By Samantha Gordon
They both clamped their shaking hands over their mouths and stomach as nausea built up a wave of blurred vision and dizziness with every surge of the ground. Suddenly the decision to sneak into the hull of an enemy ship as it departed to report the destruction of everything they stood for, seemed like a laughably bad idea. They weren’t exactly ready for the unforgivable and lurching nature of ocean travel; the closest thing being paddling lightly through oases and shallow rivers as relief from the scorching heat. A loud battering and strong smell of decay made Olivia jump to attention searching for the source through dazed and frantic eyes. Just as she found the spot water exploded into the hull, weighing the floor into a slant and throwing Noah tumbling onto his feet and Olivia scrambling to keep her balance.
In front of them a figure stepped out from the crack in the wood, it was hunched and unsteady dripping water into the flooding deck. The creature could hardly be considered human, pale blue skin clung tightly to sharp sleek bones, tearing at the ribs revealing stained bones dripping with stringy black blood that failed to hide a completely hollow chest. The creature had no heart, only a pale ragged blue crystal suspended in strings of inky blood. Transparent fins were twitching at every joint, a group of them were clustered on its head, like layered hair, concealing its eyes with only sharp ears and a gross toothy grin that split its face visible. Its thin claw-like hand twisted backwards slamming its hand into the water, the water obeyed smoothly leaving the deck dry and filtering back out the ship in one smooth motion. Olivia and Noah’s breath caught in their throat, desperation and fear in the air. It stood straight re-adjusting the fabric tied round its waist and snapped its head up, two deep and hollow black eyes stared at them, the faint shine reflected in them its only pupils as its grin widened impossibly further.
Noah fell back with a thump that caught the corpse-like figures’ attention and it began to lumber forward, growing more confident in its stride with each step it took. Even with its eagerness it seemed to struggle, its body looking as if it was being dragged harshly and its breaths were strained and raspy forcing its hollow chest into jerked heavy heaves and wet pants from its jaw. Noah sat wide eyed and frozen in place. Olivia grabbed at the ground blindly before picking up a cracked and rusty telescope, she gulped, she wasn’t exactly confident in this as her weapon of choice. Instead she smashed it against the ground, the weak metal shattering as the mechanisms flew apart. The creature stopped abruptly licking its lips and turning away from Noah and scanned the area where the noise could have come from and turned to her grinning. Olivia matched the grin with a smirk filled with satisfaction and pride, her confidence returning.