Chapter 33: High Seas

The stench of corpses was something Dan was long used to. Whether it be animal, monster, friend, or foe, all dead carcasses smelled the same to him. The smell wasn’t quite rotten, but it wasn’t pleasant either. It tickled his nostrils, forcing upon him repressed memories of dead miners and rancid living amalgamation of flesh.

Dan’s chest squeezed at the thought of the hunks of meat he ate while within the cave, the taste dancing around his mouth like a vile aftertaste. As he walked through the bloody waste on the upper deck, his stomach rumbled as intrusive thoughts invaded. His head, his shattered mind, told him to gather the dead, to harvest what he would need to survive.

As chunks of reconstituted scrambled eggs splattered across his boots, Dan touched his cores to feel anything other than ill will.

Warmth and cold twisted within his heart, pushing away meager intrusive ideas of madness. Without a struggle for survival, the last two weeks had been something of a crisis for Dan. There was no problem, no work to be done. He didn’t have to intimidate to get food, he didn’t have to watch his back for ambushes or hidden threats.

Dan had free time for the first time in a long time, something that brought long buried emotions and thoughts to the forefront. Sully, both old and young, the high priest, Golden Robes, and the god below the Blood Rains each made daily appearances as his mind wandered. But they were all weak emotional crutches, ones that reminded him of life before.

He needed to move on.

“The tents will be fixed in a minute. I suggest you stay out of the way,” Aisha said with cold dead eyes. Her gaze magnetized to the deck, to the pools of her comrades' blood.

Dan pushed down his vomit, catching the Troop Leader’s gaze. She shuddered with a sterilizing grimace, one that reminded her just what she was speaking to. “I could have saved them all,” he spoke equally coldly but with unbounded rage.

“Orders are orders. You agreed, did you not?” Aisha’s hand twitched to her side piece, the only weapon she still carried.

Dan scoffed, “Yes, I did. But I’m thinking that we need to renegotiate. Because this,” he gestured around to the team in hazmat suits, scraping viscera from the wooden flooring. “is not going to work. Sooner or later it’s going to be your insides that someone is cleaning up.”

Aisha didn’t speak for a long time, not that she had to. Both knew Dan was right, but both also knew what his presence truly meant for humankind. One way or another both parties needed each other, whether it be for survival or advancement, Dan just so happened to have less leverage than the Association.

The hidden organization well within the shadows had power, and not just militaristic. Commandeering a United States Navy vessel was one thing, having a crew that made said Navy look like day sailors was another. At least, the ship’s Commander seemed to think so.

When Dan and the Commander  first met, the very day the USS Herald picked up the vagabond human and his entourage of alien species, it was made abundantly clear Dan was nothing more than important cargo.

“If you fail to respect our rules, well, let us just say we know where your family lives,” the Commander had said.

Eventually Aisha grunted, walking back into the depths of the cruiser and leaving Dan alone to his thoughts. A presence appearing to his side a few minutes later pulled him from his stupor. Shadow, as Dan had named the soldier in his head, stood in bloodied armor with swaying posture.

“You alright?” Dan asked, pushing out his hand and calling upon his core. He stopped, dropping his arm in the same way his expression fell. “Sorry, I can’t. Not anymore.”

Shadow nodded, blinking slowly. “Thank you, and I’m sorry.”

Dan twisted his chin at the man, both staring at each other. “What do you mean?”

The man broke his gaze first, clenching his fist as his whole body trembled. Through heaved breaths he spoke, “I defied orders and allowed you to act. You will receive punishment for my actions.”

Slowly and with enough subtlety to sneak up on a cat, Dan allowed his eyes to drift. He looked past Shadow, past the piles of bodies, past the dyed deck, and up two floors to the ship’s bridge. There, through the tinted windows overlooking the main deck, he saw a dark outline looking back at him.

Dan increased his cores’ strength, pushing both to the maximum for a fleeting second. Shadow, standing by him, felt the effects almost instantly while the others on the deck a moment later. They wobbled and paled, headaches starting to form as shards of glass sliced through their minds. The figure in the window, however, only turned away having seen enough.

“Don’t apologize to me, Shadow,” Dan said as he turned towards his people. “Apologize to the families of those who died. They matter more than me.”

It took Shadow a moment to grab his bearings but eventually the man fell in line behind his mark, acting as his namesake once again. Dan ignored this, pushing forward through the harsh stares of the other soldiers. He kept his head high despite the tingling down and across his neck and spine. He kept his legs limber and his arms relaxed, always ready, always waiting for someone to make the first move.

This place is vile, Dan thought to himself as he pushed into what was left of the clear tents. Shadow waited by the zipper entrance, not crossing into The Stolen’s territory.

“They look at us like you did,” Zesmic snarled in camp speak, her more alien features on prominent display.

“With kinship?” Dan asked, his tone trying to hide the true emotions he felt.

Zesmic shook her head and  retracted her claws. “They do not want us here.”

“They just lost some people, they have every right to be mad,” Dan nodded to the tinted windows of the bridge. “If you want to be mad at someone, be mad at the Commander. We’d already be on Earth if I was in charge.”

One of the other Stolen, Uson, spoke up, “Would being on Earth make any difference? You said your people would be better than the cultists.”

Dan hummed as he looked between Zesmic and Uson. They were both from the same original world, both taken without remorse or revenge. While from different tribes, both shared certain identifiable aspects. Both were equally tall with ill proportionate arms and legs. Uson’s knuckles dragged against the ground, often snagging against objects. Zesmic’s hands only reached her knees, although her skin was significantly smoother, almost like a snake’s.

The two had become the main speakers of The Stolen, often coming to Dan with issues or concerns.

“I hope so,” Dan replied, before his face darkened. “If not, I will make sure the entire world knows about our treatment. We all are in this together, I’m not going to roll over either.”

“The entire world?” Zesmic echoed. “Is that even possible?”

Dan smiled, allowing his core to bubble into a confident glow. “I’m sure I could get the whole world speaking of us rather easily. All it would take is a few public appearances of magic to get things spinning.”

Shadow, who was eavesdropping, stiffened, but refrained from reporting the threat.

“Once the Association decides we are not a threat, then we will-“

Screams broke Dan from his conversation. He spun on his heel, eyes darting for threats. A woman, human and covered with padded armor, was on her knees with her head clutched in her hands. Blood gushed from every hole on her face, turning her vision red. She howled in deathly chatter, her voice speaking over itself in otherworldly whispers.

English twisted over the languages of the camp, each redoubling the cries' effect. She screeched of pain, of death, of agonizing revenge, eventually clawing at her throat as a means to an end. Those near tried to intervene but she shook them off with inhuman strength, sending them sprawling across the deck.

With one last feral roar, the woman opened her mouth to the heavens allowing the darkness within her a path out. It grew like a mangled bush, breaching through her tongue and teeth before misting out across the deck. She fell forward as the power relented, smashing against the wooden paneling like an anvil.

Dan scanned the downed woman for the cause, finding it in the form of a single worm-like tentacle of pure mania. He swallowed as a presence of hatred and resentment fluttered to life above the woman. For a single second the world changed for Dan, returning him to the belly of the beast, to the stomach of the god below the Blood Rains.

The ship turned wet and rancid, skin and bone jutted from the metal and wood, apparitions of hulking monsters walked through the dim glow pooled saliva. A young alien man, one distant yet familiar, stood over the woman as her  body twisted and contorted with the madness. Bones broke, organs grew and rearranged, she let out a low growl, one of loathing venom.

Then Sully the younger disappeared, returning the ship to its rightful existence. Dan narrowed his eyes on the woman, watching the worm of madness burrow deeper and deeper. It conjoined with her spin, animating her muscles like a horrible ventriloquist.

She slammed her hands onto the deck, breaking the wooden board into hundreds of splinters. Wood jutted from his melting skin but no pain arose, instead the madness stretched its new host, feeling its life rebalance into a new design. The transformation completed with a silent motion, one of last rites and a grand finale.

She pulled her rifle, taking aim at the very human that brought upon the apocalypse. Her past thoughts fueled the madness, taking her one step past lost. She squeezed, unleashing a volley of lead.

Magic came into golden life from Dan’s outstretched palm, flooding to life like a spotlight in the middle of the desert. The light flattened and stretched, bending around him and those he gave his word to protect. The bullets flatted against the magical construct, turning into nothing but pancaked slugs of hot metal. They dropped to the floor, falling in outshined silence as Shadow emptied his pistol’s magazine into the woman.

The madness continued to squeeze her trigger even after every bullet was fired. Blood leaked from twelve new holes spread between her chest and forehead, eventually causing her collapse. Laying on the ground, the woman seized with a dying throe, the monstrous life within her eyes fading.

Only round eyes and shocked silence permeated the dark night aboard the USS Herald, only those nearby stared at the young man who caused such destruction. Dan, lowering his magic, met the hate filled eyes of everything on the deck. Some looked away with fear of nausea or a crackling brain, others, those that knew the deceased, looked back.

One woman in particular, the only soldier to brave the scene of murder, stared at Dan until her eyes bled. Clutching her dead friend, she cursed at Dan through the clear bullet ridden tent.

“She said you would bring the apocalypse and look at what happened!” the new woman gestured around to the piles of corpses yet to be snugly tucked into body bags, although her tears were obviously for the newest of the dead. “You will get us all killed!”

Dan glanced at Shadow, who was eyeing his kill with a difficult expression as his black ski mask hid his more delicate features. The man, however, was obviously distressed, his unloaded gun still smoking within his gloved hand.

“Thank you,” Dan whispered to his handler, slowly pressing his palm into the barrel of the gun.

Shadow regained his composure in that moment, masking his fears with enough power from his core for even Dan to feel. He nodded to his mark, ejecting the magazine from his pistol and reloading a new one. The movements were crisp and practiced, only the slight shake of his hands enough to cause what would be perfect muscle memory to fail.

Finally, Dan looked at the woman who desperately tried to hold onto the last moments with her friend. It was strange to him, seeing someone grieve for another. At the camp or within the mine, the situation was almost nonexistent, the only example he could think of being his own with Sully. Should he feel guilty? Should he feel remorse? He didn’t care for either woman, just like those he killed within the camp – those affected by the madness in the same way.

Did the situation change because they were human? Dan wanted to answer no, but also knew that he’d change if he did.

“Shadow,” he spoke. “Tell the Commander the madness reached the boat. You all are in real danger.”

At first Dan thought his statement fell on deaf ears, but with his evolved hearing he heard an undesirable buzz from Shadow’s earpiece, one full of chatter and fear.

Giving one last look to the deck full of dead bodies, Dan returned to The Stolen, finding a seat among his freed family. A few tried to speak to him, mainly  Zesmic and Uson, but he ignored them for the most part. His mind was elsewhere while his eyes looked on to the cleaners squeegeeing blood.

The back of his neck prickled at some point a few hours later, causing his attention to be drawn to the tinted windows of the bridge. He stared back at whoever watched him even after the ship changed course with a lopsided U-turn.

Once the ship straightened out, the ship’s PA speaker system flipped on. There was a piercing hum for a moment before a cold deep voice spoke. Dan recognized the speaker instantly as it was the man who held the reigns of his future.

“We have sustained significant structural damage with the latest monster insurgence,” the Commander spoke. “We will be returning to base Alpha at once. Estimated arrival is twelve days. Prepare for more attacks, they will come.”

The speakers went dead, forcing a loud curse from Dan’s mouth. “No statement about those that died today?” he asked to no one in particular, causing plenty of heads to turn and shoulders to slump – including the statue-like Shadow.

It wasn’t long before Aisha returned and started asking questions about the freshly killed woman. She spoke to Shadow with a hushed voice, she asked those nearby to recount the events. Eventually she spoke to Dan and the other Stolen, focusing intently on Dan’s unauthorized uses of magic.

“Two separate events where you used the power of your core,” Aisha spoke.

“The first I was, and the second was in self-“

“Both were without orders from Commander,” she spoke over. “Regardless of reasoning, you acted without express allowance. For that you will be punished under the rules set when you and the other Stolen boarded the USS Herald.”

Dan rolled his eyes. “The first was with what I understood to be orders from the Commander. The second was in self-defense, something I expressly told you and your troop about when we first met.”

Aisha looked at Shadow through the corner of her eye. “No one has reported they gave you permission the first time, while every witness here, except for those of The Stolen, say you were in no danger the second time.”

There was something in the Troop Leader’s eye, something that told Dan more than her words ever could. She was begging him not to resist, that her hands were tied, that he would always be in the wrong here.

He smiled and thought to himself, Guess that means I can be more lax with the rules. Until they start the real threats, that is.

“What is my punishment,” Dan asked aloud.

“Three days in solitary,” Aisha replied.

This time Dan did frown. “What? I can’t leave these guys.” He gestured behind himself to The Stolen before nodding to where the woman fell to madness. “We both know that you all can’t be trusted.”

“Don’t worry, you will still be on the main deck. Just within a separate tent. You are also expected to continue to help the linguist and the doctors.”

Dan stood from his seat, rising just above Aisha. She kept her eyes down, staring into his chest while he bore his into her scalp. “Fine,” he said as he forced his more powerful light core to ignite. His irises turned a soft gold as he amplified the pressure on the soldier before him.

Aisha trembled in broken fear, completely surrendering herself to the beast before her. She tried to move, even as Shadow attempted to intervene. It was a gloved hand she felt, a rope that she pulled against to bring herself to the surface of lucidity. Her fingers twitched as cognitive function returned to her, only for a sharp pain to erupt from her forehead and deep into her brain.

The softness in Dan’s eyes hardened and redoubled, blocking the two in front of him from ever reaching the surface. Low brass blazed within the trios’ ears, each forced to listen to the tune of Dan’s power. Their heartbeats matched rhythm with the kick of the drums while their lungs burned in high pitched agony.

Then the pain stopped, leaving Dan the only one able bodied. He sat back down, looking to those navigating the main deck. None looked to him, Shadow, or Aisha, all too absorbed with their own tasks to notice the localized torture.

“Add core and mental training to my docket during isolation as well,” Dan said. “You two both failed during my attack just now, and it was half the strength of those monsters earlier.”

Aisha snarled as she wiped the blood from her nose. “Fine,” she spat.

Shadow only nodded, returning to his post just outside the clear tent.

After nearly twelve full twenty-four hour cycles, the USS Herald eventually found its way back to a purple shimmer hovering silently just above the water’s grasp. No monster attack plagued the ship, although two more madness episodes did. The total lives lost after rescuing Dan and the other Stolen amounted to forty eight.

As the ship traveled through the purple boundary leading back to Earth, Sully appeared beside Dan. Together they opened themselves to the unknown, allowing their bodies and minds to experience the magic that started everything.

Passing the boundary left Dan with more questions than answers. His vision went dark, his senses muted. He felt power beyond his understanding while also feeling larger than life. He trembled at the sensation while also standing tall. He looked to Sully, seeing something without appearance.

Sully the old looked nothing like his elderly persona and instead was an intricate wire mess of powerful blue strands. The strands condensed and spread through a rough form of a humanoid body, allowing emotions to shine through despite having no real face.

He smiled at Dan, pulling hundreds of strands to do so. “B’hithazad is waking. The high priest has been enlightened.”

Purple washed over Dan as his eyes widened, but a harsh bright light forced him to guard his face. He forced himself to absorb the pain, finding the spot where Sully had been was empty. Warmth invaded his cheeks while a salty breeze tickled his hair. He looked around, finding the sun and the ever familiar steel jungle of the Hybrine Drilling oil rig.

He was home.