--POV Bravo-1--All six of us point our guns at the location of the voice. What we find is a beautiful girl with golden hair and an eye patch. The girl"s eye widens slightly, but her expression remains mostly unchanged.
"I"m sorry, I heard your helicopter, so I came to see if you were here to help us." the girl says with a bit of hesitation.
I ignore the girl"s explanation for now, "Command, come in. Has the target been located?"
Command responds quickly, "Affirmative Bravo-1, Alpha team has already located the target. This girl should be a survivor."
"Understood. Everyone lower your weapons. Girl, what"s your name?"
"...My name is Eve."
"Eve, do you know of any other survivors on this ship?"
Eve glances at the radio and camera, "...yes, there are hundreds of people barricaded in the engine room."
"Great. That"s good news. Can you take us there, Eve?"
"No, there are too many of them between here and the engine room...that"s why I am here alone."
"Them?" I ask in confusion.
The girl lifts her hand and points at a pale corpse. Moving in to take a closer look, I see a disgusting looking creature.
"What is...?"
Before I can finish my question in the distance, I hear the sound of gunfire.
Using my radio, I contact command, "Command what was that just now?"
"Bravo-1, we...we aren"t quite sure what"s going on please stand by for a few moments for further orders."
"What"s going on, just tell me?" I ask in annoyance.
"Bravo-1, we are trying to figure that out ourselves; please stand by and, in the meantime, see if you can get any more information from the survivor."
I frown and look toward where Eve was standing, only to find her missing. I then turn and stare at the Petty Officers, "Where the h.e.l.l did Eve go?"
The five people look between one another before Bravo-2 starts to speak, "...I"m not sure I was looking toward the gunfire."
**Sigh**
Giving up on the five, I look around the room to see a door swaying lightly, "There, let"s follow her."
We move toward the direction Eve seems to have run off to. Throwing open the door, we find ourselves in what looks to be the ship buffet. The smell of rotten seafood permeates the air, glancing around the area I can see torn pieces of meat and bone.
Without a word, I motion for the others to follow me. Not finding Eve, in the dining room, we head for the kitchen behind the buffet stations. We enter the room to find Eve staring at the industrial-sized refrigerator.
"Eve! Why did you..."
**Bang! Bang! Bang!**
"Let me out!" I hear someone yell.
Eve ignores me, walks to the refrigerator, and effortlessly pushes a large food cart that had fallen over in front of the refrigerator.
"How strong is this girl?"
She opens the fridge, and a man comes tumbling out. The man looks ragged and smells of human waste and rotten food. The man stares at the girl with a look of disbelief.
"Ede..."
Eve interrupts the man, "Yes, Uncle Phil. It"s me, Eve...I can"t believe you"ve been in a fridge for so many days."
The man apparently named Phil does a confused look around the room, he stares at us for a moment, and his face shows a look of understanding, "Ye...yeah. That"s right I"ve been trapped in there for days, sorry I was just confused. Anyways, I thought I heard gunfire, so I hoped someone finally came to rescue me."
Eve tilts her head and blinks, "...you smell more like you"ve been trapped in there for months. How did you not get found?"
"Thanks, but that wasn"t necessary. I don"t know how I survived. I could hear those things screeching and scurrying about...I thought I"d die for sure, but they never managed to get in or just didn"t realize I was in there."
"It"s probably because you smell like sewage," Eve remarks.
Taking the chance, I interrupt the two, "Enough! Now Eve, tell us why you ran away."
Eve gives me a look like I"m stupid for asking, "I heard Uncle Phil"s voice."
"All the way in the lobby? I don"t believe it; it seems more like you were just trying to sneak off."
Before I can get an answer, command comes back over the radio, "Come in, Bravo-1! We are sending Echo immediately for an emergency extraction. Move to the bow of the ship as silently as possible."
"But command what about the survivors in the engine room?"
"Listen, you need to leave immediately; this is an order. As long as they stay barricaded, they should be fine. We"ll send more soldiers to get those people later, but things are far beyond our expectations."
"...Roger." I grudgingly agree and turn to the two additional people.
"Eve and Phil, you are both leaving with us."
Curiously, Eve gives me an odd look while Phil shakes his head eagerly.
"I can"t help but think something"s up with this Eve."
As quietly as we possibly can, we leave the buffet and slowly make our way through the flickering lights and blood stained halls. Despite the eerie atmosphere, I keep a close eye on Eve, who keeps glancing back and forth like she"s looking for an opportunity to escape again.
Abruptly Eve speaks out, "Wait. We can"t go this way... it"s blocked."
I look at Eve, "What do you mean it"s blocked?"
"Yeah, that hallway is blocked by rubble...I"ve been walking around the halls a lot over the past few days. We need to go out the side entrance instead."
"Are you sure? That"s pretty far out of the way...Command come in, what do you think?"
"We suggest you listen to the girl if she has been moving about the "Moonlight" freely with those things she must know every nook and cranny of the ship."
"Understood.", reluctantly I decide to take commands advice.
Eve takes the lead and begins to work us through seemingly random hallways. I glance at Phil, who has a bit of a confused look on his face, and it isn"t long before he opens his mouth to speak.
"Ede...I mean, Eve, why...?"
**Waaaa**
Everyone in the group stops and looks around the room, before Bravo-3 finally speaks, "Did you guys just hear that? It sounded like a baby..."
**Waaaa**
"There it is again; I think it"s nearby."
I glimpse at all the troubled faces, "Let"s check it out right quick. If it"s a baby, we"ll take it with us."
Not bothering to ask commands opinion this time, we follow the crying noise to an inconspicuous room. I walk up to the door, finding it propped open; I motion to the Petty Officers warning them to be on high alert. Throwing open the door, we find a room with a large red pentagram drawn in the middle. In the center of the pentagram, a toddler is crying.
For a moment, all of us just stand with our mouths open, taking in the scene before us. To be honest, the pentagram is incredibly intricate and beautiful. It gives off a sense of awe, but in addition to the baby, two corpses lay piled in the corner, ruining any feeling of reverence. Regaining his composure first, Bravo-3 takes a step forward to pick up the toddler. When Bravo-3 approaches, the toddler stops crying and instead raises his arms as if asking to be picked up.
"Hey, little guy. It"s okay we"ll get you out of this h.e.l.l hole.", Bravo-3 gently picks up the baby.
Find authorized novels in Webnovel，faster updates, better experience，Please click for visiting.
The moment Bravo-3 places the child against his chest, things start to take a turn. The toddler"s eyes turn bright red, and its mouth forms a twisted ecstatic smile.
"What the?!" I hear one of the men yell.
The toddler opens its mouth wide, revealing two long canines. It laughs with a deep adult voice and grips Bravo-3"s head with long sharp claws. It bites onto Bravo-3 neck and latches on, but suddenly it vanishes into a puff of gray mist. {1}
Without the toddler"s canines, blood begins to spill from Bravo-3"s neck as we all try to process what"s happening we hear the sound of the door creak. All at once, we turn to find someone in a torn b.l.o.o.d.y dress wearing a black skull mask in the doorway. Out of reflex, I raise my weapon, but suddenly I feel something tugging at my arms.
Looking down, I find a dark red chain running from Bravo-3"s blood, winding itself around my arms. The chain abruptly tightens around my arms and drags me to the floor, ultimately hindering my movement. I glance around to find Eve, Phil, and the rest of Bravo team is in the same situation as me. The only exception being Bravo-3 whos hand is stuck to the side of his neck from where he tried to stop the blood flowing.
The girl casually reaches outside the door and grabs someone"s body.
"d.a.m.n it! These chains are the same thing you used in j.a.pan, and isn"t that someone from Delta team," I ask.
Slowly the girl closes the door behind her and turns to the room, "Probably, I don"t know. Just try not to be too loud, or they"ll find us quicker."
"Again, who is them?"
The girl tilts her head, "Did you not see them? Pale ugly spiderlike creature."
"Like in the lobby?"
"I mean, probably. Are there a lot of pale human-sized spiderlike creatures running around nowadays?"
"What are those things?"
At first, the girl doesn"t respond; she walks around the room and starts removing our radios and cameras. She gathers them all up, lays them out, and then crushes them. Then she walks to our weapons, and I watch as they disappear as if they never existed in the first place.
"Those things are the G.o.ddess"s punishment upon humanity for past transgressions. This room is where they were created."
"What?" I glance around the room to see everyone with looks of confusion except for Eve, who is nodding intently.
The girl sighs, "Listen. I"m tired. Originally I planned to wait for human civilization to collapse before I made this kind of move, but I"ve realized now that trying to do everything with only two chess pieces is impractical. Maybe, it could have been done in the beginning, but things have moved to the point where I need to take a more dynamic approach."
"What are you even talking about right now?"
"I"m saying I need p.a.w.ns on my chessboard and all the better if those p.a.w.ns have a military background."
"Why the h.e.l.l would we betray our country, no our humanity, to serve as your p.a.w.ns?"
"For a place in the new world for both you and your family? For a chance to preserve a piece of humanity"s legacy? For a life much longer than any human? There"s an abundance of reasons."
"You don"t make any d.a.m.n sense; you"re just some insane little girl. Why should we believe anything you say and why our team anyways? Why not the other teams?"
The girl removes her mask, revealing a cute face and burning red eyes, she smiles, showing two long fangs, "I did try the other teams first, and they failed their tests quite brilliantly. As for why you should believe me, well, until you prove yourselves, you"re not even worth my time convincing."
"It doesn"t matter either way; we aren"t interested in proving anything to something like you."
The girl giggles, "Why does everyone always think they have a choice?"