Not Alone

Chapter Seven

     Khars's description of the Trench creature didn't give them justice.

     They were much more hideous than how DJ had imagined. The creatures' scales were a sickly green, and sharp teeth jutted out from their green lips. Gills were lined around their torsos and necks, and even where their ears would have been. Their faces were resembling the body of a fish, but their thick bodies, and webbed hands and feet were obvious indications to not being a fish. But, to DJ, that wasn't the worst part of them.

     Their eyes were the most terrifying eyes DJ had ever seen. They had milky white pupils, surrounded by an inky blackness. And their eyes showed anger, and hunger. 

     "Scatter!"

     Lily's war cry snapped DJ out of his daze, and he was running as fast as he could away from the creatures. He had no idea where he was going, but all he knew was that he was moving faster than everyone else. 'Thank you, vampire genes,' he thought, before another thought struck him. He had abnormal strength, despite his obvious lack of muscles. Why wasn't he helping?

     DJ stopped running, and turned around. Ryder and Joey had been following him, trailing by roughly ten yards out. But, what surprised DJ was how close Ree was. As he had stopped, she raced passed him. 'Oh right,' he remembered. 'Werewolf.'

     Ree stopped as well, turning to look at him. "Why did you stop?!" she yelled, panic stricken and looking ready to have an anxiety attack. Joey and Ryder caught up with DJ, sharing the same confused gazes. "I can help fight these guys! You guys get the artifact thingamajig away from these whatchamacallits!" DJ exclaimed, before running to face the approaching creatures; he didn't even stop to laugh at his use of language. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ryder about to argue, but he didn't get a chance. One of the trench creatures had followed them, and was closing in on them.

     DJ lunged towards the approaching monster, swinging his fist as hard and fast as he could to hit its face. His fist connected and the creature flew back a few feet. DJ didn't wait for it to get up. He rushed forward and kicked it in the gills on it's torso, making it move another few feet.

     The Trench creature let out a screech, a sound so horrible DJ had to cover his ears to save his ear drums. Then he was tackled, and the air left his lungs as his back met the squishy sand. Another creature had his arms pinned down, and it let out another horrible screech. Out of instinct, DJ kicked his legs in defense, managing barely to push the thing off of him. He rolled to the side, quickly getting up to face the two monsters. A sudden, brief hopeless feeling filled him as he starred at the approaching creatures. But, nonetheless, he lunged forward once again.

     He knew to aim for the gills instead of the face, so this time he was able to get a nice neck punch on one while he kicked out at the other's torso. Both crumpled forward a bit, but still went after DJ. He knew he couldn't fight the both of them, but he could outrun them now. Their gills were at least slightly hurting, so that gave him a better advantage.

     DJ turned and ran towards one of the old military ships, one that had the anchor chain exposed. As he ran, he analyzed the chain and saw that he could climb it no problem. So that's what he did. Grabbing hold of the chain, he pulled himself up and started ascending up the chain. He slipped a few times but finally made it to the top, climbing over the railing onto the deck of the ship. He looked overboard and saw that the creatures were struggling with climbing the chain.

     That was good enough of a head start for DJ. He took off running to the stern of the boat, hoping to see his three companions running to safety. Unfortunately, he was sorely disappointed. A few hundred feet away, Ree and Joey were being cornered into an old pirate ship covered in algae, and Ryder was still running and dodging another creature. A flare lit up throughout DJ's whole body.