The Lost Tomb Vol. 1

Chapter 42: Sea Monkey

This giant, sinister face was almost four or five times bigger than my head, but its body was still hiding behind the steel door so I couldn't tell how big it truly was. The light streaming in from the hole in the deck wasn't very bright so I couldn't see its facial features clearly either. I didn't know whether it was a ghost or an animal but this face was hauntingly eerie and indescribably strange.

I stared at it blankly, my whole body going numb from my scalp all the way down to my ankles. I was so scared that I could hardly breathe and my damned legs started to go as soft as noodles. I struggled to take a few steps back and then remembered that the woman was still lying on the ground. Although I wasn't necessarily fond of her, I couldn't leave her here to die.

I turned her over and found that the two withered hands had disappeared again, but I didn't have time to worry about them right now. If the water level rose again, her head would be submerged and she'd end up drowning. I put my hands under her armpits and slowly started dragging her back to the other end of the cargo hold where I knew the stairs leading to the deck were. As long as I dragged her onto the deck, I could either jump into the sea or call for help—either one a better option than what we were currently facing.

As I walked on trembling legs, I kept thinking to myself, calm down, calm down. When you encounter extreme situations, you need to be extremely calm. I continued moving back bit by bit, not daring to take my eyes off of that terrifying face.

The monster looked at me indifferently while continuing to stay motionless. For a while, the only sound I heard was the rushing of water. If this thing had made some kind of movement, such as turning its head or opening its mouth, I might have felt more relaxed, but its two eyes continued to stare straight at me. As I looked at it, I became more and more terrified. This is too abnormal, I thought to myself, but since you're not moving now, you should stay like that. Don't wait until I get near the top of the stairs to pounce on me.

I figured I could stop looking at it so I bowed my head and sped up. But after dragging that woman to the bottom of the stairs, I glanced up and froze—the stairs were so rotten that only the frame was left. I didn't know if I could climb up by myself, let alone carry a half-dead woman up them. I saw that there were a few remnants of the metal stairs still attached to the frame so I grabbed one of the woman's hands and tried to climb up. But the remnants broke as soon as I stepped on them, the metal dissolving like soft mud.

This was a problem. I glanced back, but fortunately, the monster was very patient and still hadn't moved. I was currently in the shadows with a light source (the hole in the deck) separating us so all I could make out was a vague outline. Feeling a lot more at ease, I leaned the woman up against the wall, clenched my teeth, and then jumped with all my might, telling myself that I should climb out first.

It was a pity that my arms were long but I had no strength at all. I ended up failing twice. Not only did I fail to climb up but I also managed to fall flat on my face, the pain enough to bring tears to my eyes. Feeling very annoyed, I thought about it for a long time but couldn't seem to come up with a way to get out of my current predicament. I habitually turned my head to see if the monster was still there but it would've been better if I hadn't—as soon as I turned my head, I suddenly saw a huge thing standing behind me, its face so close that it was almost touching mine. I was so shocked that I gave a terrified shout.

Suddenly looking back and seeing a person standing quietly behind you was scary enough, but seeing such a sinister face was an unspeakably horrifying experience. As soon as I shouted, I involuntarily took a step back and pressed myself up against the wall.

By this time, I had finally seen what that thing looked like, and a brief thought flashed through my mind. When I was a child, I heard a classmate from the coast say that a fisherman in their village once caught a strange thing that looked like a person but was covered in scales. When he brought it back to the village, no one knew what it was. Later, they called an old man in the village to come and look at it. When this old man saw it, he was so scared that he almost fell to the ground in fright. "Let it go!" He shouted at them. "Quickly! It's a sea monkey! If we delay any longer, the other sea monkeys will come looking for it and something terrible will happen!"

But as soon as the fisherman heard that this thing was so precious, he came up with the idea to raise it and sell it in the city. He told the villagers that he let it go but he actually hid it in his own home. As a result, the fisherman's whole family disappeared the next day. The villagers realized that something was wrong and searched for two whole days before finally finding the fisherman's wife's body at the bottom of a cliff by the sea. Her stomach had been cut open and her internal organs had been eaten until there was nothing left.

When the old man saw this, he said that the other sea monkeys had come to take revenge. He called for a feng shui master, set up an offering table on the beach, put a lot of pig heads and sheep heads on it, and then held rituals for several days before it was finally over.

My classmate was very good at drawing so he drew a picture of the sea monkey to show me what it looked like. The image was so realistic that it left a huge impression on my young mind and I didn't sleep well for several days. The impression was so deep, in fact, that it was the first thing I thought of when I saw what was standing right in front of me. I just didn't expect this so-called sea monkey to be so big.

As the memories flashed through my mind, the monster still didn't make any movements. It just stared at the woman leaning against the wall with interest, saliva dripping from its mouth. Fortunately, the woman hadn't woken up yet; otherwise, I was afraid she would've been scared to the point of incontinence.

I forced myself to calm down as I pressed my back firmly up against the wall. It was made of wooden planks that were also very brittle and decayed, which gave me an idea. As long as I kept pushing back hard, I would definitely be able to make a hole in the wall. That way, if the sea monkey tried to rush at me, I also had a place to retreat to. Moreover, the area behind the wall was the stern so there should be a lot of mechanical equipment there. I just didn't know if I would be able to find anything that I could use as a weapon.

As my thoughts were racing wildly, I suddenly heard a few creaking sounds coming from the deck. It seemed that another person had boarded the ship. But just as I was wondering who it could be, I saw Bald Zhang jump down from the hole in the deck. As soon as this idiot landed, he raised his pistol and glanced warily at the steel door. Then he turned around and suddenly gave a terrified shout, "Oh, my God!"

The monster turned around when it heard the shout, saw him, and suddenly issued an extremely mournful cry before lowering its body and rushing straight towards him. That Bald Zhang's reflexes were very good and he reacted almost instantaneously—he fell to the ground to dodge the first blow, pulled the gun bolt back with a click, and then fired. The monster let out a muffled groan as the bullet pierced its shoulder, the pain sending it reeling back against the wall. Bald Zhang fired several more shots at random, almost all of them hitting close to my head. I was so scared that I immediately ducked my head down.

The sea monkey was very clever. As soon as it realized that this gun seemed to be very powerful, it didn't dare try to rush over again. Instead, it pretended to attack but then suddenly made several lightning-quick jumps, soared over Bald Zhang's head, and then scurried back through the steel door and slammed it shut.

Bald Zhang's gun followed it, leaving a sweeping row of bullet holes in the wall. Seawater immediately began to pour in, but the water level was rising much faster this time. Bald Zhang ignored this, his attention focused solely on killing that thing. He fired two more shots to smash the two door hinges and then went up and kicked the door open. I ran up behind him to take a look and saw a hole in the bottom of the ship where water was constantly pouring in. The monster was trying to push its body through it. As soon as I saw this hole, I knew that it must have been the breach that occurred when the accident happened back then. It was this hole that had caused the ship to sink, but now it was only the size of a bowl after being blocked by a large amount of sea rust.

The monster was extremely powerful, so by the time Bald Zhang raised his gun, it had already used its head to smash a hole big enough for its body to fit through and then disappeared into the sea below.

Bald Zhang was still unwilling to give up and fired several more shots into the water. But at this time, the whole ship groaned as if it were about to break. I looked around and saw that the water had already reached my knees—we couldn't stay here any longer; we had to leave now. Bald Zhang ran back and shook the woman several times while shouting, "Ning, Ning!" Seeing that she didn't respond, he put her on his back, used my back as a stepping stone, and then nimbly jumped up onto the deck. I almost puked up blood when he stepped on me and my waist felt like it had been broken in half but I still managed to reach up when I saw him lean down, hold his hand out to me, and pull me up.