself how big and monotonous the ship ought to be, if he could ever find a safe place to hide.
He closed the hatch and kept thinking the same thing as he watched the water separating him from the catwalk in the middle. He noticed here again chains from the ceiling. He licked salted from his lips as he cautiously pondered whether to repeat his previous idea. But he couldn't reach the first set of chains from there, he would have to swim at least to the catwalk.
Alright then.
One solid sigh and found the courage to train his breath before diving in. When ready he climbed the barrier and jumped the longest he could jump. Once in he focused only on swimming. But under water was different. He heard a weird sound, like a screeching voice, drowned by the water but still deafening, and the frenetic flailing of arms and legs behind him. Those sounds made him lose focus and turn his head back for the curiosity to look at it. The rotating beacon illuminated intermittently a human figure no bigger than him that stopped right there, engulfed in floating black hair. Tanned Boy stood there floating starting at the being. He could make out its protruding arms and its childlike body without clothes. Wait... Protruding arms?
Tanned Boy coughed inadvertently out the air he had in his mouth and turned around in panic, starting to swim as fast as he could. The thing dashed on him and grabbed him. He struggled and they fought frantically. Tanned Boy came out on top and managed to grab the catwalk, but before he could pull himself up, the thing grabbed his ankles, preventing him from climbing. This time he was too exhausted to rebel and was immediately pulled in to his neck.
The creature instead was bursting with energies and was pulling him hard until he went down with it. He could only keep one hand desperately on the catwalk, with his flooded eyes starting at the rotating beacon, the last grasp on hope. He felt the creature let go of his ankles and grab his waist instead, squeezing his belly so ferociously to make him spit all the air out.
Out the bubbles exploded on the surface, and from the pain he lost grasp of the catwalk and immediately started sinking down with the added weight of the creature. Even tired and dying he found the will to fight the creature - he wouldn't let it kill him so easily. He managed to get its hands off his belly and elbowed it, turning around to train his eyes on it, but couldn't see clearly so he punched and slapped blindly, hoping to hit it, instead he felt hugged avidly by arms and legs. He found himself hugged as if the creature was an octopus, and with its childlike face in front of his, two black pearls staring at him hungry for his soul.
Then it kissed him.
Tanned Boy froze. Maybe he died right there and then. Maybe the emotions from lip contact with the creature, that could almost have been a girl his age. He kept his eyes open for as long as possible, trying to memorize and understand the angelic features of the creature, while its hair engulfed him moved from the water swirls. Then he realized it was pointless to try and memorize her, he would die shortly, so he closed his eyes and let the pain in, hoping to find peace in the absence of senses.
The peace came.
Then he opened his eyes.
He was sitting on the bottom, with arms floating.
He was naked.
The creature wasn't there. All he remember was her abyssal eyes, then he realized he was under water and still alive.
And he could breathe.
He was confused and skeptical. He looked around searching for her, but there was just darkness, and a faint rotating light, the alarm. He dashed and swam towards it. As he rose the sound was fading back in, until he emerged and the alarm was back in its full glory, and he could again see the world sharp and clear.
He coughed his lungs hard, expecting to see blood or water puff out, but he didn't struggle further apart from panting and a slight chest pain. He ignored any potential explanation and climbed over the catwalk. He took time to rest and think, then he peeked over the barrier to stare at the water, until he spotted the creature swim just under the surface. Suddenly the creature stopped and turned to face him.
It seemed like she was looking at him and exchanging gaze. Then she dived again and disappeared. Tanned Boy felt that warm attraction to the voice from earlier and without thinking he vaulted over the barrier and jumped in the water. Disoriented he looked around but then the creature appeared in all her glory in front of him. She really looked like a girl with long black hair, naked and fit, agile like he had never seen anyone, with black eyes staring at him with enchanting intensity. The creature suddenly turned around and dived in the abyss. Tanned Boy followed her hastily without noticing that the cargo hold lights came on, revealing the bottom of the hold with crates and floating stuff, and let the creature lead him in front of a large submerged blast gate.
He then realized the lights were on and a red panel next to the door. The panel was offering Tanned Boy an inviting lever that he didn't hesitate to pull. He swam in front of the gate and was satisfied to watch the gate starting to slide open. At first nothing much was happening, but then he was suddenly sucked inside and shoved on the floor in the new atrium.
The gate closed again hastily only mildly flooding the large room. Tanned Boy found composure and stood back up. He noticed the alarm had been turned off and the lights returned to normal. The atrium was large but empty.
It wasn't in fact a room at all.
It was literally a glass tank hold. Three of the four walls were in reinforced glass. Both on the left side and right side beyond the glass were thugs in black coats with hounds on leash and children in hand, and thugs in white coats admiring as if he were a monument, stuck to the glass, incapable of remaining seated to the chairs that had been prepared orderly in first row for the occasion.
He turned to look right ahead of him and was breathless. Shocked.
Beyond the glass in front of him was another smaller tank with a female creature, crucified against the wall, secured by mechanical restraints and a complex machine that both served to hold her in place and support the multitude of sensors and devices hooked up to her chimeric body. The creature's superior half was that of a woman, while the inferior was that of a fish, with a long scaled tail hanging down. The creature's head was also hanging down apparently lifeless, but Tanned Boy was convinced the creature couldn't be dead as he could feel her emanating a strong energy that warmed his heart.
He approached slowly, already uncaring of the thugs watching his every move, and when he was at a step away from the glass he rested a hand on it. The attraction to the creature was so strong to will him to cross beyond the glass.
At that moment the creature lifted her head, and stared at Tanned Boy, making him uneasy.
Tanned Boy noticed commotion amongst the scientists left and right. If they were fascinated now more were coming from other stairs and hatches, going through chairs and desks clumsily, to witness the scene as if it were the event of the year.
Tanned Boy felt weird. Nauseated.
That voice from earlier entered in his head, hypnotizing him. He couldn't focus anymore neither on the creature nor the scientists, on nothing real, so he sat down and grabbed his head fearing it could fall off his neck.
The thugs turned the lights on full power in the tank and opened the gate gradually, flooding the tank. Tanned Boy got swept by the water that squeezed him against the glass wall separating him from the creature. He found himself again looking at her in the eyes, and the chanting in his head proceeded undisturbed, sending him further into confusion.
When the tank was fully flooded Tanned Boy remained floating near the ceiling. He noticed a ventilation shaft letting out the few last remains of air, and then it closed, as did the gate. Tanned Boy let anger and shame engulf him, now that he had got used to the situation. He watched them enraged as they admired him, studied him, took notes in their notebooks. One of the thugs handled a large videocamera pointed at him. Tanned Boy noticed instead there were other cameras pointed at the creature vat.
At some point he heard a large rumble.
He turned to look and noticed the creature breaking the mechanical restraint in a flash of energy. Her hair engulfed her like a cocoon, then her tail swatted the water and she dashed towards the glass wall, towards Tanned Boy, who remained helpless and terrified.
The creature stuck to the glass and slowly sank towards the bottom, then grabbed a device that was letting out bubbles. She used all her strength and gradually managed to unhinge the panel off thus breaking the glass wall. Tanned Boy got scared and swam the opposite way, but he knew he was trapped, so he stopped in a corner and turned to observe with desperate eyes as the creature stopped in front of him to welcome him with open arms.
Tanned Boy closed his eyes.
The sensation of motherly warmth. The chant of an angelic voice that was lulling him.
Everything got dark.
The creature returned to her vat, lifted the device from earlier and threw it against the left side glass wall, breaking it. A water jet invaded the world of scientists, sending them panicking and flooding their offices and their observation posts. The creature waited with determination, hanging firmly at the bottom of the vat, that the water level was high enough to venture amongst floating desks and thugs swimming in panic. She grabbed them one by one, drowning them, at least those that weren't quick enough to escape. Then she reached a red control panel and activated the lever there and the gate gradually opened, increasing the water flow. In a scream of vengeance the creature ventured in the bowels of the ship then, swimming ominously. She was free to move around. She swam hastily amongst floating desks and corpses of thugs, looking for ways out or other thugs to drown.
Suddenly something shook the ship violently.
The creature didn't care about that, rising corridors and hatches left irresponsibly open, while the ship was being torn and pushed on its side. The alarm was turned back on. This time it seemed it was serious. The thugs fled in panic and ignored the prisoners. Those lucky enough to not be locked inside cells when the alarm came on fled instantly and jumped off ship in the water at their first chance.
The creature meanwhile rose the stairwells that were flooding, infiltrating like a shark that had found the passage to its prey. And of prey the creature found aplenty - thugs pulling levers and carrying baggage important enough to them to risk drowning in the strong current. The creature drowned them one by one.
In one of the cells, some children became terrified when the water started sipping through that ventilation shaft that hours earlier they tried to use as escape route. Now it was part of a wall as the ship fell on its side. Water quickly hugged the kids' ankles, rising their legs, until it submerged them. Blond Boy was with them, after being sent back there, and he turned towards the door feeling an omen of hope. He got closer, while the others already cried desperately hugging each other waiting to die. Blond Boy stayed hopeful until the end, and when the water engulfed him, leaving him enough time to catch his last breath, the door opened.
It was the small long-haired girl.
Blond Boy found her in front of him and remained bamboozled. The creature trained her abyssal eyes on him and then swam away in the corridor so fast it was scary. Blond Boy tried to go after her but immediately decided to encourage his companions to follow him.
Meanwhile the ship was resting on her side and started to capsize altogether.
Blond Boy followed the long-haired girl's path. She was moving too fast for him, but he found her waiting for him at a flight of stairs. He noticed the waves cresting and the bubbles bursting on the surface against the barrier and found the strength to get a move on and swim faster, managing to emerge again. It was a relief at first, but soon he worried to look back to see if his companions made it.
One. Two. Three kids. One missing to the count. They looked at each other. Then Blond Boy, that unlike the others had caught his breath, took in air and dived in bravely. He swam along the corridor and found his companion half-way as he struggled between life and death, unable to proceed. Blond Boy held his hand out and accompanied him along the corridor until they emerged.
The ship had capsized completely. Only the keel was over the surface now.
After a violent underwater explosion, the alarm stopped and the lights died, leaving the cargo vessel in the dark for a few seconds. The emergency lights came on, but only the ones above the water level. Underwater it became a mysterious world engulfed in darkness.
The kids were trapped. The small long-haired girl was gone and they had no choice but to go "down" to the hull, and therefore climb up, to escape the rising water. They proceeded already tired and scared, but they couldn't give up now. They came across a group of thugs with their own kids along in a flooded corridor. They all stopped to look at one another. There was no time to waste as the water rushed to them and rose in level. The group of thugs moved to climb the ramp of the floor of stairwell but their leader suddenly was pulled underwater. The others remained petrified. Then they all panicked as they were being drowned one after the other. The fugitive children observed the scene terrified, feeling trapped again. The creature was moving like a shark in the half-submerged corridor, her fish-tail was swatting the water and at times they could see her arms grabbing prey and down he went, he was pulled down the flight of stairs. Of the thugs only their kids were spared. Of the creature only her tail they saw disappearing in the dark waters.
Then, with rancor, the fugitives welcomed the thug children in their escape party. Everywhere they went were floating thug bodies.
At last, walking a corridor, they came across a hull breach. It was dipping on a series of puddles on the floor, which had surely been flooded earlier, as the water drained elsewhere, but it would come back eventually. The kids wondered at the breach, whatever caused it. Blond Boy's eyes were tearing. A smile was brightening up his face, then it faded and made room for a frown of sadness and remorse.
Aboard the lifeboat the three surviving scientists and and a thug in a coat with his child protested at the arrival of the bunch of new kids, but they were all relieved they had escaped the sinking and the homicidal fury of the mysterious creature. They were traumatized and tired, with their only thought left of seeing safety appear over the horizon, whatever it may be, a ship, or absolution.
Blond Boy was lost watching the sea. The dawn was brightening the sky, taking room away from the stars, and revealed the vastness of the ocean in its glory and melancholy.
There was nothing left.
Even the debris of the ship had sank. There was just a placid and clear mirror. Blond Boy lost a tear. One of his companions rested an arm over his shoulders, pulling Blond Boy closer so her could cry, watching the sea as it became day.
They were saved by a Destroyer marked 453.
On the main deck of the warship, Blond Boy and the others were given heavy blankets and welcomed with warm soup. The thugs were arrested and pulled inside.
During the sail back, Blond Boy didn't stop watching the sea, and it became a personal pilgrimage to return on the shores of the ocean to spend a few minutes of reflection and grief.
HE was watching the waves impact the rocks with the same ferocity echoing in his mind. Violence behind him. What fascinated him was the calm between each wave. The water cleared and the seabed appeared, with its inhabitants, seaweed, anemones, fish, crabs, urchins... Then another wave would come and that small world exploded in a whirl of foam. It repeated to infinity.
Only this way he could find peace.
THE END