Chapter 27
Rain and Fire Part 3
"That thing sure is loud..." murmured the officer, his voice rough, almost broken. His red, swollen eyes kept reflecting the glow of the burning hall.
The heat mixed with the rain, generating a suffocating steam that swirled in the air. The officer narrowed his eyes.
I need to get out of here before the other monster emerges, he thought, with a shudder that didn't come from the cold.
He pivoted on his heels, turning around to observe the deck.
"But where do I go?"
The thought repeated like a drum in his head.
"If I want to go down, I have to go around this part of the ship… and going back in the way I came out isn't an option."
He frowned, evaluating the routes through the storm. Then, something caught his attention amidst his observations.
A different detail he hadn't noticed until now.
His gaze fixed on it instantly.
What had caught his attention was right under his boots, stretching across the deck like a scar.
It was a spiral.
The wood, twisted unnaturally, curved in on itself until it formed a perfect vortex.
But the most unsettling thing wasn't the geometry: it was the colors.
The floor, which should have been brown, exhibited impossible hues, like veins oscillating between oxidized greens, faded purples, and a deep black that absorbed the light.
The strangest thing: despite the torsion, the surface was intact. No broken planks, no cracks.
A shiver ran down the officer's spine. He didn't recognize this phenomenon, and the fact that he—a seasoned former adventurer hardened by horrors—couldn't identify it, unsettled him even more.
Even so, he approached. Cautious, but hurried, because the roar of the burning hall kept devouring valuable seconds of his attention.
He advanced, measuring each step, the green gauntlets vibrating softly with every movement. His eyes went back and forth: from the spiral on the floor, to the flames inside the hall.
A constant vigilance, as if any angle could hide a new threat.
"Wait..." whispered the officer, stopping dead in his tracks.
His gaze returned to the spiral, and suddenly, an uncomfortable idea slipped into his mind. The exact location… was too close to the spot where he had fallen moments earlier.
A knot formed in his stomach. Conscious of what that coincidence could mean, he began to turn his head in every direction. His eyes, still red, tracked every corner of the deck in the rain.
"Where is Laios?"
The thought pierced him like a stab.
He turned to the left. Nothing.
He turned to the right. Empty.
He searched among the debris, among the shadows cast by the flames from the hall… and he couldn't find him.
He stood frozen.
"He's… not here?" he muttered, and for an instant his voice sounded broken, disbelieving.
His inner silence shattered in a second. His reaction changed: muscles tense, jaw clenched, breath held.
Slowly, almost with fear, he turned his face back towards the spiral.
"Don't tell me..." he thought, his throat dry. "Impossible… right?"
Fwoooosh!
An incandescent roar erupted from what was once a door frame. A wave of fire burst outward like a raging torrent, spreading in an arc that licked the deck.
The wet planks, soaked by the storm for hours, dried instantly under the fiery wave. For a second, they sizzled like freshly lit embers… until the rain punished them again, in a cycle of fire and water devouring each other.
The officer barely had time to react. The shock of the spiral and Laios's absence had left him vulnerable.
He didn't manage to dodge, only to raise his arms.
The heat wave hit him full force.
He felt the moisture on his body evaporate in a second, how the soaked fabric of his uniform crackled as it dried on his skin. The burning sensation was immediate, though it didn't scorch him; it enveloped him in a dome of suffocation, stealing his breath.
He coughed, staggering a step back, and looked up with narrowed eyes.
There it was.
Framed by the flames, just a few steps from crossing the opening, the eight-limbed monster stood tall. Its silhouette was a living nightmare. The fire illuminated its figure from behind, as if hell itself had brought it to the surface.
And it was about to come out.
The officer slowly lowered his arms, which he had instinctively raised to shield himself from the fire wave. The rain soaked him again instantly, streaming down his forehead and shoulders, returning him to the storm.
He blinked, clearing his vision, and then he saw it clearly: the monster.
The beast advanced with unbearable calm. Its right leg rose, heavy, and settled with a dull crunch against the deck planks.
The officer stared fixedly, without blinking, but his mind had no room for strategy or fury. Only one question consumed him.
"Laios…?"
Fwoooosh!
The second step released another wave of fire, even more brutal than the first. This time, the ambient moisture was less; the water accumulated on the deck had already evaporated. The result was different: the tongue of flame not only burned the air but transformed it into a thick wall of steam.
Heat and rain clashed, and from nowhere a white wall rose between them.
The officer took a step back, the gauntlets still vibrating on his arms, as the steam enveloped him completely. His vision dissolved: there was no possible angle, neither for him nor for the creature, from which they could see each other now.
The storm had drawn a veil between hunter and prey.
A second… it took him not even a second to react.
The officer gritted his teeth and, without thinking, repeated the same process he had used on his arms. The green energy crackled under the storm and descended to his legs. From the scorched soles of his boots, it traveled up his calves and solidified up to his knees.
The result: boots of green, translucent, angular geometries, fitted over his body.
Each facet vibrated with internal light, each edge seemed ready to withstand impact.
His feet were firm on the deck. For a second he remained motionless, inhaling. Then, suddenly, both legs twisted to the right in a precise movement.
Crrrk!
The floor creaked violently under the pressure. The planks sank a few centimeters, unable to withstand all the energy compressed in that single instant.
And then, he burst into a run.
He ran.
The officer launched himself at full speed, taking advantage of the dense wall of steam enveloping him like a cloak. His green boots sank and struck the deck with a brutal cadence, each footstep kicking up droplets and splinters left behind.
Fwoooosh!
Another wave of fire erupted behind him. This one also raised more steam, thickening the fog even further until it became a white maze. Heat and humidity mixed in a whirlwind that completely hid his silhouette, protecting him as much as it suffocated him.
There's another way to get back inside, he thought, his eyes fixed on his goal as he dodged burnt remains and loose planks. His memory activated like a spark:
"—When I was hanging outside, I saw dozens of those monsters climbing and entering through gaps, cuts in the ship's hull…"
That crucial information marked his path now.
He ran… and ran… and ran. His breathing became a contained roar, the gauntlets gleaming, the boots vibrating with each push.
The edge of the ship was there now, just meters away, darkened by the rain and steam. Beyond, only the night and the raging sea.
But he had a clear goal.
He would jump.
Pum!
The roar made him turn immediately. The officer raised his arms by instinct, gauntlets ready to repel whatever came.
But what he saw bewildered him.
For an instant, he thought he could make out a faint but dangerous orange light, expanding within the wall of steam. At the same time, he felt the moisture on his skin disappear. It wasn't just heat: the rain that had been hitting him seconds before was evaporating on contact with his face.
In less than a blink, the thick wall of steam that had covered him dissipated. The white curtain tore apart like smoke swept away by a gale, revealing the bare deck under the storm once more.
The officer frowned, incredulous.
What is… it doing?
And then he saw it clearly: the monster, still in the fiery threshold, held two of its arms together, palms against palms, as if it were applauding silently.
"It… applauded?" he managed to think, confused.
The bewilderment barely gave him time to process what followed: a sudden burning sensation ran across his face, as if his skin itself was being torn from the inside out.
It burned!
The burning pierced him so fast, so surprising, that he didn't even have time to tense up to resist it. There was no preparation, no defense: just a searing pain that ravaged him like lightning.
The officer lost his balance instantly.
He fell sideways onto the deck, his gauntlets scraping the wood. His body bounced and rolled, hitting the wet planks before spinning once more, until he stopped just a meter from where he had been standing.
A guttural groan escaped his throat. The pain still devoured his face, a burning that seemed to ignite from within.
The rain hit him again, soaking him. He closed his eyes, panting, waiting for the cool relief…
"?"
But it wasn't cool.
He opened his eyelids in confusion. The water falling on him wasn't soothing the pain.
"Warm…?" he murmured, his breath ragged.
The chill was immediate.
"It's… warm?" he repeated to himself, his voice hoarse.
The officer reacted immediately, driven by the urgency of instinct.
He got up as fast as he could, though his movements were clumsy.
He ended up supported on one knee, breathing heavily.
He lifted his face upwards, letting the drops hit him directly. He felt them trickle down his still-burning skin… and no, it wasn't a mistake of his perception.
It was warm.
Disbelief was reflected in his wide-open eyes.
"Seriously…?" he whispered, unable to contain the mix of surprise and distrust.
And then he saw it.
The stormy sky, that gray laden with clouds and lightning that had roared all night, was no longer there. In its place, what stretched out was an immense cloud of white steam, so dense and vast it occupied the observable sky.
It wasn't a passing veil, it wasn't smoke. It was a new sky that had imposed itself over the real one. And from that thick, suffocating mass descended the drops that soaked him: constant, warm rain.
The officer felt a shudder deeper than the pain itself run down his back.
The only thing that gave him certainty that he wasn't confused—that it wasn't fog or an illusion—was the horizon.
He turned his head and saw it clearly.
Two skies.
On one side, the white steam cloud, colossal, stretching out like an ocean in the air until it was lost not far from the ship. On the other, separated by a clear boundary, the stormy gray sky still roared with its lightning and icy rain.
It was absurd. Unnatural. And yet, he was seeing it with his own eyes.
The officer turned sharply, his heart pounding in his chest. The shock had left him breathless, and without thinking he ended up turning his back to the monster.
Fwoooosh!
The roar erupted behind him again, but this time it was different: more concentrated, more violent. The officer barely had time to think when he saw it.
"—Fireballs!?" escaped his lips, incredulous.
He reacted as fast as he could. He crossed one arm in front of his face and flexed both legs, closing his stance like a human shield. At the same time, he pressed his right palm against the soaked floor.
The green energy responded immediately.
Chssk!
A translucent cube began to rise around him, enveloping him like an improvised shell. But the urgency was too great, and the time, minimal.
The cube didn't manage to expand fully. The edges were half-formed, the faces vibrated like thin glass about to shatter. Neither the size nor the density was adequate: it was nothing more than a weak refuge, raised in desperation.
And in the air, the fireball descended, roaring like a miniature meteor.
BOOOM!
The fireball impacted squarely against the green cube. There was no real resistance: the structure shattered in an explosion of sparks and translucent fragments, destroyed like fragile glass under a hammer blow.
The officer barely felt the impact before the explosion enveloped him completely. The shockwave lifted him from the ground like a doll and threw him backward at an atrocious speed.
CRAAASH!
His back slammed against the ship's edge, the reinforced metal of the hull groaned and dented under the impact. The sound resonated like a muffled thunderclap, vibrating even in the structure's nails.
The officer was left there, hunched over, arms wide, the air torn from his lungs. Steam emerged from his body, escaping from every pore, as if he had been boiled from the inside.
The pieces of green armor covering him creaked, shattering into dozens of geometric fragments that dissolved in the air. Each piece crackled for a moment before disintegrating, leaving him without any defense.
The smell of burnt wood, hot metal, and sweaty flesh enveloped everything.
The explosion hadn't just hit him: it had transformed the surroundings.
More steam rose, thickening in waves that covered the entire deck. In seconds, everything around him was wrapped in a suffocating haze. Sight was useless: neither the ship's silhouette, nor the glow of the flames, nothing pierced that white curtain.
The officer gasped, still hunched against the edge. The air burned his lungs and every breath raised a cloud of steam from his own body.
Then he felt it: the cold, dented metal in his back.
He moved his left hand tentatively and felt the twisted surface with his fingers. The ship's edge was there, bent inward by the impact of his body. His fingers followed the curve until they found the limit: a metallic edge, wet, separating him from the void and the raging sea beyond.
The officer swallowed air forcefully, but found it thick, hot, polluted by that warm rain falling relentlessly. He coughed once, his chest burning, and immediately braced both legs against the dented edge.
His muscles tensed.
With a brief grunt, he pushed himself backward.
The movement was sharp, decisive, almost desperate: he wasn't seeking balance or grace, only escape.
His body passed over the twisted edge and he let himself fall like a diver abandoning the surface.
For an instant, everything stopped.
The steam remained above, the storm roared on high, and he fell backward into the darkness of the raging sea. The warm rain mixed with the cold wind whipping him in the fall, creating an unreal sensation, as if the world had fractured in two.