Avast Me Hearties

[Caira Ayryn]

It had her.

It was holding on tight. There were bubbles spewing everywhere and Zack had quickly been swallowed by the depths of the deep. Caira went to scream, out of shock, and choked on the lack of air. Her violet eyes widened violently, and she struggled to blink away the haze of fear, as she realized this would be her last moment of life. Omni promised, but he didn’t have to keep it. This was her fight in the end, not Omni’s and nor Zack’s. The knight wouldn’t let it end here.

Her eyes were open, but she could see no difference, it was midnight black and there was no sun to rise in how far the creature had dragged her. The water was icy, and she could only hear the gentle swish of water as they glided deeper into the night. Why hadn’t it killed her yet? Based on its size, it could’ve snapped her in two, but instead, its tentacle remained coiled around her, squeezing the life out but not so much that her bones were crushed. The lack of air and full sense of fear made Caira wheeze and gag, luckily her knight in shining armor came, before she had the chance to lose consciousness.

Zack came swimming vehemently through the water, his expression through the dark goggles was that of anger. There was a slash from that mighty sword of his, into the squid-like creature’s squishy looking mass. Filling the water around them faster than wind, was a blackish blood, giving the colossal squid enough time to escape, while Caira was blinking more slowly, and making out the blurs of his face less and less.

A cough and she was thankful for the gale sent into her lungs. Weakly but eagerly she took another breath, and another, and then passed it back to Zack, yelping as she felt the cold saline water braze an open wound. Caira’s eyes watched the eerily unchanged depths below them, as the duo swam to the surface, in the direction of the Imperial base.

Caira tried to review with herself, to see if she had changed her mind, but even the protests in her leg didn’t cause her to regret everything they had done so far. They’d met Jad, they’d captured a wild dragon! and of course, left it with the submarine, yeah, they were doing pretty well so far. She sucked in a breath and passed it back to Zack, he seemed like he was too.

Suddenly there was a motion of his hands and she knew they must be close to the Empire’s vessel. From what she had heard about the Empire, they were tyrants, just like her parents had been. So yes, she was against them, however, there was a bit of fearful anticipation flooding her bones as she though of sneaking in the vessel, and then having no choice, but that to kill. And how did Zack react to such an internal conflict? Her eyes passed to him, as the base of the ship came into view, there were a few smaller hulls surrounding the large one, but this vessel from the bottom, looked as large as an island.

She didn’t really know what the plan was, and suddenly looked to him, their eyes only spoke, and with them, they could only blink. Zack could mouth things, but the bubbles rose to the top, and muddled her ability to read his lips. Trepidation settled in her, she was nervous, afraid and excited. There were the consequences, they could get caught, or worse, the threat of death, but that all seemed like a false reality, this moment around them, was the truth. The Empire could not get their hands on this information and have enough time to encode it, she knew that for sure.

Zack was still motioning to Caira about some plan, and she couldn’t help but to smile, she had no idea what he was trying to say to her; she set her hand on his shoulder and directed him to just lead the way, and to the surface they ascended.