Crashing Tides

by Gwendolyn Marie

  “I could not leave you. I had to come,” she whispered in response to the unsaid protest. Her words stumbled over each other, for all she could think of was being in his arms and having his warmth envelope her.

  “I should have never left you. I ...” Leander said. It was as if he could see within her soul, hear what she had not spoken. Complete her thoughts. But before he could finish his heart’s confession, Leander moved his lips to hers. He knew words could never encapsulate the entirety of what he felt towards her. Only in the sharing of souls, in a kiss, could that be done. And in his kiss he brought to light all of his love toward her, finalizing his fate.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  A kiss.

  Leander’s lips tender on her own, a gentleness Nyx had never experienced. Love kindled so much so that she became lost in his arms.

  Many say that in a kiss, souls touch. Those who said that were right. Nyx’s and Leander’s souls touched, and he took a piece of her that would forever change him.

  They parted.

  She looked to him, her face changing from that of desire to regret. Sadness crept over her. The clouds of desire began to recede leaving her to forever grasp for the moment that had passed.

  “No ...” a whisper realizing what she had done.

  A thorn defends the rose, harming only those who would steal the blossom. A proverb of ancient times, sprung to life through her.

  Leander wondered why she would say such, for he had thought their feelings were realized in the kiss. He loved her, she him. But in the midst of his silent concern, something stirred within. For unbeknownst to him, her kiss bared the poison of the latent disease.

  Red flooded within his eyes. No longer the chestnut hue remained vibrant as the Drakōn mund brought havoc to his brain. Watching the change occur, watching how the essence of humanity degraded into chaos, she froze but then held him tighter wishing she could stop this. There was nothing she could do. Blood began to run from Leander’s nose and mouth as the frontal lobe became a ruin of devastation. The human essence destroyed. His hands grasped the sides of his head. An abrupt scream echoed from his contorted mouth, as he fell to his knees in her embrace as the transformation commenced.

  If only she could go back in time for mere moments and change their fates. To go back before when nothing mattered other than having his warmth and touch near her. But as she held him and pressed her face into his shoulder, she felt his convulsions taper. His hand reached up. The arm was covered in the red of his own blood, and rather than seeking her in comfort it grasped forward erratically. The movements mirrored the Chaot. The resounding scream in his voice was no longer human, it was no longer Leander. She did not want to leave him, but forced herself to unravel her arms from around him. She took a step back retreating to the cell that she had just freed him from. And that freedom damned him, as it had with her. Pulling the cell’s door close, she locked herself inside and withdrew until her back hit the furthest wall. She dropped down, her sight never leaving her love.

  What she had done. What she had lost.

  “Leander,” Nyx whispered as Leander found his footing and took a cumbersome step to her. Hand reached through the bars, as if to pull her to him and finish the kiss. Though this time without compassion; this time without the tender caress.

  She closed her eyes shut in hopes that her guilt would disappear. She had betrayed the one who had promised to stand by her. She had damned Leander with a kiss. The one who wished to know what it was to be uninhibited, now was forever so.

  “I am so sorry.”

  Such simple words, a breadth unfathomable. She said it not to the gods residing above, but to Leander. For only he could grant her the forgiveness she needed. However, her absolution was now forever lost in his insanity.

  Guards ran in alert to the prison break, but what they came against was not expected. Through her closed eyes she saw nothing, only the darkness which obscured so much—but not enough as screams came forth. What was now Leander held no mercy to the security of Thalassic as he sunk his teeth into the guards’ flesh, rousing the disease to awaken where before it had missed. Cries of agony. Inhuman screeching. All came forth as Drakōn mund propagated itself, and delivered the Scipian’s ambition to the underwater.

  Thalassic was no longer untouched.

  What seemed like hours passed. The explosive ring of bullets filled the air. The concern of the hull being breached by stray bullets no longer took precedence as the crew faced their worst nightmare. The disease spread, rampant within the Thalassic, fulfilling Triton’s hope to destroy the last bit of opposing civilization. Thalassic could have threatened his goal of unequivocal rule over the new land, but now it was being decimated into the fate of the land dwellers. Nyx was simply a tool and she had fulfilled her use.

  The guilt of destroying Leander consumed her. Leander was the first. Her first true victim; the first one directly infected by her, that she knew of. Did she make him into her own marionette, her genetics melding him into the chaos she desired? She grasped unto some hope that a direct transmission of the prion would have alternate effects. That somehow it could grant Leander some freedom of self, rather than the destruction of all that he was. She sat behind the prison bars, watching the hands of the newly formed Chaots reach through and try to grab her as their feast. A few had given up the fruitless endeavor and ventured off into the underwater colony, spreading the chaos, bringing the plague to the rest.

  But Leander and one other stayed close to her. Their skin was not decomposed as the Chaots on land. Only the trail of fresh blood from the nose and eyes told the tale of what they were. No longer did their eyes shine with sagacity or hope; instead they fell prey to the same passionate chasm-less void as the other Chaots.

  One Chaot, dressed in the navy hues of the Thalassicians, reached his arm further through the bars reaching for her. His shirt began to tear and fresh blood spurned from the metal that he pushed against. A futile task, but nevertheless she shrunk away from his actions. Leander paced back and forth, every so often rattling the bars of the cage with such hateful longing for her that she almost succumbed. She gave him this fate, now she wished to share in the consequences. She had the key, she could open the cell and go to him. Whatever would come, would come.

  He sensed this. He stopped his strides and reached through the bars to beckon her.

  She stepped forward. Her hand went out to touch what had become of Leander. Her hopes fleeting, yet persistent, that he had not completely perished under the disease.

  Gunfire intervened. An aerosol explosion of red liquid and flesh splashed against her. Terror came as she thought she had lost him, in soul as well as body. But as she wiped the crimson from her face, she saw him alive. The victim was not Leander. Though, the second Chaot was reduced to a heap besides the cell; tremors animated his body in sporadic aftershocks of life. Leander turned to face the bullet’s discharger.

  Hector.

  “Stand down, captain,” he said, aiming his firearm toward his friend, his next target.

  Leander took a step; Hector’s words had no meaning for him. Even if they had, he would have continued undeterred because of the uncontrollable hunger outweighing any sense of reason.

  “Leander,” Hector said, “you can fight this! You are stronger than this!”

  But nothing could escape the plague that was unleashed.

  Closing the distance, Leander took another step. Hector could no longer safely wait, the remorse that flooded him spoke volumes of what he would be forced to do. His finger again found the trigger. But he did not press down. He did not disperse the bullet and instead, Hector’s aim lowered decisively. His fellow soldiers from Kalambaka. Megaira. He could not do it again, it was destroying him.

  Relief passed for a moment in Nyx at Hector’s resolve to not kill him. She wanted Leander to live, despite the prion that now absorbed him. It was still Leander before her. Hector knew this, she believed, and he would rather die than kill his comrade as he had done many
times before. Yet it was kill or be killed, and Leander made his move. Jaws upturned in a deadly smile, Leander began his attack on Hector. Though he had mercy, the Chaot had none. Hector accepted his choice, and prepared for death by the hands of his captain.

  But Leander stopped. Pain stole his features as he trembled in one last spasm of life.

  And then he fell.

  As Leander struck the ground in defeat, Nyx’s figure remained standing in his wake. The open jail cell behind her. The Fisherman’s knife in her hands, covered with blood. A sorrow that would never waver penetrated her own heart. She saved Hector, but at what cost? She kneeled besides her fallen love, taking Leander’s hand in hers.

  Fighting regret that filled his emotions, Hector steadied himself. She had just saved him, and now he had to save her.

  “The Thalassic is comprised. We have to go now.”

  He reached out for her. Part of her died with Leander. But part of her desired only to avenge his death, and she knew how. She knew who had set her loose upon society, who had devised her slaughter of the Thalassic. They would pay, as she had.

  Letting go of Leander’s hand, Nyx watched as it fell to his side. His hand had still been warm, and now only the cold air pressed against her palm.

  Love lost, by the lovers own hand.

  Nyx and Hector ran through the complex of halls away from the prison and towards the submersible. Zigzag turns wove them through the maze to their destination. Chaos erupted in the corridor mirroring the fate that was on the verge of consuming the Thalassic. Nothing could stop the tides of the ocean. Some Thalassicians underwent the change. Blood sprouted from their noses; their hands grasped their temples as if they could stop the invasion. In some, the transformation was already complete. They blocked the two’s way back to the sub. But before they could trap them, Hector tried a door. Locked.

  He lifted his foot and rammed it against the middle of it. Under the pressure, the lock gave way and door opened. Safe harbor.

  The room was dark. Hector’s focus remained near the door, in case intruders were to enter. His gun ready to shoot. Nyx looked around into the shadows. At first nothing except a green light flashed in her eyes. Shadows flashed on and off as the light did. She could only wish they would awaken from their static reflection, and crawl along the floors to take her. Take her to the underworld ... to Leander. Would she find the captain she had met in the seacoast town, or would it be the Chaot that had replaced his personality, thriving in the afterlife?

  “Find an alternate exit,” Hector commanded, his concentration focused on the door they had came in through, ready to kill anything that followed.

  She walked further into the room, her eyes adjusting to the dark. The opportunity of retreat did not appear, only a body in stasis.

  Diomedes.

  Death had not taken him. Truth replaced the lies. Hector had been given the wrong information, for Dio was there. The equipment to the side testified to his life, as the faint green pulse throbbed on the monitor, recording his heartbeat. Tubes and wires ran along his body, fluids continually poured into his veins. Some to keep him alive while inert, some to keep him immobile. The Thalassic had kept Dio alive, but not for the reasons Leander hoped. They had kept him alive as a Chaot. Their goal seemed solely to study their enemy, not to cure Dio. The equipment attested to that.

  Hatred simmered in Nyx to see Dio in this state. She began pulling the wires out of him. She would not allow him to remain an experiment, a lab rat as she had once been.

  Without the sedative to keep him in suspended animation, Dio began to stir. His mouth opened as his breathing quickened; eyes rolled under his lids as if persecuted by nightmares. One finger twitched, followed by the whole arm. That was when Hector took notice, and aimed his gun toward his comrade.

  “The priests I spoke of, their advice,” Hector started and for the first time she heard indecision in his voice. He could not face another death of a friend. “I don’t want to give myself to this—killing my friends. Where am I to stand ... what do I give my heart to ... when everyone I know is dead.”

  Nyx walked between Hector and Dio. Reaching up, she put her hand on the barrel of the gun. Her weight pivoted it downward, the aim no longer on Diomedes.

  “You are a warrior, yes, but not simply a killer. And you stand nowhere, Hector. You run,” Nyx said. “You found what you sought upon the peaks of Meteora, and it was not a person or place. It was the journey. Give your heart to that, for it will never die.”

  “Leave him, Hector,” she continued, “We did as much as we could for Dio. He is no longer a research subject but as a Chaot he can at least attain vengeance against those who had kept him here.”

  The same vengeance she hoped to attain with those who had held her. Those who had stripped her of everything, of Leander.

  Dio began to move, urging Hector to make a decision.

  “Then let us run together, Nyx,” he said, the sadness in his voice mirroring her own. “Let the journey lead us.”

  Without an alternate exit, they had to go back the way they came. Hector opened the door. As he did, Nyx took one last look toward Dio, struggling to sit, struggling to stand. Soon the drug would completely wear off and he would be a Chaot in the fullest sense of the term. Chaos will follow him. Retribution will come.

  “Now Nyx.” Hector took her arm and they began to run down the corridor of the underwater compound. The Thalassicians who had begun transformation before they went into the room, had now fully metamorphosed into Chaots. In erratic precision they ran after the two as Hector and Nyx came into the hallways. The few became many as the scent of life caught the senses of those undergoing the change, and the many became too much thus hindering their escape. But it was not the Chaots who proved to be their undoing.

  Several unexpected and unexposed Thalassicians stood at the end of the hall as Nyx and Hector turned a corner. Bullets poured in frenzied waves down the halls as they saw the two. Fear governed their actions. Not fear of the tangible, but the fear that came only in the irrepressible terror of nightmares.

  Fear directed toward the Chaots. It had been festering under the water, toward the unknown threat, and now in the gun fire it reached its ultimatum. And the fear towards the Chaots now directly became toward Hector and Nyx as the bullets came to them.

  Seeing the incoming rounds, she moved in front of Hector, her form as a shield to protect him. But it was too late.

  His hand reached down. It pressed against the blood that spilled from his abdomen.

  “No, we can still make it. We can still escape,” Nyx said as she tried to pull his weight over her shoulder. He allowed her at first, stumbling by her side in several hindered steps. The Chaots began to gain on them. Hector fired his gun toward the incoming enemy with Nyx as his crutch, but soon the fiery blasts were replaced by hollow clicks as his ammunition ran out. The Thalassicians who were shooting had turn and run. Hector tried to reload, but only had time to load one cartridge before the Chaots came upon them. Fire came again, but it could only ebb the wave so much. Hands grasped Nyx as she fought to keep Hector standing and achieve escape. Hector fought the beasts with his free hand, tearing their arms from Nyx despite the pain burning within his torso.

  One bit down on Hector. Teeth bore within flesh. Hector knocked the butt of the gun into the Chaot’s face, freeing himself from the death latch. Freedom would be short lived though, as another death latch ascended: the prion.

  He held the gun out for Nyx to take it.

  “One bullet.”

  “No, I won’t. Come with me, please!” At first she grabbed his arm, not wanting to leave him. She could not suffer another loss, and needed him to be besides her. But Hector pushed her away from him. His expression spoke volumes, and left no room for discussion.

  “Your oath, Nyx. Remember.”

  She looked at him, into his eyes that she once thought were an unbreakable wall. The wall did not fall, but instead had opened to allow her in. He had trusted her. He had
believed in her. As she did with him. A drip of blood began to fall from his nose, signaling the prion had began its destruction. A wordless goodbye passed between them, as she took the gun and fired.

  Turning away so she did not have to see his body hit the ground, and the Chaots descended upon his lifeless form, she ran. She did not turn back. Unlike Orpheus and Eurydice, she knew she had lost him even if she did not glance behind her. Only her need for vengeance fueled her escape, for she had lost all else. She had to live long enough to bring ruin to what had destroyed all whom she had loved.

  Anger filled her soul like flesh moldering in the swampy marshes. Oh, if she could kill, if she could feel Death’s hand cover her own and allow her to bring the end to those she despised. Sorrow lashed in her heart for those she had lost. Anger fermented deeper still. Did pure evil reside in these thoughts of revenge? Yet she could not rid the hatred from her soul, even if it condemned her.

  How she did hate them. Not the Chaots, for another was responsible. The Chaots were puppets on strings. It was those aboard the Scipian’s fleet. It was Triton. They would have to answer for what they had begun, they were the harbinger of her hate. Now animosity burned in her soul, leaving a taint forever in its wake. And it was not simply toward those of the Scipian, but towards herself.

  The innocent façade of Nyx was a mirror, her surface reflective of what stood near it. But underneath? Underneath lay much more: layers of enmity that were in truth darker than the most barbaric killer. Smile and display the niceties in reflection, but at the core that smile is imitation for no happiness was inside. Look beneath and the stench of contempt beckoned to be released, unrelenting if ever to touch the light of day.

  Come close, and I shall push you off the cliff. Turn, and I will bring the blade down, rendering you forever lost in eternity. Now, those of the Scipian were safe. But soon they would die. In her blood, a monster that slept, now awakened. A killer released by them, only to turn and bite its maker.