Chapter 16
Reed woke to a terrible bang that shook the whole room and threw her violently down from her bed. Red lights started flickering above her and she heard an emergency siren starting to blast away before abruptly quieting down.
"What the fuck?!" Reed yelled and quickly got on her feet just for another violent shake to throw her back first into the wall.
This time Reed got up much more slowly holding her head. Her vision was blurry, and she fumbled for the bulkhead door. She grabbed the handle with both hands and tried to turn it, but the handle wouldn't turn.
"Come on you fuck!" She yelled as she pup her whole body to it, grunting, trying to turn the handle but in vain.
She struggled with the door before she felt another shake through the ship yet this one was not nearly as bad as the two before.
Panting, she stopped trying to open the door and kicked it in frustration. The door behind her opened with a bang and a young sailor stood at the doorway, pale as snow and with dilated eyes:
"Reed?" The young man asked with a shaky voice. His clothes were soaked, and water dripped from his hair.
-"Come help me with this door!" Reed yelled and motioned for the man to grab a hold of the handle.
He just stood there for a moment, opening and closing his mouth a few times before saying with a voice barely above whisper:
"But Moore is still back there."
-"Help me open this door and we'll go get her!"
-"I-uh…" The man hesitated clearly wanting to go back immediately.
-"Help me and I promise you we won't leave her!" Reed yelled, trying to get the man to help her.
Without saying anything the man stepped next to her and grabbed a hold of the handle. The handle creaked before opening the lock with a pop.
-"Good. Now, show me where Moore is." Reed said panting and turned to follow the young sailor.
They stopped in the next room next to the hatch that was closed, but not locked.
-"She… She's in there!" The sailor said hastily.
Reed opened the hatch and saw that the lower rooms were flooding. And fast.
-"What the fuck happened?" Reed asked herself and climbed down.
The water was only up to her ankles in the first room, but she quickly noticed that the vessel was trimming by heads by the quickly deepening waters. She heard a female voice yell for help and fastened her pace. By the time they reached the last room, the water was already up to their waists.
Stepping though the last doorway, Reed saw a woman laying on a bed with the upper ones having collapsed on top of her alongside some pipes from the ceiling, pinning her down.
-"Oh thank god! I thought that idiot just left me here!" The woman yelled with tears in her eyes.
-"Don't worry, we'll get you out of here." Reed assured Moore and started to push rubble off of her. "Help me out here!" Reed snarled realizing the sailor behind her had just frozen in place.
-"O-oh, right!" He stammered and started helping her.
They managed to lift the bed on top of Moore and get her mostly unstuck.
-"The fuck?! She should be free, shouldn't she?!" Reed huffed trying to support the beds.
-"It's her leg, it's still pinned down by something!" The sailor said and tried to reach for her leg between the beds.
-"Here! You hold this, I can fit easier there to see what's going on." Reed said and let the sailor support the beds.
-"It's almost underwater! Fuck, what do we do?" The man said panicking.
-"Shut up and just hold it up!" Reed yelled and dove face first between the beds. For the first time she noticed how cold the water was. Saltwater stung in her eyes, but she fumbled to find Moore's ankle.
She found it and took a hold of Moore's trouser leg and gave a strong nudge. She felt Moore trying to struggle free and managed to crush her fingers between her boot and the wall. Reed would have cursed so many times if she wasn't underwater. Recovering her fingers from the flattening she grabbed her pocketknife from her pocket and started to cut the trouser leg off.
She managed to cut the pant halfway around before Moore jerked her leg really hard and managed to tear the remaining fabric. In the process however Moore managed to kick Reed's hand again with such strength that forced her to let go of her knife.
Reed pulled herself out of between the beds and, on reaching the surface gasped for air.
-"Holy shit! You did it!" The man said and dropped the beds.
-"Now let's get the fuck out from here!" Reed yelled and pushed the others to start moving. The water level was almost to her shoulders and was still rising.
They pushed though many rooms and many bulkheads until the outside was revealed behind one of them. Heavy rain hit Reed's face and she squinted to see in the pitch black night. She fumbled for the railing and gasped:
"We need to abandon the ship!" Her voice drowned in the roaring of the sea.
Someone ran past them on the lower deck and flew overboard as a new shock struck the ship. The ship was already starting to tilt quite a bit as they climbed higher trying to get out of reach of the waves.
As they reached the mast, they saw an old lieutenant leaning against it trying to light a cigar.
-"Sir, what the fuck happened?!" Reed yelled to the man,
she shouted, trying to make her voice be heard over all the noise.
the lieutenant turned to her slowly and said calmly:
"Torpedoes... Or something like that."
-"Sir, we need to abandon the ship!"
-"Aye. we also need to-" Reed didn't hear what the lieutenant was about to say when a wave crashed over them.
When she opened her eyes, she was suddenly standing on the side of the ship staring down into the ocean yards below her and a man was yelling at her to jump. Someone on her left jumped but not far enough. The man banged against the hull of the ship and the waves swallowed him. The other staggered while standing on the edge and slid along the body into the water and the suction pulled him below.
Reed's head was pounding as she leapt forward. Just as she was about to hit the water, the world around her faded into darkness.
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Reed opened her eyes. She was standing on a forest road. In front of her was a small curve and a forest, behind which the road continued. Everything was blurry, like a failed photograph.
She was startled by a vague figure jumping over the ditch onto the road and turning to look in both directions.
-"Hey." Reed said but the man didn't react to her.
Reed noted that the figure was carrying a some kind of weapon as it crouched down and dug something out of its pocket and watched it. Reed walked walked behind the figure and reached out with her hand:
-"Hello? Can you hear me?"
Much to her surprise, her hand went straight through the figure's shoulder, like reaching into thick smoke.
-"The fuck?" She yelped and took a couple of steps back
Suddenly the figure turned its head to right and raised the weapon but before it could do anything flashes lit up the trees near the curve. The figure tried to shoot back but a quick burst punched through its chest and the figure collapsed to its side. For a long moment the figure wiggled as bullets pummeled it full of holes.
Reed had thrown herself to the ground out of a reflex when she saw the muzzle flashes and watched in shock.
-"Who is that?" She wondered out loud.
That was when she heard a puff behind her and a voice answered her:
"Someone you know."
Reed turned to her back fast and saw Observer Alpha floating in the air, watching as a pool of red started to spread under the figure.
-"So this is one of those 'visions' again?"
-"Well obviously. It took you this long to realize that?" The Siren laughed and stepped down to the ground.
-"Fuck off! This isn't funny." Reed said as Alpha nudged the figure's shoulder.
-"Yes. Tragic, isn't it? You get to see which of the people you know die... Well, you all die but some of you a bit sooner than the others."
Reed sneered at the Siren.
-"How about this. I'll show you a bit of the past, a little accident that happened this morning and after that I'll leave you in peace for a week."
-"Not like I could stop you even if I wanted to." Reed murmured.
-"Wonderful!" Alpha laughed and clapped her hands together.
The world around Reed started to turn black until only things visible were her and Observer Alpha.
In a flash the world appeared around them. First thing Reed perceived was two men that sat on the opposite sides of a desk.
-"That will be all, lieutenant. You can leave now." A man said behind a large desk.
-"Sir." The lieutenant answered, stood up and walked to the door.
-"Eh? Sanders?" Reed asked.
Like he heard her, Sanders turned to look at her straight in the eyes before turning away. Just before he could turn the handle the man behind the desk spoke up:
"One more thing. Could you send Captain Allen back in here? I need him for a moment."
-"Sure."
Sanders closed the door behind him and Reed turned to Observer Alpha. She was furious.
-"You fucking told me that you wouldn't do anything for a while!"
-"Did I? Sorry, I don't recall saying that."
Reed opened her mouth but just then the door opened again and Allen walked in and saluted.
-"Ah captain. I need you to sign one more paper." The man behind the desk said with a slight smile.
-"Oh, of course." Allen said and walked forward.
Just as Allen's foot touched the carpet he was hauled in the air and Observer Alpha appeared behind him. She snapped her fingers and an explosion shook the room and threw the door into the hallway.
-"Eh, is that what I looked like from behind?" Observer Alpha next to Reed wondered just as her past self said:
"Oh my... Is this a bad time? I could come back later."
The past Alpha raised her hand and snapped her fingers. As she disappeared with Allen the room was caught in a massive explosion. Reed raised her arms to protect her head but nothing happened to her.
-"As you can see, there was a small accident at Base Lima..." Alpha said next to her and walked into the hallway. Reed followed her and was about to say something but stopped dead in her tracks seeing Atlanta, Alabama and Sanders laying motionless on the ground.
-"I don't have anything else to show you right now so you can go back to sleep now if you want." Alpha said and turned to walk towards a portal she had summoned behind them.
-"Sanders! Atlanta!" Reed screamed and started running towards them. Before she made it to them she fell down and darkness swallowed everything.
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A/N: Yeah it me waddup. Not much to say other than; yes this is shorter. No I can't be bothered to write it to be longer. This one has been sitting on my computer half done for a while as well. I think I started to write this before chapter 14 when I tried to fight against writers block or whatever it is.
I have even less free time now. Fucking army, am I right?
But seriously thank you very much for reading this story. This story has 6k views as of writing this and I think that is way too many.
Reviews are very much appreciated no matter what ya wanna say
See ya hopefully next time. Some Dood out.