Before Beasts, There Were Storms--6

Abandon Ship

They found a cooler to pack some elementary edibles and water in, which Kai left in the blowup raft while Max finished up on his nap. The sun had gotten low in the sky and Tyson had passed out not long after Max had, leaving him and Ayah once more alone. Luckily for him they had had plenty of preparation to do with the other two out, so there wasn't much time for talking.

Part of the reason it took so long was because Ayah and Kai had both agreed it would be a good idea to investigate whatever files or information they could find on the people who had been in this boat and why they had known so much about their species. Kai had ignored Ayah when she had suggested he let her look and give his ankle a rest, but his desperation to know more wouldn't let him.

They did end up coming upon what had to be the computer office. Unfortunately, water had flooded half of the floor. Not that it mattered too much, as electricity was off on the whole boat.

"Well, start gathering up harddrives." Kai limped over to the first tower and hunkered down.

"Harddrives?"

The tower's side popped out readily. "Find some plastic baggies, then. Something that we can use to protect them."

She hesitated. "Um, I can't--I can't just leave you down here. There's water coming in."

"Slowly." He squeezed out the input cords. "I'll be fine. We can't risk getting these wet."

He heard her footsteps taper off to somewhere else down the hall and focused on his task.

Ankle deep on the flooded half of the room, shoving on the last side of the computer tower, he leaned to the side on his bad foot without thinking and a bolt of pain lanced up his leg, just like any bad sprain would. He crumbled, cussing and scrambling to keep the harddrives above his head.

"Don't tell me this is another water weakness," he muttered, pushing the chips onto the counter and pulling himself on it.

And because Kai Hiwatari couldn't have nice things, a great dying moan of metal, like the sound of a shrieking giant from the depths, ripped across the ship, and suddenly the water had jumped to his knees.

It was a sign of how bad the past week had been when Kai just scooped up his hard drives and started his stupid-duck-limp-hop scuttle to the door. His ankle started up a rage of protest, but if there was anything he could handle, it was pain.

The quick pattering of steps and Ayah half crashed into the doorway, which had somehow become angled in the time Kai had his back turned. "Kai?!"

"Bags?"

She shoved out a waterproof, sailor's knapsack, the kind one would find in the emergency cabinets. He grunted in satisfaction, having imagined something like Ziplock bags, and tipped in the harddrives.

Almost as though waiting for them, the moment the computer bits hit the bottom, the boat gave another giant's shriek. The foreboding hush of rushing water jumped in volume.

"Fate wouldn't want us to rush or anything," Kai heard himself say above a frantic screaming that had started up in the back of his mind. It was a screaming he had long ago learned to ignore, even if it was wailing in memories of freezing nigh unto death, with water adding to the agony like oil on flames.

Fortunately, Ayah had no such humor. She had her shoulder shoved under his arm and the bag closed before he could fully register that she was touching him. Without a word she started half dragging him up the hall, the bag slung over her other shoulder. He didn't have time to argue.

Despite the cacophony made by the rushing water in the enclosed space of the hallway, Ayah and him made good time making it back to the deck of the ship. Ayah even took the time to help him sit down in their life raft, which renewed the ignored part of him flailing in alarm.

"Just go." He shoved off her hands.

"They're already coming," she said, not looking at him as she settled down around his foot. "Ugh, what have you done to yourself?"

"Sprained ankles tend to swell, don't get worked up over it."

"It's turning blue." She leaned down an ear to it, sending painful sparks up his leg when her soft hair brushed across it. "The blood's having a hard time flowing."

"I'll be fine. What's taking them so long?"

She straightened, cocking an ear. After a moment, she said, "Max is having a hard time waking up Tyson."

More gut-rumbling groans vibrated up from the belly of the ship. He could hear the boat's wrenching in his bones. "If they're not in the stairwell in ten, I'm flying up there."

"No, I'll get them."

"They're my responsibility."

She gave him a droll look he didn't like. He wasn't being an idiot.

"Seven," she said, turning her attention back to the stairs. "Six..."

"I can fly fine," he pressed, knowing she had every intention to stop him.

"Four...three...tw—op, there goes the door. Here they come."

Sure enough, half running, half tumbling down the stairs was the burly Max and long legged Tyson. Just as they neared the boat, the ship let out a titanic squeal and the deck visibly tilted. Ayah jumped out and Kai in the life raft slid a foot, nearly taking out her feet from under her.

"Tape, Tyson."

"We can do that in the raft, we don't have time!" said a drowsy, yet panicked, Tyson.

"It won't matter what happens if you pop a hole in the raft," said Max, giving Tyson a hefty shove that would have toppled anyone. "Give me the tape!"

Thankfully, Tyson kept his squirming to his head as dark ocean waves licking around the back of the boat's cabin and pawing up the deck towards them. Max made quick work of the duct tape they had found, taping Tyson's long clawed toes together and then adding extra layers to the end. Together, he and Ayah lifted Tyson into the raft next to Kai, whose sense of uselessness didn't seem so important in the fearsome roll of water crashing towards them.

"Get in!" Max shouted, shoving Ayah in just as a call like a dying whale thundered up from the belly of the boat and the deck gave a violent jerk higher. The raft slid, but Max stopped it, short toenails catching against the bolts and grooves of the deck. Teeth bared, the muscles about Max's torso bulged, and in an inhuman feat to match the messed-up supernatural theme of their lives, he swung the ten man raft around him and over the edge of the ship, like a hammer throw contest.

Everyone in the boat screamed, especially Kai, who suddenly saw himself facing the high possibility of being plunged into the dark, FREEZING, ocean waters.

The ocean caught them with a spray of salt and brine. Kai cried out as ice washed over him. He clung to the rope about the boat, wings crossed about him as far as they could go. A gurgling, moaning, crashing cacophony played all about them as the disturbed waters flung their raft up and down and up and down—until a sudden and strong force jerked them in a straight direction. He opened his eyes, images of some bit of the dying ship catching on to the raft and now dragging it down to the depths—but instead he saw the broad, plated back of Max, a rope of the raft flung over his shoulders.

"Hold on!" he shouted, before dropping his head beneath the waves.

The raft shot forward, up and down a huge, power wave just to skip like a stone on the smaller minions on the other side. They clung on for dear life as ocean drenched them, soaking in deep to their skin.

"Damn it! I forgot a life jacket!" cried Tyson.

Kai actually thought he could laugh at that. The idea of putting on a life jacket hadn't even crossed their minds' as two of them had wings that would make that nigh impossible, and one of them was...well...a sea turtle.

Somehow, in the nightmare of a rubber ski-jet, Kai twisted his head back to catch a glimpse of the ship's last moments. With all the bumping up and down, however, it was much more serene than he thought it would be. No geyser shot out, no earsplitting crunch, no explosions. Just the prow of a ship jutting not quite vertical from the water, sinking, sinking...gone.