A light tap on her cheek suddenly woke Navia up. She was ready to fight as she grabbed the person’s hand and was creating a knife to put it to the person’s throat. Her battle trans was stopped by a sudden hiccup, her vision became clear, and she saw a young lady with one arm covered in blood. Behind her, on a mattress from a broken bed, sat an older lady.
Calming down, she noticed that the young woman had three wounds on her arm, and she could see almost dried blood on her neck. The older lady seemed fine at first, but as the woman was sobbing, Navia understood that something was wrong. Scanning her from top to bottom, she noticed that her right foot was twisted in the wrong way.
“I’m sorry…” Whispered Navia as she released the young woman’s hand and hid the blood she was about to turn into a knife behind her back.
The young lady named Isabell closed her scared mouth and swallowed the fear she gathered in that single second. “It’s… Fine… We… We are all scared.” The lady answered as she looked back at her mother.
“Do you know what had happened?” Asked Navia, but the shaking of Isabell’s head was enough of an answer.
“We just woke up, and I checked on you to see if you were still breathing… I don’t know what happened… Except that it's dark outside and that… We are no longer at sea.” Isabell answered as she slowly looked toward the window.
Navia stood up, feeling less weak than before she fainted, but she could feel the fresh bruises she got from being wrecked around the room. The window was foggy from the outside. Navia had to use a bit of force to open it and check the outside. Before she could even look outside, a foul stench entered the room. “It smells like vomit…” Noted to herself, Navia.
The place was humid and warm, looking up with her enhanced senses, Navia could see something above, far from the view of other people. It was a ceiling, and far forward was a wall. They seemed to be on one small island of many in this place, separated by dark green water.
“What… is this place…” Navia whispered to herself, confused by the view as she couldn’t recall any place like that on earth. In the Order, she studied a lot about other lands and countries, but never heard about a place like this.
As the older lady began to cough because of the stench, Navia quickly closed the window. “What is this awful smell?” Asked the older lady between the coughs.
“I would like to know the same.” Answered Navia, still thinking about the outside as she approached the older lady, to check her foot.
“No point in asking if it hurts… Walking is out of the question… But we can’t wait for someone to rescue us…” Navia gathered her thoughts as if untangling a rope inside her mind, slowly recollecting random things. “There should be a wheelchair in my room. Hopefully it wasn’t damaged too badly.”
The doors to the room were closed, and it seemed quiet on the outside, but Navia could hear something. It was very silent, but something was approaching the door. Navia turned her blood into a short sword and stepped toward the door. “Don’t make a sound.” She whispered, her eyes focused on the door. The lights on the ship were faint but provided a bit of visibility. Navia waited for a shadow to appear in the gap under the door.
Navia lowered her sword as she no longer heard the sound and didn’t see the shadow. “Okay. I think we’re fine-” As whispered those words, the door began to slowly open, she quickly turned around and threw a blood knife at the door. It hit the wall as no one was standing there.
The two women yelped and hugged each other, sharing comfort in each other's fear. The tension grew as all three of them observed the empty doorway.
“The door didn’t open by itself… Something is in there…” Navia took slow steps toward the door. She knew she was strong, stronger than ever, but she didn’t move much since overusing her gate. She could handle a Barnacle, but more than that would be a challenge for her.
She was close enough to the doorway to see the corridor in both directions, but no one was hiding behind the door. She couldn’t drop the feeling of something being off. A shadow fell down and threw something at her. Navia tried to block the projectile with her shortsword, but she wasn’t able to cut it, or at least not the way she thought, as it was a liquid. Sprayed on her arm, it burnt her clothes and skin with a hiss. Ignoring the pain, she threw a knife at the mysterious enemy.
The knife went straight into its head, killing it on the spot. Navia gritted her teeth as the burning pain wouldn’t wash away. Looking at the creature, she was stunned, another thing she wasn’t aware of.
The monster had the slim body of a human, except its feet, hands, and head looked like a frog's limbs. It had slimy green skin with yellow bumps on its hunched back. Navia watched as its eyes turned from black to white, which was a sign of the creature being dead.
“I wanted to take the wheelchair and bring it to you, but it’s too dangerous to leave you here alone.” Navia turned her blades into a staff and pushed the dead body away from the doorframe.
“You want us to leave the room? While there might be more monsters like that one?” The girl asked, pointing her shaky hand at the corpse of a frog monster.
“Either that, or wait for more of them to come and kill us.” Answered Navia, her tone commanding and serious. “Since you have an injured arm, I’ll carry your mother… But just in case.” Navia grabbed Isabell’s hand and placed a dagger in her palm. She then proceeded to gently lift the older lady into her arms.
“But… I don’t know how to fight. I… I can’t…” Isabell waved the dagger, unsure of why she was given a weapon. She tried to give it back to Navia, but she rejected it.
“Even so, if there are monsters out there, you need something to defend yourself. I’ll be the one fighting them, but just in case you need a weapon to save yourself and those close to you.” Navia moved to the doorframe, listening to see if the young woman was going to follow her.
Isabell clenched the dagger and ran up to Navia. The corridor was a wreck, like the whole ship, furniture flipped and broken on the ground, and no painting was able to hang after a fall like that. Turning the other way around, Navia saw a hand on the floor. Looking into the doorframe, she saw a man with a partially melted face, revealing his skull and flesh. Just by the part of the face, she recognized the person, the very kind man who brought the food to her room.
Before Isabell could notice the dead man, Navia moved the opposite way toward her room to scare the young lady and make her follow. The door to her room was wide open. “I thought I closed them with a key…” Navia raised a palm toward Isabell and placed her mother on the ground. “Wait around the corner. I’ll check what’s inside.” Said Navia as she picked a broken glass to cut her finger, the running blood turned into two dark daggers. Both of the ladies looked at her, frightened.
“This time I can’t let the monster surprise me… I’ll have to jump in quickly!” Navia dashed toward the door and into the room, expecting a frog monster to attack her, but the creature was already dead with a circular hole in its throat. Around it were splinters from the door and a broken bottle. “Someone already killed it. Hopefully that person is alive.”
In the corner of the room, she saw the wheelchair, the wheel was slightly bent, but still able to move. Navia picked it up and pushed it out of the room. “Now it should be easier to move around.”
Navia helped the old lady get into the wheelchair and let her daughter push it. Navia led the way, heading toward the stairs that would let them into the upper deck. Their main thought was to see where they are and escape this place, but Navia was growing anxious the closer they got to the outside. She could hear the sounds of the monster walking around more often.
The stairs were in their sight, but Navia stopped and cursed under her nose. Blood from her small wound on the finger burst out, creating plated armor for her arms. “We are surrounded…” Whispered Navia as she checked each corner, each door, and the cross-section of the corridor. “Move back! Quick!” She commanded as she dashed back, and two frog monsters jumped out of a window and from behind the door. The first one lost its head before it could even land on the floor, and the other began to open its mouth and spit the acid. Using the dagger, Navia closed its mouth and pierced the blade through its skull.
Isabell was hesitant to move, fear pinning her down to the place where she stood. From the staircase began to fall a wave of Barnacles. As she heard the monsters crashing down that’s one she became so frightened that she began to push the wheelchair with her mother fast forward.
Navia sacrificed bits of her armor and merged them with both daggers to create a long rapier. The barnacles were slow, but the frogs were quick, even as they walked on the walls and ceiling, but they kept their distance. Spitting the acid at Navia, who was standing in the way of Isabell and her mother.
The frog spat the acid directly at Navia. Using her leg, she kicked the chair up into the air and blocked the acid with it. The wood quickly burned in reaction with the acid. Navia used the single leg of the chair like a javelin and threw it back at the frog. The monster quickly reacted and dropped down to the floor, dodging the projectile.
A few barnacles closed up on Navia, walking within arm’s reach of her. She pulled the rapier close to her chin and, with swift thrusts, she put holes in the barnacles' heads. The whole corridor was covered by the barnacles, and the walls by a few frogs.
“Where in the hell are we?!” Grunted Navia as she dodged another spit of acid. She dashed forward to put a hole in another’s barnacle head, and as she did, a second barnacle quickly grabbed her arm. Thanks to the bits of armor she had, the monster wasn’t able to injure her. As it held her, she pulled it closer and punched it in the ribs, caving its chest inward.
As she killed one, another trampled over its body and moved forward. It was a wave without an end. At the same time, Navia pulled back and checked on the two women on her back. Before they could even react to a frog appearing from the corner, it already had a knife in its head as Navia used a plate of her armor to turn into a knife.
“If only I had a gate to take care of multiple monsters at once.” Navia jumped back and forth, striking two barnacles and pulling back. Repeating it over and over. Even killing over thirty barnacles didn’t show any progress, as the corridor was full of them.
“I need a different weapon… Not precision. I need range and destructiveness. I don’t have enough control over my power to make a great sword… I need to be more creative… I need… This!” Navia jumped further back and turned all her weapons and armor into liquid blood. From the blood in her hands slowly appeared a chain and at the end of it a morningstar. “Let’s see how this will work out!” Shouted Navia as she threw the morning star above the monsters and pulled the chain down. Not only were the chains connected together stretched a long way, but they were sharp as razor blades. With a single pull-down, she killed a dozen of them; the one at the end had its head smashed by the morning star.
Navia twisted the chain and pulled it back. As the weapon was being pulled back, it waved from one wall to another, cutting many monsters on its path. Once she grabbed the morningstar into her hand, she killed around fifty barnacles with a single swing and pull. “It’s working!” Navia was about to throw the morningstar again, but an acid splashed on her hand weakened her muscles and tore them apart, forcing Navia to drop her new weapon to the ground.
“Shit!” Navia knelt down to grab her weapon, but another frog aimed its acid at her. She only grazed the weapon on the floor and pulled a bit of blood from it, leaving a long part of the chain on the ground, leaving her with only enough blood to create a single dagger.
Looking back, Navia noticed that the two of them had stopped as Isabell worryingly looked back and forth. They were standing in front of the stairs leading down, but the woman was too scared to even attempt moving the wheelchair down.
Navia dashed toward them and grabbed the elderly woman into her arms, jumping down the stairs with her. “Throw down the wheelchair!” Shouted Navia, and the woman did as she said. Following slightly behind the falling wheelchair. There were two paths down there, left or right. Looking forward, there was an untouched door with a sign “Staff Only”
It was the only steel door in the entire ship, probably the safest place, too. Once Navia placed the older lady in the wheelchair, Isabell caught up to them and was about to push her mother, but she hesitated, not knowing if to go left or right.
“Where do we go?!” Isabell asked in panic, breathing fast after running down the stairs.
“Into the staff area!” Seeing the Barnacles getting near the stairs, Navia acted on impulse, and the blood that was gathering around her fist quickly moved down toward her feet. She jumped onto the staff door, bounced onto the wall on the other side, and did it again toward the steel door, one foot in front, fortified by her blood.