Kai would have bolted if it weren't for the stranger keeping him trapped in his arms. A shudder raked his body and a deep dread settled at the pit of his stomach, draining the blood from his face.
"What the hell is that!" he cried, terrified, and rightfully so.
He counted six bodies floating in what was once the captain's cabin, anchored to the ship's cracked floor by black iron balls wrapped around their ankles. They were dressed in the same outfits he'd repeatedly seen in old pirate movies. It seemed that whoever sank the ship wanted to make sure that they'd be rid of its crew as well.
But the state of the bodies did not match the state of the ship. The ship itself looked like a ship Captain Jack Sparrow would have sailed way back in the 1700s, but the bodies... They looked as if the ship had sunk to the bottom of the Black Sea only a week ago. Equally-surprising was the fact that their bodies were not meddled with; the sea life had left them untouched, not that there was any sea life at the bottom of the Black Sea. Not one fish had tried to take a bite, despite the easy access into the ship (through the large hole on its side). The corpses were not even bloated.
While I knew that the Black Seas had anoxic water that was deprived of oxygen at its very lowest levels (aka the bottom of the sea), and that this type of water meant that bodies and other material decomposed at a slower rate, there was no way that bodies this ancient could be so well-preserved.
"Silence, half-breed."
Human this. Half-breed that. "I have a name, you know!"
He abruptly released Kai and he gasped, thinking that he'd fall flat on his face, but he steadily floated down to the cracked floor. He quickly pushed himself off the floor and distanced himself from the stranger -and the corpses- in one lunge.
When Kai got too far for his liking, the chain materialized and stopped him from swimming out of the hole like all his instincts had commanded him to. This was a place of death, a place of suffering. The 'air' in the ship was stifling, heavy, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to stay in it. He couldn't quite explain it, but if he had to try, it was like had entered another place, like he was no longer at the cold bottom of the sea, but in a room where the 'air' was still and you could not make a sound no matter how hard you screamed.
"Why have you brought me here? What do you want from me?" Kai demanded once again.
The stranger ignored him without so much as sideway glance and swam to a small hole in the floor of the ship where the captain's desk should have been -if the Pirates of the Caribbean movies were to be believed. Kai imagined that he was too large to fit, but the stranger surprised him by gracefully swimming through it and disappearing out of sight.
The chain tugged. Kai reluctantly followed. As he half-swam and half got dragged toward the hole leading to the lower levels of the ship, he made sure to steer clear of any of the bodies. But no matter how hard he tried not to stare as he passed each one, his eyes kept finding and meeting the corpses' glassy, lifeless eyes. In his mind's eye, he kept imagining how one of them would reanimate and lunge for him, which sent another icy chill down his spine.
Poor, unfortunate bastards. He knew firsthand what drowning felt like. The stinging of the lungs as water rushed its way down the air pipes was a pain unrivaled. It really was one of the top three pains to experience, aside from burning and giving birth. He'd do his best to steer clear of the other two.
Luckily, he made it to the hole without incident. He'd half expected the corpses to come back to life, considering all that had happened to him thus far.
As he swam through the hole head first, he steered a little to the left and he ended up cutting his forearm on the jagged edges of the hole.
Unbelievable. That brute made it through just fine, but I end up getting cut?!
He didn't realize that there was absolutely no source of light in the lower deck until he was completely submerged in darkness. He couldn't even see his own hand if he waived it in front of his face. Startled by the sudden and unexpected descent of darkness, he meant to swim back to the captain's cabin when the chain tugged him downward and deeper into the dark bowels of the wrecked ship.
He made an effort to fight back the panic attack that threatened to break his mind. Though he was not particularly afraid of the dark, he did not like it.
Kai didn't see where he was going, nor did he see the stranger, but what he was sure of was that, after a while, they were no longer in the ship. No ship was this big or deep. If he had to guess, then he would say that they were slowly making their way underground through a dark tunnel of some sort. He figured that there was another hole at the bottom of the ship opening into the tunnel. And like the ship, there were no sounds, not even the sound of a current.
Finally, Kai's nervousness got the better of him and he called out into the darkness, "Seriously, where the hell are you taking me?"
No response, just as he'd expected of the stranger.
As they descended, the current grew considerably warmer.
A few minutes later, Kai called to the darkness again, "I can't see a thing. Do you have a flashlight or some- OW!"
Kai slammed into the walls of the tunnel when a sudden current came out of nowhere, sending him flying to the right. He'd hit his head against the wall, hard. He closed his eyes and waited for the ringing in his ears to stop.
When he opened them a few moments later, he was shocked to see light. It was coming from his leg. Specifically, it was coming from the Master's Chain tethered to his leg. It glowed a deep gold just as it had done when he first discovered its existence, illuminating the tunnel.
Relief washed over him like a tidal wave and he exhaled a sigh of relief.
He scanned his surroundings and saw that he was indeed in a tunnel. He looked up to see how far they'd travelled, but the soft golden light coming from the chain did not provide great illumination for him to be able to see far.
He looked downward and his eyes met the stranger's cool ones at the end of his chain. His heart gave a sharp, alarming pang. The stranger held his gaze, and there was no way to tell what he was thinking.
Kai decided that he would not be the first one to break eye contact.
But something behind the stranger abruptly began to shine and sparkle, and Kai had no choice but to look away and at the glowing object.
It was a giant mirror.
Something in the mirror moved.
Muy interesante! Me encanta!