The siren's wail faded into a hollow hum, swallowed by the rhythm of the waves. The ship listed slightly to port, groaning under the weight of its own wounds.
Zahira gripped the cold railing, her knuckles white. Beyond the hull, the sea stretched endlessly — a black mirror, too still for comfort.
Behind her, the others gathered. Amal knelt by the emergency crate, snapping open latches with brisk precision. Soufiane was pacing, radio in hand, scanning frequencies that hissed and crackled with static. Mouna sat against the wall, reloading a pistol with trembling fingers. Julien leaned beside her, his left arm freshly bandaged, blood still seeping through the cloth.
No one spoke for a long time.
Finally, Soufiane broke the silence. "Hull breach is minor, near the storage bay. It'll hold for now. But if they ram us again…"
"Then we sink," Amal finished grimly.
Zahira turned to face them. "What are they? Pirates? Infected?"
Amal shook her head. "If they're pirates, they're smarter than any I've seen. The radar shows them circling, waiting for something. Like they're… watching us."
Soufiane slammed the radio down. "Watching means they can bleed. We end this before they make another move."
He met each of their eyes in turn — the unspoken truth between them: there was no one else coming. No rescue, no coast guard, no signal from land. Just them.
---
They moved methodically. Amal distributed flashlights and knives, then a handful of loaded magazines. Julien handed out makeshift spears — welded pipes and kitchen blades — relics from too many nights of improvisation.
Mouna stood near the stairs, scanning the narrow corridor. "If they come from the deck again, we'll bottleneck them here," she said.
Soufiane nodded. "Good. Zahira, you and Sami stay near the inner cabin. If we can't hold them—"
"I'm not hiding again," Zahira interrupted. Her voice wasn't loud, but the firmness in it silenced him. "Last time, I nearly lost my son because I stayed behind."
Soufiane's jaw tightened. He wanted to argue — but he saw the same fire in her eyes he once saw when they first fled the ruins of Utrecht, when she refused to abandon a stranger bleeding on the roadside.
He simply nodded. "Fine. Stay close."
She exhaled shakily. "Always."
---
As they worked, Amal moved toward the small porthole by the control console. Her reflection trembled in the glass, half-shadow, half-light. "You know," she said softly, "back home my father used to say the sea cleanses everything. I believed that once."
Julien looked up. "And now?"
She smiled without warmth. "Now I think it hides the rot better than the earth ever could."
The waves outside pulsed faintly — something dark moving beneath them, disturbing the stillness for only a heartbeat. Amal's face hardened.
Zahira caught the motion too. "There. You saw that?"
Soufiane was already reaching for the binoculars. He stepped to the window, scanning the moonlit horizon. At first, nothing — just endless silver-black. Then he saw them: shapes gliding just under the surface, too symmetrical to be driftwood, too smooth to be human.
Three of them. Maybe four.
"Positions!" he barked.
---
The group snapped into motion. Mouna shut off the hallway lights, plunging the ship into an eerie twilight. Julien took the port side. Amal went to secure the aft deck.
Zahira stayed beside Soufiane, her knife in one hand, flashlight in the other. "If they come aboard again," she whispered, "how do we fight something we don't understand?"
He didn't answer at first. His eyes were fixed on the horizon, jaw set. Then he said, almost absently, "Same way we've fought everything since this started — together."
He looked at her then, and for a fleeting second, the weight between them — all the loss, the grief, the years of silence — melted into something steadier. A silent vow.
---
The first impact came at 3:07 a.m.
The ship lurched hard to starboard, sending Julien sprawling against the wall. Amal shouted from the deck, "They're boarding!"
Soufiane grabbed his rifle and sprinted for the stairs. Zahira followed, heart hammering.
When they burst through the hatch, cold air hit them like a slap. The deck was a chaos of shadows and spray. Figures were crawling up the ropes — pale, elongated forms glistening with seawater. Their eyes shone faintly, like fish beneath the ice.
Julien fired first — two quick shots that punched into one of the creatures, sending it tumbling back into the waves. But another leapt up, impossibly fast, landing on the railing with a wet thud.
Amal swung her wrench, cracking its jaw. It shrieked, voice splitting into multiple pitches, like a chorus imitating pain.
Zahira froze only for a second — then lunged, driving her knife into its side. It convulsed, black ichor spilling onto her hands, burning her skin.
She screamed, pulling back. Soufiane fired a burst that sent the creature overboard.
The sea boiled with motion. More were coming.
"Below deck!" Amal shouted. "We can't hold the open!"
But Soufiane's eyes stayed locked on the horizon. Amid the chaos, amid the writhing shadows, he saw something larger — a silhouette half-submerged, vast and still. Watching.
He whispered, "No… they're not here to sink us. They're herding us."
The words chilled Zahira to the bone.
"What do you mean?" she demanded.
He turned to her, face pale. "They're pushing us south."
The ship groaned again — another impact, harder this time. Amal stumbled, gripping the rail.
Soufiane caught Zahira's arm. "Inside! Go!"
As they retreated, the final thing Zahira saw before the hatch slammed shut was the dark figure in the distance — motionless, massive, and unmistakably human in outline, rising slowly from the water as if the sea itself was birthing it.