Chapter 10 v2
Die Already Part 2
Kaep's arms were about to give in. Every phalanx burned, and his skin slipped under the mix of blood and rain. Hanging from the gap, his right arm held on as best as it could, though he felt it would dislocate—if his grip didn't fail first. His left he could no longer feel, though it still moved despite clutching the sharp edge.
The hull vibrated beneath him each time a wave slammed into the ship's metal wall. The iron groaned with a crack that spread beneath his chest, making him think the edge might bend further at any moment. Air forced its way into his lungs in ragged bursts.
Below, the pull was unbearable. Something was dragging him down. He knew about the red-haired man, but the weight he felt was not human—it was something else. For an instant he thought the ligaments in his leg would tear apart. He clenched his teeth and screamed, but the sound was lost to the storm.
And suddenly… it happened…
The pull vanished. All the weight dragging him under released at once, as if a chain had been ripped from his ankle in a single stroke. His leg was free.
Kaep gasped with a spasm of relief, like a drowning man breaching the surface. But the relief lasted only a heartbeat. The emptiness in his leg was worse: it wasn't liberation—it meant something had changed below.
—! The thought pierced him like lightning.
He jerked his head down, neck muscles protesting, trying to see. Through rain and shadows he barely distinguished a red silhouette moving. The red-haired man was there, falling, dragged by a scaly tail. But he had quickly latched onto the monster's tail. Kaep saw it at the very moment a metallic boom resounded through the hull on his right, as though something colossal had struck the ship's structure, dragging it toward the depths.
Kaep barely had time to turn his head when the chill hit. An icy current crawled across his skin as though the air itself had turned to needles. He knew before fully looking: the monster was staring at him.
His skin bristled all over. It wasn't a simple shiver; it was his entire body telling him this was the end.
And then it happened.
Thunder exploded above. Lightning split the sky in a white flash, and in that burst Kaep saw the light in his thigh ignite once more.
The monster's eye shifted immediately, locking on the glow. The claw aimed straight at Kaep veered off by mere inches, smashing into the wall and widening the gap.
Kaep swallowed a breath dryly, frozen in place, as another flash revealed something behind the creature. A shadow moving as though launched.
It was him. The red-haired man.
Kaep saw him in that blink, soaring through the air in an impossible arc. He had let go of the monster's tail and now vaulted above it, rain cascading over his body. He stretched out his right arm, bracing his hand on the hull as if to slow his fall.
A burst of water shot from a brief liquid spiral that appeared in the wall, propelling him downward. He dropped with projectile precision onto the monster's head.
Kaep's eyes widened as he saw him tighten his left hand around the sword's hilt.
The monster swiveled its eye just in time to witness it.
The storm's rain—falling on the sword, the monster, and the red-haired man—shifted, drawn to that hilt as though obeying a silent command. Kaep felt even the downpour around them change direction. Liquid slid toward the sword, climbing past the guard, crawling up the metal, and seeping into the creature.
A tremor coursed through the beast, a shudder spreading from head to tail.
And then it burst.
Water exploded from within in a bloody geyser. Dark streams gushed from its eyes and from the hole the sword opened in its skull. The roar fused with the storm, a blend of rusted iron and dying beast.
The grip of its limbs loosened instantly. Kaep felt the pressures on the hull vanish, and the monstrous body began to slide, dropping into the void.
For a moment he could only watch. The man was still there, perched atop the monster, sword buried to the hilt.
And against all instinct, Kaep stretched out his right leg toward him, offering it.
The movement came almost without thought. Kaep extended his leg toward the man—a desperate gesture, as if that minimal connection could save them both.
The red-haired man understood at once. With a harsh pull, he ripped the sword from the monster's head. Flesh tore open like shredded fabric, another dark jet spurting into the air. He bent his knees, bracing to leap, and reached his arm for Kaep's leg.
For a second, time froze: the monster falling, the sword raised, the arm extended. The distance between them was minimal. Just a touch would have been enough.
The man was already springing from the monster's body when it happened.
Something caught him.
A blackened limb clamped onto his shoulder, another around his left leg. The jerk shook him so violently the leap ended in an instant.
Both Kaep and the red-haired man reacted with shock. Their eyes met in a heartbeat, and both understood the same truth: the monster wasn't dead.
It was still alive.
The beast's body was already plunging down, dragging the man with it. The red-haired man struggled furiously, wrenching his right shoulder arm free with a sharp twist. He used that instant to reach once more for Kaep, fingers spread, desperate to catch the leg still extended toward him.
But Kaep barely drew his leg back. A minimal movement, almost imperceptible, yet enough to shift it aside.
The man's fingers grazed only emptiness.
Contact never came.
The failed gesture sealed his fate. The man was swallowed downward, dragged with the monster in free fall. The red figure and the dark mass fused into a whirlpool that vanished toward the raging sea.
Kaep hung from the hull, a scream trapped in his throat.
---
[Red-haired man's perspective]
The boy's face was receding, higher and higher above. The red-haired man let out a dry sigh, disbelieving. Not even a scream—just rough air as he realized he had failed.
For a moment they seemed like two chained bodies: he and the monster, bound by the limbs imprisoning him. The beast pulled with crushing weight, as if it meant to drag him straight into the sea's heart.
The fall wasn't clean. The first impact came when the monster's body slammed into the ship's hull, itself struck by another wave. The metallic crash was a blunt peal, a giant bell that rattled his bones.
The monster bounced off the iron, and with it the red-haired man. The blow spun him like a ragdoll, arms and legs flailing in opposite directions. He managed to shield his face with his forearms, but pain surged through his shoulders from top to bottom.
Rain consumed everything, cutting his vision. He could barely make out the monster dragging him, tumbling clumsily, thrown into chaos by the collision.
Suddenly, another crash. Something crossed their path mid-fall. Another creature—similar, yet different: a monstrous fish with four limbs. The impact was brutal, like two boulders smashing under a waterfall.
The collision tore them apart briefly. The red-haired man spun in the air, snatching a second of freedom. The other monster was carried off in another direction, while the first continued plummeting with him.
The chaotic spin shoved them back together. The dark body and the man ended side by side once more.
The red-haired man clenched his jaw, unhesitant. He gripped the sword still in his right hand. The blade glowed with a faint reddish aura amidst the rain's chaos. In that instant, without further thought, he drove it with all his might into the monster's head.
The skull gave with a muffled crack.
Steel pierced the monster's head with a dull crunch, and a guttural roar erupted from its depths. The sound was horrifying, a blend of wounded animal and rusted iron splitting apart. Rain drowned everything, yet that scream rose above even the storm.
There was no time for more. The sea's surface struck them like a black wall.
The impact was brutal. Man and beast hit the water together, the muffled crash reverberating in his chest as if he'd been hurled against stone. The blow tore the air from his lungs in a single burst; a sharp stab left him blind for an instant.
The sword nearly slipped from his grasp. Only the obsessive effort of not letting go—of keeping it lodged—held it. But water was treacherous. Between the jolt and the viscous drag of flesh, the hilt began sliding through his fingers, slick with blood and saltwater.
He tried gripping with both hands, pulling toward him, as if he could drag the entire monster. The strain burst his arms, veins on the verge of tearing, muscles aflame. Still, he fought.
And he lost.
The sword slid, little by little, through flesh and bone—until it tore free completely. The weapon drifted behind, spinning into the darkness, as man and monster separated.
The water swallowed them both. The current seized and swept them apart, twisting their bodies like rag dolls in liquid shadow.
The red-haired man opened his eyes underwater. Only darkness, pressure, and lightning above, filtering from the surface like broken glass. Amidst the chaos, he glimpsed a metallic gleam turning slowly between him and the beast: the sword, suspended, adrift.
The monster moved first. Its massive tail whipped the water with a lash. The surge created a vortex that shoved him deeper into darkness, away from the sword, robbing him of his only edge.
His chest burned. He had lost too much air on impact. Each second was fire in his lungs.
But his hands did not stay still. Though he had no voice, no scream, though the pressure crushed him, he moved his arms with feral instinct.
The water obeyed.
Before him rose a liquid wall that absorbed the monster's claw strike. The impact reverberated like a drum beneath the sea. And before the defense dissolved, he turned it into attack: a spiraling lance of compressed water that shot straight into the creature's torso.
The strike shook the depths. The beast's flesh split in a gush of blood that scattered in red bubbles.
But the monster did not stop.
It spun sharply, opening monstrous jaws, and from its mouth emerged something worse: an elongated, deformed tongue that looked like a grotesque head trying to bite him in the very sea.
The aberration shot out like a living whip. The tongue writhed, shaped like a malformed head opening its own mouth within a mouth, uneven teeth seeking to rip his face away.
The red-haired man reacted without thinking. He pressed his arm to his chest and thrust out an open palm. From it burst another lance—smaller, faster. The liquid projectile streaked like lightning underwater, piercing the aberrant tongue in a cloud of red bubbles.
The monster convulsed with a shriek that echoed in the water, muffled and distorted, as though it came from all directions at once. The mutilated tongue recoiled, throbbing, back into its throat.
But there was no reprieve.
One of the beast's limbs stretched to the right, deforming under the pressure. In a second it lengthened as though made of shadow and water, then snapped back violently. The strike landed square against the man's side.
Pain was immediate and savage. He felt ribs bend, fire ripping the last of his air. His body spun uncontrolled, rolling in the current.
Before he could reorient, another current struck them both. An invisible force dragged them like leaves in a whirlpool, hurling them apart. The whole sea conspired against him: each time he regained balance, another surge slammed him again.
The monster also spun, but each time it stabilized it lunged at him with predator's speed, tireless.
The red-haired man, every time he righted himself, tried to climb toward the surface. His lungs screamed, his chest burned, he needed air. But he never reached it. Always something interrupted: a swipe, a charge, another wave tossing him back into the abyss.
Desperation consumed him.
Not only was he losing air. He was losing his sense of direction. Up and down were the same—only liquid chaos. The only guide were the lightning flashes splitting the surface at intervals. Each burst lit the water like fractured glass, giving him back his north for an instant.
And there, within those flashes, floated the sword.
Descending slowly, as if waiting for them both. Turning in silence, suspended in darkness, dragged by the currents just like them