Chapter 3
Lighting
The young man kept his gaze fixed on the spear embedded in the center of the room. He couldn't tear his eyes away from that impossible object, as if looking away would let it pierce him again at any moment.
Slowly, he removed his hand from his stomach. He raised it in front of him, fearing to see it stained red.
But there was no blood, only the faint tremor of his damp fingers. He breathed deeply, relieved, though he didn't allow himself to fully trust it.
Cautiously, he brought his hand back to his abdomen. This time, he decided to check for real. With clumsy movements, he opened the uniform, which still hung loosely on his body. The fabric was soaked and heavy, and each button he freed seemed to take too long. When he finally lifted the left side of his shirt, he first felt with his fingers, then looked down.
Nothing.
Not a cut, not a trace of blood. His skin was intact. Only the pain remained, deep and persistent, though it was already beginning to fade.
Relief mixed with bewilderment. How was that possible? The stabbing pain in his stomach had felt so real…
Then he noticed it: another sensation, stronger than any wound.
The cold.
An icy cold seeped into his bones, making him shiver violently. He couldn't stand the wet weight of the uniform clinging to his body any longer. So he grabbed both sides of the garment and, with a sharp tug backward, pulled it off. The effort cost him; his arms felt like lead, but he managed it. The soaked jacket fell onto the bed with a dull thud.
The shirt wasn't safe either. Not as drenched as the uniform, but the front was soaked with ice-cold water against his skin. The young man hooked his fingers into the neck of the garment and pulled forward, away from his chest, to stop the cold from biting into him.
He exhaled slowly, feeling a sliver of relief, and for the first time since waking, he forced himself to look carefully at the rest of the room.
The room was a disaster.
The spear, driven into the floor at an angle pointing toward the bed, dominated the center like a mute threat. Its coral edges seemed to pulse under the faint light, still wet with saltwater that dripped down to form a puddle.
Behind him, the icy current entering through the broken window made him flinch. He turned and saw the splintered circular frame, open to a sea roaring with fury. The wind brought gusts of rain and droplets that stung his skin like icy needles.
The bed he'd woken on was so comfortable it was a shame he'd ruined it with his wet body.
To his right, a long piece of furniture against the wall revealed what looked like an improvised laboratory. Shelves lined with jars of strange liquids, some tinged a viscous green, others a dark red that looked too much like coagulated blood.
There were also bags filled with organic matter: organs, roots, pieces of something he couldn't identify.
Many of these containers were on the floor, shattered, scattering glass and a sour smell that irritated his nose.
The young man frowned, observing the wreckage.
—"I don't think they're from the window… maybe alchemist's equipment?"— he thought, his eyes scanning the stains and scattered fragments.
His gaze returned to the center of the room, to the embedded spear, then slid back to the broken cabinet.
—"And the alchemist?"— he murmured, leaning forward a little, bracing himself on the bed with both hands.
The question hung in the air.
The young man shook his head, as if he could ward off the idea that the alchemist had vanished without a trace. He took a deep breath, gathered his strength, and tried to stand.
The ship's rocking was constant, the creak of wood accompanying every sway. Yet, when he managed to straighten up, he felt a strange stability: his steps didn't wobble as much as they should have.
He frowned.
'I'm not dizzy?' - he thought, surprised.
He stood still, testing his balance, and for a moment he believed his body had regained its firmness.
He took a step forward.
A dry impact.
The world spun suddenly and the wood smashed against his face.
'Did the floor… rise?' - he thought, confused, his breath catching.
He immediately dismissed it: 'No, impossible… it was me. I collapsed.'
He pushed himself up on both hands, panting, and tried to lift his body. First, he bent one leg, planting his foot against the damp wood. The effort was clumsy, slow, every muscle protested as if weighted with lead.
And in the midst of that struggle, something broke the silence.
A putrid smell filtered in from the door.
An acidic, viscous stench that churned his empty stomach.
Then he heard it:
Step. Drops.
A wet dragging sound approaching.
The young man raised his head with difficulty, turning toward the room's entrance.
And he saw it.
The door opened with a wet creak, and a figure emerged from the threshold.
It was an upright body, human in form, but every detail betrayed that illusion.
Its head was that of a bloated fish, with disproportionate eyes that moved independently, erratically in their gleaming sockets.
Its scaly skin, a bluish-green hue, stretched uniformly and slickly, as if still covered in saltwater.
The naked torso lacked any recognizable human feature: no sex, no navel, just a mass of tense muscles under skin that shone with a viscous gleam.
The stench became unbearable. The young man clenched his teeth, but the acidity climbed his throat. The nausea transformed into an uncontrollable spasm and he vomited what little remained in his stomach, staining the wood beneath him.
He was left trembling, his forehead beaded with cold sweat. Disgust churned within him as much as the rage of feeling vulnerable.
—"Damn it…"— he whispered, trying to pull himself together.
He forced himself to stand, though his legs buckled.
He took a clumsy step backward, trying to gain some space, but his body didn't respond. He stumbled against the bed and fell sitting onto it, gasping. His vision felt heavy on his eyelids, each cough tearing away a little more of his strength.
The creature, meanwhile, advanced. Its gait was clumsy, the reinforced metal floor resonating with each wet footfall. Its wet body made it lose balance, but it continued nonetheless, firm, inexorable, closing in on him.
The young man lowered his head, his chest convulsed by coughing. With one hand he braced himself on the bed, with the other he groped blindly over the sheets, desperately searching for anything he could use.
Step. Step.
The monster kept approaching.
And then, finally, his fingers closed tightly around what he was seeking.
The young man gritted his teeth, swallowing bitter saliva. The wet weight of the uniform in his hand was all he had found, but in that instant, it seemed like his last card.
He let himself fall sideways onto the bed, twisting his body to gather momentum. With a sharp swing of his right arm, he hurled the garment at the monster.
The uniform flew through the air like a dark mass, spreading out in front of the creature's face, wrapping around it, blocking its view.
It was a breath, a stolen second.
But the monster didn't hesitate.
It kicked forcefully against the metal floor, which creaked under its weight, and with a swipe of its claw, it seized the spear embedded in the center of the room. The weapon yielded as if it had been waiting for it.
With both claws, it gripped the coral shaft and, without stopping, brandished it forward.
The uniform in the air instantly tore, pierced through and through by the spear's tip. The creature advanced without slowing, dragging the impaled garment until it crashed against the bed.
The weight of the impact shook the entire piece of furniture. The uniform was shredded into strips, which fell like soaked rags around the spear. The monster brushed them aside with a jerk of its claws, and its eyes began to spin uncoordinated, searching frantically.
An erratic movement to the right. And there it saw him: the young man.
He was no longer on the bed. He had run, staggering, in the opposite direction, bracing against the left wall, trying to gain distance.
The monster spun with a spasm of violence. With a guttural bellow, it raised the spear and, without thinking, hurled it with all its strength toward him.
The young man ran with ragged breath, holding air in his lungs to avoid inhaling the monster's stench. The wet shirt covered part of his face, barely filtering the smell, while his fingers remained extended, tense, accumulating an energy that crackled between them.
The creature had him in its sights. Its body twisted with a sudden spasm, and in a single motion, it launched the spear. The weapon cut the air with a hum, a lethal line flying straight toward the young man.
The young man didn't look away. The tension in his fingers reached its limit, and with a grunt, he released the discharge that drowned out all other sound in the room.
A lightning bolt erupted in a "V" shape, splitting into two irregular beams that illuminated the room with a blinding flash.
The collision was inevitable.
The spear intercepted one of the halves, deflecting only slightly from its trajectory. The impact blackened its coral surface, but didn't stop its advance: it kept flying, relentless, toward the young man's chest.
The remaining lightning continued its path, cutting through the air toward the monster. But then the impossible happened.
The spear, already weakened, reached the young man's fingers. It was about to pierce him when, in a deafening explosion, it shattered into dozens of pieces.
Fragments flew in all directions, ricocheting off walls, floor, and ceiling. Sharp shards crossed the room like shrapnel. Some shattered jars on the cabinet, others bounced off the monster's body causing little more than scratches.
A larger piece slammed into the young man's leg, just below the knee. The blow knocked him to the floor, making him twist in pain as he rolled in the water puddle.
Before he could scream, he looked up. He saw another fragment hit a jar secured with ropes on the shelf. The glass shattered and released its contents: a gray mandrake, which fell to the floor with its mouth open.
The young man barely had time to think of the danger when the smaller remnants of the spear intercepted the other half of the lightning bolt mid-flight.
Each shard became an improvised emitter, multiplying the discharge into a rain of chaotic lightning.
The room flashed orange.
The blast was like a grenade.
The spear fragments, transformed into energy nodes, released lightning in all directions. Each orange spark expanded in erratic trajectories, like serpents of light racing through the air at impossible speeds.
One of the bolts struck the fish-monster head-on, making it shudder with violent spasms, its eyes rolling in their sockets like out-of-control marbles. Twelve other bolts missed their mark and destroyed everything in their path.
A shelf burst into brief flames that began to grow.
The mattress ignited in an instant, releasing a smell of scorched fabric.
A bolt shot through the door and out into the hallway, lighting up the ship as if a storm had fallen inside it.
The young man tried to shield himself from the lightning, but he was surrounded by water.
A bolt struck in front of him, and though it didn't touch him directly, the puddle he was lying in conducted the charge.
His body arched violently, muscles tensing to the point of pain, as the electricity paralyzed him.
The mandrake, freed from its jar, opened its mouth in a scream. The shriek wasn't a mere sound: it was a psychic knife that stabbed through the young man's head.
His vision filled with white spots, and foam bubbled from his lips as his already numb muscles gave way completely.
He fell onto his side, unconscious, eyes rolled back.
The electrical storm still raged around him, illuminating the room in pulses of orange and blue. Each discharge was accompanied by the creature's sharp shriek, as if both disasters were competing to shred the sanity of anyone who dared listen.
Finally, the lightning bolts died out, one after another, leaving behind the smell of ozone and burnt wood.
The last sound remaining in the room was the sustained shriek of the mandrake and the constant drip of water seeping through the window.
The young man lay motionless on the floor.
---
The silence didn't last.
The body of the fish-monster, blackened in several places by the discharge, shuddered. Its limbs trembled, but with effort, it managed to get to its feet. Its movements were slower, each step cost it, and yet it kept advancing.
Its uncoordinated eyes swiveled, searching for its prey. Its gaze fell upon the young man, lying on the floor, unconscious, foam at his mouth. A guttural growl erupted from its throat, a mix of pain and fury.
The monster took a step forward, unsteady but firm.
Another step.
The metal floor vibrated under its wet paws.
And then, something interrupted its advance.
From the doorway emerged a figure, liquid, as if seawater had taken human form. Its body was translucent, fluctuating, with edges that dissolved and recomposed in a hypnotic sway.
The fish-creature reacted immediately, tensing its muscles. A deep shriek burst from its throat before it launched its attack.
Its claws elongated grotesquely into the shape of curved blades, like wet scythes, and it swung them from right to left in a brutal arc.
But the blue figure didn't receive the blow. It contracted onto the floor like a puddle recoiling and, with an impulse, leaped toward the ceiling.
The monster looked up, searching above. The only thing it found was a gash in the wood, as if something had struck the ceiling violently. No one was there.
Drip. Drip.
The fish lowered its head, feeling a thick liquid sliding down its legs. At first it thought it was water. Then, a sharp pain pierced its torso.
It looked down and saw it: a curved blade had pierced it from side to side. The blood, a dark red, dripped incessantly, staining the floor in small puddles.
The monster tried to turn, but each attempt only caused more pain. A sharp tug forced a roar from it as the blade was withdrawn violently.
It tried to turn once more…
Zas.
The world tilted. Its vision tipped sideways. Suddenly, the room was spinning. The floor, the bed, the mandrake's corpse, everything was turning.
Dry impact.
Until, finally, everything stopped, only to vanish the next moment into infinite blackness.
[Simultaneously]
A sharp tug forced a roar from it, the blade withdrew violently.
The blade didn't stop.
With a wide, parabolic motion, it descended upon the fish-creature's neck.
Zas.
The edge cut through skin and scales as if they were butter. A quick, clean, diagonal cut. The monster's head separated from its body and flew off, leaving behind an arc of blood that splattered the wall and floor.
Wet impact. Spin.
The head rolled, made one more turn on the floor, and stopped a few steps from the young man.
The rest of the body remained upright for a second, swaying, before collapsing forward.
Dry impact.
Dry impact.
The corpse lay face down, while blood gushed forth, mixing with the puddles already in the room.
Standing amidst that scene was him.
A tall man, dressed in an impeccable uniform with a deep blue jacket, with reddish hair. In his right hand he held a curved sword: wide at the tip, narrower at the hilt, still coated in the blood that dripped to the floor at slow intervals.
The stranger remained still for a few seconds, observing the two parts of the corpse with serenity, almost boredom. Then he twisted his wrist, raised the sword, and shook it in a single motion toward the floor. The last drops of blood spattered the wood and walls.
With an automatic gesture, he drew the scabbard he carried slung and slid the blade inside. The sound of metal fitting into its housing filled the room, competing with the sound of raindrops and the fire.
—"Disgusting… this stuff sticks so much,"— he murmured with a grimace.
Then he swept his gaze over the devastated room. The shattered furniture, the blackened bed, the burst jars.
—"The alchemist is going to be furious,"— he said, and this time a mocking smile played on his lips.
His attention stopped on the unconscious young man.
The boy was still lying on the floor, eyes white, foam at his mouth. The man looked at him first with an expression of bewilderment, then of doubt.
As if he didn't quite know what to do, he nudged him with the tip of his boot. Once. Twice. Three times. Until he managed to make the young man roll over a bit and land on his back.
Seeing him, the man arched an eyebrow.
—"Mandrake?"— he whispered, leaning in a little.
The man bent over the young man, observing the foam at the corner of his lips. He clicked his tongue and began looking around, seeking confirmation of his suspicion.
Seeing the fire on the shelf, he raised his left hand.
Following that, the raindrops entering the room changed direction and swirled over his palm until they formed a ball of water.
Splash…
He shook that hand toward where the shelf was, and the ball of water burst into a wall of water that covered the furniture, extinguishing the flames.
He didn't take long to find what he was looking for: in a corner, half-hidden among shards of glass and charred remains, lay a scorched mandrake. Its roots were broken, the plant-like skin blackened by the electricity.
—"Ah, of course…"— he murmured, raising an eyebrow.
He turned back to the unconscious young man, tilting his head.
—"So that lightning in the hallway… was yours, boy? And I was thinking that monster was an electric variant."
He brought a hand to his neck, smiling ironically.
—"Good thing. It would have been annoying to face something that uses electricity, with everything being wet."
With his other hand, he had already drawn his sword again. He spun it with a fluid, almost careless gesture, and without moving from the spot, he threw it toward the wall where the mandrake rested.
Cut.
The blade pierced the plant-creature in an instant, splitting it into two halves that fell inert to the floor. The sound was wet, almost muffled.
—"You'll thank me later,"— he said quietly, without looking at the young man.
Then he crouched, slipped an arm under the boy's inert body, and lifted him with a single movement, settling him over his shoulder. The weight didn't seem to bother him enough to be a real inconvenience.
With the young man still slung over his shoulder, the man crouched in front of the mandrake remains.
He opened the leather sack attached to his waist with one hand, pulling the edge with his thumb to force it to widen more than normal.
—"First, the material,"— he murmured.
Calmly, he picked up the lower half of the mandrake and dropped it inside the sack, then repeated the same with the upper half. He adjusted the cords with a sharp tug until he heard the knot close hermetically.
Then he set the young man against the bed for a moment, took the hilt of his sword, and pulled to extract it from the wall.
At first it didn't yield, embedded between wood and metal. He frowned, levered it, and finally ripped it out with a jerk, breaking off a piece of the nearby furniture.
The fragment of wood flew out, hitting the floor with a dull thud. Until a wet sound was heard.
At that moment, a lightning flash illuminated the room from outside.
The flash clearly outlined a monstrous silhouette in the doorway.
Another fish-human. Its opaque eyes blinked in different directions, its wet skin gleamed under the lightning's light, and its claws dripped water into puddles that slowly spread across the metal floor.
The man sighed, holding the sword still in his hand.
—"Really?"— he clicked his tongue in annoyance.
—"It seems there are more of them than I thought."
He turned to a half-profile, holding the weapon firmly in his right hand, as the creature let out a guttural growl and leaned forward, ready to pounce.