Chapter 27
Rain and Fire Part 3
"That thing really screams…" 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 leave before the other monster comes out, he thought, with a chill 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 where I came out isn't an option."
He frowned, evaluating the routes under the storm. Then, something caught his attention during his observations.
A different detail he hadn't noticed until now.
His gaze fixed on it instantly.
What caught his attention was right under his boots, stretching like a scar across the deck.
It was a spiral.
The wood, twisted unnaturally, curved upon itself to form a perfect vortex.
But the most unsettling thing wasn't the geometry: it was the colors.
The floor, which should be brown, exhibited impossible tones, like veins oscillating between rusted greens, faded purples, and a deep black that absorbed the light.
The strangest part: despite the torsion, the surface was intact. No broken planks, no cracks.
The officer felt a chill run down his spine. He didn't recognize this phenomenon, and the fact that he—a seasoned ex-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 each movement. His eyes went back and forth: from the spiral on the floor, to the flames inside the hall.
Constant vigilance, as if any angle could hide a new threat.
"Wait…" whispered the officer, stopping dead.
His gaze returned to the spiral, and suddenly, an uncomfortable idea slipped into his mind. The exact location… was too close to the point 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 all directions. His eyes, still red, tracked every corner of the deck under the rain.
"Where is Laios?"
The thought pierced him like a stab.
He looked to the left. Nothing.
He looked to the right. Empty.
He searched among the debris, among the shadows cast by the hall's flames… and couldn't find him.
He froze.
"He's… not here?" he muttered, and for an instant his voice sounded broken, incredulous.
The internal silence shattered in a second. His reaction changed: muscles tense, jaw clenched, breath held.
Slowly, almost with fear, he turned his face back toward the spiral.
"Don't tell me…" — he thought, his throat dry —. "Impossible… right?"
FWHOOOOSH!
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 burning 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 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 steps from crossing the opening, the eight-limbed monster stood erect. 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 held no strategy or fury. Only one question consumed him.
"Laios…?"
FWHOOOOSH!
The second step released another wave of fire, even more brutal than the first. This time, the surrounding moisture was less; the water accumulated on the deck had already been evaporated. The result was different: the tongue of fire not only burned the air, but transformed it into a thick wall of steam.
Heat and rain met in a clash, 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, for him or the creature, from which they could see each other now.
The storm had placed a veil between hunter and prey.
A second… it didn't even take a second for him 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 ran up his calves and solidified up to his knees.
The result: boots of green geometries, translucent and angular, 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 pivoted to the right in a precise motion.
CRRRK!
The floor creaked violently under the pressure. The planks sank a few centimeters, unable to resist all the energy compressed in that single instant.
And then, he exploded 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 raising droplets and splinters left behind.
FWHOOOOSH!
Another wave of fire erupted behind him. This one also raised more steam, thickening the fog even further until it became a white labyrinth. Heat and humidity mixed in a whirlwind that completely hid his silhouette, protecting him as much as it suffocated him.
There's another way back inside, he thought, eyes fixed on his target while dodging burnt remnants and loose planks. His memory activated like a spark:
""—When I was hanging outside, I saw dozens of those monsters climbing and entering through holes, gashes 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 impulse.
The ship's edge was there now, just meters away, darkened by rain and steam. Beyond, only the night and the raging sea.
But he had a clear goal.
He would jump.
THUMP!
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 distinguished a faint but dangerous orange light expanding within the wall of steam. At the same time, he felt the moisture on his skin vanish. It wasn't just heat: the rain hitting him seconds before was evaporating upon contact with his face.
In less than a blink, the thick wall of steam that had covered him dissipated. The white curtain tore 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 applauding silently.
"—Did it… applaud?" — he managed to think, confused.
The bewilderment barely gave him time to process the following: a sudden burning raced across his face, as if the skin itself were being ripped from the inside out.
It burned!
The burning pierced him so fast, so surprising, that he didn't even have time to tense against it. There was no preparation, no defense: only a searing pain that ravaged him like lightning.
The officer lost his balance instantly.
He fell sideways against the deck, the gauntlets scraping the wood. His body bounced and rolled, slamming against the wet planks before spinning once more, until he stopped just a meter from where he had been standing.
A guttural moan 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, gasping, waiting for the cold relief…
"Huh?"
But it wasn't cold.
He opened his eyelids with confusion. The water falling on him wasn't soothing the pain.
"Warm…?" he murmured, his breathing ragged.
The chill was immediate.
"It's… warm?" he repeated to himself, his voice hoarse.
The officer reacted immediately, driven by instinctual urgency.
He got up as fast as he could, though his movements were clumsy.
He ended up braced on one knee, breathing heavily.
He lifted his face upward, letting the drops hit him directly. He felt them sliding over his still-burning skin… and no, it wasn't a mistake in his perception.
It was warm.
Disbelief 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 soaking him: warm, constant rain.
The officer felt a chill deeper than the pain itself run down his back.
The only thing that gave him certainty he wasn't mistaken—that this wasn't fog or illusion—was the horizon.
He turned his head and saw it clearly.
Two skies.
On one side, the white steam cloud, colossal, stretching like an ocean in the air until it was lost not far from the ship. On the other, separated by a sharp 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 hammering against his chest. The shock had left him breathless, and without thinking he ended up turning his back to the monster.
FWHOOOOSH!
The roar erupted behind him again, but this time 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 posture 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 carapace. But the urgency was too great, and the time, minimal.
The cube didn't manage to expand fully. The edges remained half-formed, the faces vibrated like thin glass about to break. Neither the size nor the density were 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 hurled him backward at an atrocious speed.
CRAAASH!
His back slammed against the ship's edge, the reinforced metal of the hull rumbled and dented under the impact. The sound resonated like a muffled thunderclap, vibrating even in the structure's nails.
The officer remained there, hunched over, arms splayed, the air ripped from his lungs. Steam emerged from his body, escaping from every pore, as if he had been boiled from within.
The pieces of green armor covering him cracked, shattering into dozens of geometric fragments that dissolved in the air. Each piece crackled for an instant before disintegrating, leaving him without any defense.
The smell of burnt wood, hot metal, and sweated 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 mist. 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 against 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, contaminated 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, decided, 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.