《The Weeping River [WW2 Supernatural Thriller Short Story]》 Chapter 1: Mist 1600 hours, 9th August 1942 I¡¯ve decided to record the events of this day both for the sake of posterity and for the wellness of my own mind, because what I¡¯ve seen is both unbelievable and incredible. I feel like I must¡¯ve hallucinated all of it. Some part of me supposes that if I write it all down, I''ll somehow be able to discern fact from fiction. Ridiculous, I know, but I don''t know what else to do. Deciding where to begin will be difficult. I suppose the gist of it is that I was stationed on four different field hospitals in the Pacific for the last three years. At first, I couldn¡¯t believe how many soldiers and marines were just sitting there waiting for someone to have time to see to them. They were like sardines in a can for a while, but the beds had a nasty way of clearing themselves up. There weren¡¯t enough doctors or nurses to go around. I was transferred from the 7th Evacuation Hospital on Tongatabu to the USS Respite to serve as chief nurse. The Respite was a passenger liner that had been refitted into a hospital ship that was participating in the raid on Guadalcanal. Her mission was to receive injured sailors and marines, provide them with medical care, and maintain a calming atmosphere all throughout. To be completely blunt, the Respite was falling apart when I arrived. No one ever told me what exactly happened, but the crew was working short staffed, including the medical personnel. People kept dying without anyone close by to replace them, I suppose. Then came August 9th, the day on which I begin to write this journal. Just before it happened, I was in the dining hall-turned infirmary trying to get on top of all of the casualties that hadn¡¯t been processed yet. I remember that it was a pain in the neck to concentrate, more so than usual. I may have gotten used to seeing people come and go, but screaming still had a way of hanging onto me and never letting go. I found that tapping my feet and humming a song helped a tad. I was seeing to Private Meyers at the time. He had a gunshot wound to the shoulder, thankfully nothing a little penicillin and morphine couldn¡¯t put right. If it wasn¡¯t for the blood pouring out of his side and the bullet that I yanked out of him, you wouldn¡¯t have been able to tell there was anything wrong with him. He peered around at the stream of nurses, doctors, and patients like an excited puppy and would barely sit still for his shots. I remember telling him, ¡®Mister, if you keep jittering around, I¡¯ll do the Japs a favour and finish the job for them¡¯. Despite the moaning coming from the rest of the infirmary and the sound of planes screeching by our ship, he looked me in the eye and smiled. ¡®I¡¯d like to see you try¡¯, he said to me. Men. Somehow, by the grace of God, I managed to not stick him like a pig. What happened next is hard to describe. It was like the Respite passed into a bubble. All at once, all of the noise from the battle popped out of existence. My first thought was that we¡¯d been hit by a torpedo and my eardrums were bleeding all over the place. But the groaning of the other patients didn¡¯t stop and my fingers were dry when I rubbed them against my ears. If I wasn¡¯t dead, then I had no reason to stop what I was doing. I moved on to the next fellow, then the next. Eventually some sailors rushed through the infirmary, spewing some hogwash about something or rather. The other nurses, particularly that Kelly Mason and her friend Rachael Alves, turned into stunned meerkats whenever the strange conversations drifted in. I gave them both good smacks on the backs of their heads and told them that a woman doesn¡¯t gossip or eavesdrop, not when there¡¯s work to be done. Kelly is a good girl, just easily distracted. Rachael, though, is bad news, I tell you. They went back to caring for the wounded marines, as did I. I didn¡¯t think anything of it. Not until I decided to take a look for myself. I supposed that if the girls had any trouble, they could go to Doctor Klein. Make him work for once. I put on my dress jacket and went up to the deck to see what all the fuss was about. I still don¡¯t understand it. I saw the sky above us at Guadalcanal earlier today. It was tinged with yellow and filled with twirling fighter planes, big black puffs of artillery fire, and plumes of smoke that traced their way up from the scuttled ships that surrounded us. All of that was gone. The sky was a putrid grey and filled with fog that reminded me of an early British morning. I didn¡¯t see any Zekes, friendly boats, islands in the distance, nothing. Squat. I couldn¡¯t even see the darn sun. Then I pressed myself up to the railing and looked into the water. That¡¯s when I got another shock. The water looked like gas spilling up against the hull. It was misty, thick, and not too far removed from the gunk that was clogging up the sky. I saw a sailor nearby gawking at it the way I was. When I asked him what the devil was going on, he didn¡¯t seem to hear me. Either that, or he thought it wasn¡¯t worth wasting time telling me that he had no darn clue. I walked the ship from bow to stern. In every direction, I couldn¡¯t see anything apart from the mist. Eventually I ran into a few sailors who knew how to answer questions. They told me that it just happened. Just like that. One second it was clear, the next second it wasn¡¯t. Obviously, I didn¡¯t think that was a very good answer. The sky doesn¡¯t just change. Dozens of Jap vessels and aircraft don¡¯t just up and vanish. But those boys kept saying that they do. The bridge was roaring by the time I got there. I¡¯m not exactly meant to come and go whenever I like, but I felt that the circumstances warranted an exception. Sergeant O''Hara, a marine, was already there watching the heated discussion. Captain Westvallen was giving the navigator, Ensign Mendez, an earful about losing their heading so badly that they wound up in another hemisphere. Mendez was too gobsmacked to even acknowledge that he was getting blamed for everything. I saw him holding up charts and trying to compare them with the nothingness around us. A bit of a ditz, that one. ¡®Makes him feel better, blaming other people down the ladder¡¯, O''Hara muttered to me. Shrapnel had torn across his face during the first wave of landings at Guadalcanal, leaving him permanently disfigured. Half of his head was wrapped tightly in bandages, covering his left eye and most of his face. The little that I could see wasn''t half bad. Westvallen¡¯s XO, Lieutenant Caradine, was trying to smooth things over the best he could, which wasn¡¯t very good in the grand scheme of things. His argument made perfect sense. He said that every crew member on the bridge saw that the environment just changed around them, so it wasn¡¯t Mendez¡¯s fault. That was the problem, you see. Caradine made sense. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. It was around then that a gigantic tremor shook through the entire hull. There was nothing in front of the ship the second before. I spoke to the helmsman, the two lookouts, and the quartermaster afterwards. They agreed with me. It was just like how the sky changed. One second it was this way, then the next second it was that way. A pale beach appeared in front of the Respite and her bow rammed right into some rocks that lined the coast. I fell onto the ground, as did a handful of other personnel on the bridge. O''Hara gave me a hand and pulled me to my feet. From anyone else it would''ve felt patronising but for some reason, it didn''t strike me that way. Everyone filtered out of the bridge, stood on the deck, and stared at the landmass that seemed to have just dropped out of the sky and into the sea in front of us. For me, it was one of those times where I wasn''t just at a loss for words, but I was at a loss for thoughts. Westvallen barked at his men to assess the hull for damage, but it turned out there was nothing but a minor dent in the plating. The island itself was about two hundred feet away from the Respite. Covering the beach was the finest, smoothest sand I''ve ever seen. It looked like powder. Beyond that was a dense tree line that O¡¯Hara said would''ve been bad news if there were any Japs lurking about. It makes me laugh now as I''m writing this down. The whole darn world just turned upside down and we were still thinking about them. We had bigger fish to fry. Westvallen must''ve been too distracted by everything, otherwise he would''ve given another earful to the broad foolish enough to just stroll onto his bridge uninvited. Instead, he gave O''Hara orders to take a team onto the beach and secure the tree line. I remember before the sergeant left, he looked at me and gave me a wink. O''Hara and his boys were taken ashore on a lifeboat. By that time, Kelly had wandered up from below decks. I''ll never forget the look she had on her face as she peered up at the sky, then down at the water. It was pure shock. She started trembling. She asked me, ''Grace, where in God''s name are we?'' I wrapped my jacket around her shoulders and told her that everything was going to be alright. The two of us watched as O''Hara and his men made landfall and filtered off the boat, sweeping their weapons across the trees. They were so far away that each man was no larger than a fingernail as they scampered around out there. One by one, they disappeared into the trees. Then came the shots. A lot of us hadn''t been that close to small arms fire before. It''s strange, isn''t it? We were accustomed to being strafed by fighter craft and learned to ignore warship cannons, but a handful of rifle shots sent us flopping onto the deck like fish. I was pressed against the deck, but I kept my eyes on the trees. Breathing got real hard all of a sudden. I just had to see. I had to see if O''Hara was alright. The shrubs were pushed apart and three of the seven marines stumbled out, firing blindly behind them. I couldn''t make out their faces. Each of them collapsed onto the beach at staggered intervals. Then there was silence. I lost track of the time, I was too busy sweating bullets, but it must¡¯ve been ten minutes at the very least before anyone felt safe enough to move. There was only one thing I wanted to do. There weren''t any corpsmen or medics onboard and I happened to be right there. When Westvallen was calling for another team of marines, I volunteered to join them. I told him that there was no knowing what shape those boys on the beach were in and they needed medical attention ASAP. They might not have been able to make it off the beach. He didn''t like it, that was plain as all hell to see. He made a habit of rubbing his chin stubble when he was annoyed. No one in the Nurse Corps was meant to see the frontlines, but after growling to himself for a while, he said that our situation was extraordinary. I¡¯m pretty sure I was thinking what he was thinking; better to lose a nurse out there than the ship¡¯s doctor. He procured for me an M1911 pistol, a belt holster, a life vest, a medic¡¯s helmet, and a pair of combat boots that were going to do me more good in the sand than the white leather shoes I had on. Next thing I knew, I was on our second lifeboat surrounded by lightly wounded marines with a medical kit slung over my shoulder. I knew two of the men there, I treated them myself. As a Japanese-American, Corporal Tanaka attracted all of the wet socks in the infirmary while his leg healed up. I had to scare them all off. Tanaka was too quiet and reserved to do anything about it, you¡¯d think he liked being treated that way. Corporal Winters was part of the 52nd Defense Battalion, an all African-American division. I had to dig shrapnel out of his back yesterday and he told me lovely stories about his family back home. Our lifeboat ran ashore right next to O¡¯Hara¡¯s and the marines moved with this rehearsed fluidity that took me by surprise for a second. I was used to seeing them bedridden. As they moved forward toward the trees, I managed to reach the three bodies lying there in the sand. All of them were dead before we even got there. First one had a massive laceration across his torso from collarbone to hip. No bayonet could¡¯ve made an incision like that. The second body was run in straight through the stomach with a hole punching out the other side. The third had a four-inch deep slice in his throat. Tanaka led us into the forest after that. It was terrifying. My head spun at every footstep, every rustling leaf. I realised that you had to be crazy to do what they did. The next thing we saw was someone hunched over in a clearing. It was a marine I didn¡¯t recognise, vigorously trying to pull something out of O¡¯Hara¡¯s body. An arrow was sticking out of his gut and the marine was thuggishly trying to twist it and pry it out. I ran over, hollering at him to stop. It looked like I knocked him out of a trance. His eyes darted up to meet mine. Then I watched him die as an arrow struck him in the back of the neck. The arrowhead jutted out of the front of his throat. O¡¯Hara managed to crawl towards us as Tanaka and the rest of us were frozen in fear. I don¡¯t know how, but I managed to hold onto my wits long enough to see a shape move forward from within the forest. It was dark and hazy, but it was like a cluster of overlapping discs. Winters unloaded the magazine of his Thompson, reminding everyone else to follow suit. It was a blur after that. I just remember sticking O¡¯Hara with a dose of morphine before Tanaka propped him up as we hoofed it back to the lifeboat. It felt like the marines didn¡¯t stop shooting until we pushed the boat off the sand. I watched the coast the whole trip back to the Respite. I didn¡¯t see anything come out from behind those trees. Right now, as I mentioned earlier in this here entry, I¡¯m trying to come to terms with what in the hell just happened to me and my ship. The ocean changing beneath our feet is certainly more concerning than a bunch of boobs flinging arrows at us, but the boys don¡¯t think so. They can¡¯t stop talking about it. Tanaka says they were some kind of savages. Winters doesn¡¯t think so. He says they were well organised. Whatever they were, it doesn¡¯t matter to me. Right now I''m waiting for Doctor Klein to assess O¡¯Hara and decide what we¡¯re going to do about the thirty-five inch wooden skewer sticking out of his gut. Maybe then I''ll have something to do so I can get my mind off of all this. Chapter 2: Wreckage 2000 hours, 9th August The sun is still out. Or should I say, it''s still light out, since we can''t exactly see the sun. Everything¡¯s just a big grey soup. It''s been four hours since the skies changed, maybe fifteen minutes since we got back from the beach, meaning that it should be nightfall. It''s the least of my concerns right now. Doctor Klein just finished his assessment of O¡¯Hara. I caught the last few minutes of it. That yahoo who thought it was a good idea to try and pull the arrow out of him really made a mess of everything. The arrow is barbed. If you try to tug it out, it would rip up his insides quite terribly. And unfortunately for O''Hara, someone went and did it. It was easy enough to cut the wooden shaft off, but the arrowhead isn¡¯t going anywhere without some more involved intervention. I¡¯m going to help Doctor Klein with the extraction in a minute, just have to wait for him to brew his cup of joe. Christ. You¡¯d think he was still operating in that tiny clinic in Fresno by how urgently he took to everything. 0100 hours, 10th August We managed to get the arrowhead out. I used callipers to part the flesh around the arrowhead while Doctor Klein slotted a pair of forceps into the base. Once the forceps were in, he opened them up in order to grip onto the arrowhead and carefully ease it out. O''Hara was screaming the whole time, even with the morphine in him. That was the good news. The bad news is that the darn thing really did make minced meat of O¡¯Hara¡¯s innards. There was too much haemorrhaging and the stomach was shredded. There was only one thing to be done. Klein is well-trained, but he¡¯s young and inexperienced. When it comes to book smarts, he''s one of the best surgeons I''ve seen. The other side of the job though, where we have to deal with tough circumstances, that is something he struggles with. Not because he¡¯s too compassionate, no. He¡¯s too cold. Doesn¡¯t give a damn about anything. I had him leave the room while I sat down with O¡¯Hara. In his heavily medicated state, he said to me, ¡®Fancy seeing you here, dollface¡¯. Real charming. I held his hand and smiled the way I usually do. We talked for a while about things. He ran a general store with his folks in Wisconsin. Had a knack for dealing with people apparently. When he asked about what I used to do, I told him I¡¯d been an ER nurse at Manhattan General for a decade and had a fella waiting for me back home. O¡¯Hara scoffed and said, ''What, he some sort of coward? How in the blue blazes could a man sit on his rear while his woman left to serve his country like that?'' It made me laugh. Then I told him, ''Well as a matter of fact, Mister O''Hara, my Harry happened to have lost his legs in the Somme when he was twenty-five years young. If you keep talking about him like that, maybe you''ll be losing your legs too.'' Instead of apologising, he said the most arrogant, uniquely male thing I''ve ever heard. With a smirk, he said, ''Lost his legs? You''d have to be a fool to misplace those.'' Eventually, he started to doze off thanks to the drugs. I could hear how hard it was for him. The simple act of breathing that we all take for granted. When he was fast asleep, I gave him enough morphine to make sure he never woke up. I came to the bridge after that. I couldn¡¯t stay another second in that infirmary. Not tonight. There are only two men at their stations at this time; Lieutenant Jackson, the helmsman, was guiding the Respite along the coastline as Ensign Mendez mapped it out on a piece of paper. They¡¯re being kind enough not to pester me as I¡¯m just loafing around writing this all down. It¡¯s highly irregular, but I suppose they heard what happened. Maybe they¡¯re just pitying me. Now I¡¯m upset that we didn¡¯t get to retrieve those other bodies from the beach. O¡¯Hara and a few others that passed during the last day or so are going to be needing burial at sea. I don¡¯t think anyone wants to set foot on that blasted island again, even for a burial detail. It would¡¯ve been nice for the others to be part of it, but I suppose it just wasn¡¯t in God¡¯s plan. 0400 hours, 10th August I had a dream about Tanaka. It woke me up in such a fright that I couldn¡¯t go back to sleep. I saw him floating in the sea, surrounded by bits of pulverised metal. He had both arms and both legs blown off. What was left was cracked and burnt like a strip of bacon left on a stove someone forgot to turn off. I want to vomit just thinking about it. I just don¡¯t get it. Why wasn¡¯t it O¡¯Hara? That I¡¯d understand. That makes sense. I¡¯ve had dreams about men I¡¯ve had to put under before. But Tanaka? He¡¯s fine. The only thing wrong with him is he needs to grow a spine. He¡¯s safe. He¡¯s okay. I¡¯m going to go check on him. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. - The bodies. The bodies are gone. I had them laid out on the beds with sheets over them. I went running to the captain as fast as I could. He sounded the general alarm. The sailors turned the ship upside down. They looked behind us into the water. From what they tell me, there¡¯s no sign of any of them. Not a single bone, piece of meat, or drop of blood. I couldn¡¯t help but think about whatever that was on the island. Did it follow us onto the ship? Did it take them? Without O¡¯Hara, Winters is in command of the marines. Given his heritage as well as his relative lack of combat experience, there were quite a few men who were less than keen on the idea. He gave them a good throttling before he organised patrols at all hours to make sure we didn¡¯t have any unsolicited passengers. He also made a point to tell me to keep an eye out for any suspicious sailors. We wouldn¡¯t dare mention that to Westvallen; questioning the integrity of a captain¡¯s crew was a surefire way to get on his bad side. I was impressed by how Rachael conducted herself. She kept her cool, did everything the captain and I asked, and didn¡¯t make a fuss. Kelly, however, was in tears the entire time. Rachael took the initiative and took some time to distract her by giving her a couple menial things to do. It doesn¡¯t change the fact that she¡¯s stubborn and pig-headed, though. Utterly unladylike. I don¡¯t know why anyone would want to take the corpses, but it¡¯s easier to believe that people did this instead of whatever that was on the beach. I don¡¯t know if I¡¯m going to be able to sleep now. I think I¡¯m going to gather all the nurses and tell them to adopt a buddy system; no one goes anywhere or does anything without a friend tagging along with them. Doctor Klein seems emotionally bothered for once. Not as much as what I¡¯d call the normal amount for a human being, but it¡¯s something. Tanaka was fine. Shaken by everything, but he¡¯s okay. I need to pull myself together. There¡¯s enough going on without my needless fretting over boys who clearly don¡¯t need any help. I think Tanaka reminds me of him. He would¡¯ve been around the same age by now. 1200 hours, 10th August I managed to get an hour of sleep at the very least. After a coffee to help prop myself up, I tried to focus on seeing to the other casualties. Some needed bandage changes, others more drugs, and some just needed a smile and a reminder that someone was there for them. Kelly came over eventually and relieved me so I could go up and get some air and something to eat. She¡¯s a sweetheart. I still can¡¯t quite get used to dehydrated potatoes and powdered eggs, but I suppose it¡¯s better than nothing. Not by much, though. The first thing I saw when I stepped onto the deck was a dense field of wooden shrapnel floating in the water. Planks, splinters, entire walls and floorboards. They were everywhere. The bridge, fully crewed at this point, was swallowed by tense silence as everyone sent their eyes out and tried to squint through the bone-white fog. I leaned over to Mendez and asked what the deal with all the debris was. He said that some of the parts looked like they belonged to galleys and frigates, maybe. Old sail ships. Winters had his men line the sides of the ship with their weapons at the ready. I don¡¯t know what we thought would leap out at us, but after what happened on the beach, we knew that something was out there trying to pick us off. Knowing I wouldn¡¯t be of much use, I went back down to the infirmary. Kelly asked me if we found the bodies yet, I had to tell her that there was no sign they were ever here to begin with apart from our memories of them. With the help of the other nurses and Doctor Klein, we did what we could for the injured and realised that we don¡¯t have any methods of restocking medicine and other supplies. That means we¡¯re going to run out of fuel eventually too if we don¡¯t figure out how to get out of here. Swell, I¡¯m hearing shouting from above decks now. I suppose I¡¯m going back up there. - Mendez tells me the survivor was lying unconscious on a plank of wood out on the water. Caradine, two sailors, and Tanaka went out there in a lifeboat and to take a look. One of the sailors fell into the drink as they were helping the man into the lifeboat. He never came back up. No bubbles. Nothing. This is going to seem selfish, but I¡¯m glad I wasn¡¯t there. It sounded like it would¡¯ve been horrible to see. The survivor was still out cold by the time he was brought onboard the Respite. Klein and I gave him a once over in the infirmary. He has bruising on his left brow, but otherwise nothing out of the ordinary. He has hypothermia. He¡¯s wearing, well, I would call it a one-shouldered dress. Not exactly doing much about the cold. He has a head of thick, curly black hair, olive skin, and the build of an olympic athlete. I started bundling him up under some blankets to hopefully warm him up. That was when his eyes snapped open. I almost died on the spot. He leapt out of the bed, shouting in some foreign language. His eyes were frantic. They leapt from me, to Klein, to the bewildered casualties nearby in their beds, then to the floor and walls. A few marines were there as security detail, so I had to threaten to cut them unless they lowered their weapons and backed off. I tried raising my hands and talking to him, but it was as clear as day that he didn¡¯t speak a word of English. No one recognised the language he spoke. It took a few minutes of smiling warmly at him and slowly inching forward, but I managed to get close to him. I pointed at myself and said my name. I repeated it a couple of times before I pointed at him and nodded expectantly. He said ¡®Alkybeeahdees¡¯. At least I think that¡¯s what he said and how it¡¯s spelt. I had no idea what he said the first time, but he repeated it for me. Then he pointed at me and with a peculiar accent, said ¡®Grace¡¯. He was calm then, so I sat him down, bundled him up in blankets, and tried to tell him to keep his chest warm. He probably had no idea what I was trying to tell him. He has this detached and fearful look in his eyes. Maybe he belongs to some remote fishing village and he¡¯s never seen a big ship like this before. That could be why he¡¯s so uneasy. I need to go and speak to the captain now. Seeing as I have a rapport of five minutes with the man, he wants to know my impressions of him. Honestly, all I can think is that if he was out there by himself and survived, maybe we have a chance too. Chapter 3: Sister 1800 hours, 10th August Alkibiades. That''s his name. It''s Greek. Westvallen picked it when I was telling him about what happened. The first thing we did was find the nearest Greek sailor, Crewman Tsoutis, then bring him in to talk to Al. Let''s call him Al, because I''m sure as hell not going to keep writing that name over and over. Turns out, Tsoutis couldn''t make out what Al was saying and vice versa. He mentioned that there were sparse words here and there that he could make out through some strange pronunciations, but that''s it. No real meaning. They must''ve spoken completely different dialects. Westvallen reckons he¡¯s from one of those real remote villages, the ones that have no electricity or anything. We sent a very confused Tsoutis back to the engine room and continued discussing what to do with Al. In the meantime, Winters had guards posted in the infirmary around the clock to make sure he wasn''t up to no good. I don''t think he''s dangerous. If he was, he would''ve tried to escape by now. Kelly¡¯s been spending a lot of time with him. He¡¯s the only thing that¡¯s managed to calm her down. Apparently, in the short amount of time that she¡¯s had with him, she¡¯s taught him a few English words. Simple things like food, drink, water, boat. The girl should become a teacher. She has a knack for it. They¡¯ve become pretty fond of each other. I suppose I should write about the other more disconcerting thing that¡¯s been happening. We¡¯ve been having more KIAs and the bodies are vanishing just like the others did. Marines are stationed in the infirmary around the clock, but they aren¡¯t spotting anything suspicious. What really concerns me is the fact that I¡¯m getting used to it. ¡®Oh, would you look at that, Hickman¡¯s gone and vanished,¡¯ I¡¯d think to myself. It¡¯s horrible. This is not normal. None of it is. We still don¡¯t know who or what¡¯s taking them. During the poor excuse for a lunch break I managed to have, I caught up with Mendez in the galley. He was telling me that the sketches of the coastline he made didn¡¯t match up with any charts. None. He started questioning his cartography. I think I managed to convince him that he wasn¡¯t at fault, that something real strange is happening here. Who knows if he listened? I¡¯m lying in my bed right now. The captain ordered me to have an early one after last night. I can¡¯t sleep, though. I keep seeing Tanaka cut up like a piece of meat, seared red. I spent an hour just staring at the ceiling. Then another hour staring out the viewport. I really don¡¯t want to go to sleep. I can hear Kelly talking to Al in the room over. They seem to be giving each other a break from everything that¡¯s been happening. - Must¡¯ve been another hour of sleep. I had another dream. It was Captain Westvallen. He was being torn apart by sharks. Their teeth were like hundreds of sharpened daggers. They slid into his flesh like the holes were already there, that¡¯s how smooth it was. They fought over the pieces like rabid wolves, snatching limbs from each other and gobbling up the innards before the others could react. The water was as red as wine. This isn¡¯t right. I¡¯ve had two similar dreams two nights in a row. What does it mean? It can¡¯t be a coincidence. Are they some kind of premonitions? Am I seeing how they¡¯ll die? No one¡¯s going to believe me. They¡¯re going to say I¡¯ve got shell shock or something. But look at where we are. The sun doesn¡¯t set. There¡¯s no beach on Earth like the one we¡¯ve been sailing alongside. I can¡¯t just shrug these off. I wish we had a shrink on staff. He wouldn¡¯t be able to catch a break though, everyone¡¯s got problems in times like these. 0300 hours, 13th August I didn¡¯t have time to write the last day or so. I don¡¯t even know where to begin. I feel like I can barely remember what happened yesterday. The captain came to the infirmary in the morning to tell us ladies what they discovered. We¡¯ve been sailing down a river. They figured that out when it started narrowing out on both sides. That¡¯s why Mendez didn¡¯t recognise the coastline. It made me feel a bit better, despite the fact that we still had no idea where we were. Westvallen said that a river is a godsend right now, because villages are always built on rivers. If we keep travelling down it, we¡¯ll come across people for sure. Rachael asked if the radio operator¡¯s had any luck on making contact with any Allied forces. He said no. Then, Winters came over and made the very valid point that any settlements we find may be allied with the Japanese or the Germans. Westvallen clearly didn¡¯t want to think about it at all; he just brushed him off and went back up to the bridge. It took me a while to find Kelly. She was on the deck with Al. They were sitting under the railing, looking out at the riverbank like lovestruck teenagers. I went to the galley to get some food for them. On my way back over, it happened. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. Al shot up like a rocket. He pointed at the trees and shouted something. Over and over. An arrow hit him in the shoulder, sending Kelly into a panicked frenzy. I dropped the lunch trays and hurried them inside. I think a few more whizzed over my head. I don¡¯t really know, it happened so fast and the adrenaline was making everything feel like it was happening to someone else. Rachael charged over from the infirmary. I was going to tell her to get Doctor Klein, but again, it happened so fast. There was a loud ¡®thud¡¯ on the deck of the ship. Winters barked orders at some of his men and they charged out. I left Al in the care of Kelly and Rachael. I don¡¯t know what I was thinking, but I grabbed a med kit and followed Winters and his men as they filtered back up onto the deck. I suppose it was that they didn¡¯t have any corpsmen to patch them up. I needed to be there with them. There were already bodies scattered around. Trying to inspect wounds while in an actively dangerous area was sickening. You don¡¯t want to look down. Not paying attention to the things around you is the last thing you want to do. You feel like something is going to kill you whenever you¡¯re focusing on something else. I patched up the ones that weren¡¯t already dead with a dose of morphine, a quick cleaning of their wounds, then bandages. It was clear as day from the first few bodies I looked at. It was like a butcher putting down an animal. Very precise cuts with an insanely sharp blade. The wounds were made with much more finesse than the ones I saw on the beach. That¡¯s when I saw her. She came around the corner in front of Winters and the two other marines. A woman, at least six feet and five inches tall, covered in muscle so defined that it put any male athlete I¡¯ve ever seen to shame. She wore a one shouldered dress that exposed her right breast. Well, it would have, if she had one. The flesh was scarred there like the breast had been cut out at an early age. She wore a bronze helmet that obscured most of her face. In her right hand was a sword and in her left a circular shield. What I still can¡¯t come to terms with was how fast she was. Before the first marine could even fire a single shot, she had bounded over to him and sliced him upward across the belly, spilling his intestines all over the deck. The second one as well as Winters squeezed the triggers of their Thompsons. Her shield became pocked full of holes, but it didn¡¯t stop her from running the other man through. Winters tried to grab me and push me back inside, but she was too fast. I watched as she drew her sword across his neck. His head dropped onto the floor, bounced, then rolled off the side and into the water. I had to crane my neck up at her. Her shield was nothing but shrapnel at that point so she dropped it. A few bullet wounds peppered her forearm. She looked down at me with this warmth. I thought I was going to die. Then she turned away and walked off. It was just in time for Al to charge out from the infirmary flanked by two more marines. They lasted just as long as the other three. She seemed to save Al for last. With her back to me, she seized his head with both hands and wrenched. Just like that, with a ¡®pop¡¯, he was dead. I picked up Winters¡¯ Thompson, reloaded it, then set it off. The rounds went straight through her. I watched her glance down at her chest, drop Al, then turn to look at me. Pure shock and betrayal was on her face. She took a step forward as she whispered, ¡®adelfi¡¯. Then I unloaded the magazine into her. 30 rounds of .45 ammunition. It took every single bullet to put her down. It sounded like someone dropped a fridge onto the deck when she finally fell. Kelly was already by Al¡¯s body. She wasn¡¯t screaming. She wasn¡¯t crying. Tears did stream out of her eyes, but they were completely silent. Then, like all the others, the bodies went away when we weren¡¯t looking. It took Al¡¯s a while to go. Kelly just wouldn¡¯t leave it. There were a few men who weren¡¯t killed outright by whoever that woman was. Compared to how many were killed instantly, it wasn¡¯t much to be happy about. Winters was gone, so command fell to Corporal Kitsch, a weak-minded coward. Tanaka was on the other end of the ship when everything happened, so he was safe. I don¡¯t think I realised it at the time, but it explains why everyone was so eager to ask me if I was okay. She was the first person I killed. I didn¡¯t see it that way; euthanizing is killing, isn¡¯t it? I¡¯ve done it dozens of times by now. But I suppose doing it with a gun is different. I asked Tsoutis if he knew what ¡®adelfi¡¯ meant after that. It means ¡®sister¡¯. Having those boys die right next to me was hard. That night, I cried myself to sleep. The next day, the 12th, was uneventful. I suppose any day would be after something like that. Lieutenant Jackson was careful to keep us far enough away from the riverbank; he didn¡¯t want any killer women leaping onboard again. Rachael insisted that I be given the day off. It was the last thing I wanted. I wanted to keep my mind occupied, not give it time to loop around on itself and dig myself into a deeper hole. I raised such a fuss about it that Westvallen had to come down and formally dismiss me for the rest of the day. I slept. I slept better than I had in a long time. And I had another dream. It was Winters this time. Bleeding out in a lifeboat surrounded by people I¡¯d never seen before. It confused me even more. He was already dead, and that sure as hell wasn¡¯t how he died. Then I woke up in the middle of the night, suddenly remembering that I had to write it all down. I suppose that¡¯s where I am now. Trying to keep myself sane by sticking to this stupid journal thing. I just want to go home. I want to be with Harry again. I want us to be with Keith again. Chapter 4: Astray 1100 hours, 13th August We¡¯re running out of fuel. Westvallen is trying his best to make sure that word isn¡¯t spreading, but I heard it from Mendez. Apparently it¡¯ll last for a few more days so we still have time to figure out what to do next. There¡¯s only one thing to do though; go ashore and hike. I don¡¯t know how long we¡¯ll last out there on account of the killer natives, but we don¡¯t exactly have a choice. Well in other news, Kelly went and stuck her nose where it didn¡¯t belong. She was allegedly cleaning my quarters and found the photograph. The one of Keith. I wanted to snap at her for rifling through my things, but I was tired. Tired of all of it. I told her everything. That he was a good boy who liked his toy farm animals and that he passed away from polio when he was eleven. It¡¯d been so long that I struggled to remember when it happened. It was embarrassing. How could I forget a thing like that? Kelly went and apologised for bringing it up, but I told her it was fine and that she should go fetch some food for the boys on the bridge. It gave me time to sit there and look at him. I miss him so much. 0600 hours, 16th August It¡¯s been three days since I wrote. Three nights of dreaming about dead crew members. The first night was Kelly. She was washed up on a beach. Crows were pecking at her eyes. Second was Mendez clinging to a piece of floating debris while a strafing Zero sent machine gun bullets ripping through his body. Third was Caradine. A Jap boat chugged by him as he waded there in the water. They threw a grenade in there with him. I suppose this is my life now. I just see all this when I lay down to rest. Anyway. Westvallen finally found the stones he needed to tell the crew about the fuel situation. Needless to say, a lot of the men didn¡¯t take it well. At first I thought he might have a mutiny on his hands, but then I saw ten to twenty sailors just throw themselves into the water. Just like the marine who fell in almost a week ago, they went straight down and never came back up. That¡¯s when Caradine lost it. He just about went catatonic. Westvallen had to relieve him and confine him to the infirmary. Tanaka came by my office this morning when I was trying to file all the paperwork for the poor bastards who did themselves in. Said he would¡¯ve come by sooner, but Kitsch wasn¡¯t doing a very good job with leading the troops so he had to pick up some of his slack. I brewed some coffee; not much of the stuff left so I¡¯ve been saving it for special company. I asked him what he thinks about us needing to go ashore. He tried to sugar coat it for a while, but I eventually scalded him enough for him to drop it. He thinks everyone will die within minutes of stepping onto dry land. I laughed and said I¡¯d give us seconds. Right now, we¡¯re readying goods to take with us after we abandon ship. I was trying to figure out which medical supplies to take and what to leave behind because we sure as hell can¡¯t take everything. We¡¯re going on foot and we don¡¯t have pack animals or anything like that, so it has to be fairly light. Eventually I started thinking about it this way; if anyone gets hurt out there, we¡¯re not going to have the luxury of stopping for long enough for me and Klein to operate. We¡¯d have to either leave them or put them out. That helped me cut down quite a bit. I also have to tend to the rest of the injured. The ones who are too weak to be moved. They¡¯ll be resting soon enough, after I get the morphine ready. 1800 hours, 16th August We set out from the ship an hour ago, just made camp in the forest. I don¡¯t think I¡¯ve ever been this exhausted and on edge all at once. For whatever reason, nothing leapt out at us during the hike. Twenty minutes in, some of Kitsch¡¯s men started saying they heard noises coming from the mountains and the bushes. It took a bit, but I heard it too. Crying, sobbing, screaming. We were expecting to be boxed in and stabbed to Hell and back, but nothing happened. Everything was fine. Before we left, just when it was time to leave the Respite, we couldn¡¯t find Caradine. No sign of him anywhere. Best guess is that he leapt into the water. Just like that, Jackson became Westvallen¡¯s new XO. Sticking to all those Navy rules doesn''t feel productive to me, but when I told Tanaka that in passing a few minutes ago, he told me that ¡®People need clear definitions of what they can and can¡¯t do, because we inherently want to step on each other.¡¯ Can¡¯t say that I expected such a young man to see the world like that, but then again this war¡¯s done a number on all of us. Tanaka and all the other fighting men especially. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. He stayed with me a while, kept his eyes on the trees. It suddenly struck me again how young he was, sitting there with his rifle, not quite ready to die for all of us but in line to do it anyway. I cried like a little girl. When he asked me what was wrong, I lied and told him that I was scared. He¡¯s such a sweet young man. He took my hand, smiled at me, and said that he wasn¡¯t going to let anything happen. I think we both knew how empty the promise was, but strangely enough it was reassuring. I eventually managed to shoo him off and into bed. Kitsch has marines standing watch at all hours on rotating shifts, but I don¡¯t think I can find it in me to go to sleep out here. Then again, would it be easier if they got me while I was nodding off? Would I not feel it? Maybe it would be like drifting away, just sleep seamlessly melting into death. I do have a way of making it easy, but I can¡¯t. I have a duty to perform. The morphine is for the others. 1300 hours, 17th August We were missing twenty something people this morning. No sign of a fight. I wasn¡¯t short any doses of morphine either. You know what the most appalling part of it is? No one was that shocked. Things that can¡¯t be explained have been happening to us since we got here, wherever ¡®here¡¯ is. Everyone¡¯s resigned to it at this point. Even Kelly had a pair of dry eyes for once. She hasn¡¯t been the same since Al kicked it. Mendez was one of the missing. Kitsch as well. I wasn¡¯t that familiar with the others. Tanaka is in charge of the marines now. It took a few hours to pack it all up and start hiking again. No one knows where we¡¯re going. All of the compasses aren¡¯t working at all. They¡¯re not even going haywire or anything like that. Just dead. Like us, I suppose. Time to go, Westvallen¡¯s telling me to get my nose out of this book. I don¡¯t even know why I¡¯m still writing in it. - I''m lost. I felt like I heard his laugh coming from the bushes. It¡¯d been so long since I last heard it, but there was no doubt in my mind. Before I knew it, I drifted off from the group. I could see shadows of children in the fog, but whenever I got close, they faded away like there was never anything there to begin with. I must''ve spent ten minutes wandering around before I snapped out of it and realised what I did. I tried retracing my steps and searching for tracks, but everyone was long gone. They probably thought I vanished like the rest. I''ve managed to find a small cave in the side of a cliff. I don''t know what I''m going to do. I''ve lost track of the time. I don''t have a watch on me and night doesn''t seem to be a thing out here, so it''s safe to assume that I''ll never be able to figure it out again. What do I do? When I go to sleep, I see everyone around me dead. When I¡¯m awake, I hear my son. I can¡¯t get away from it. It follows me wherever I go. I don¡¯t think I can do it anymore. I can¡¯t go on. I know that I won¡¯t see Harry again and it¡¯s too painful. I¡¯ve left him. He¡¯s going to be all alone out there and he¡¯s never going to know what happened to me. Maybe that¡¯s why I¡¯ve been writing. I¡¯ve known all along that I¡¯m not coming home. This is all on the minuscule and incredible chance that someone finds this and can bring it back to him. Harry, I love you. I¡¯ve loved you since the moment I saw you fly off your bicycle and land face-first in the pavement outside pop¡¯s grocery store. We¡¯ve been through hell together, sweetheart. I¡¯m sorry I never came back. Please, you have to know that I never stopped thinking about you. - I saw him. I saw Keith. I''d been sitting there in the cave for God knows how long, staring at the ceiling when I heard the laugh again. I don''t think I''ve ever run that fast in my life. I pushed through a thick patch of forest and emerged in a clearing. There he was. Sitting in the dirt and playing with some twigs. He rolled the sticks through the dirt as he narrated some story about how a massive herd of migrating trees was rolling down a hill towards the castle, so the king and his knights needed to get their woodcutting axes to scare them away. Keith loved telling stories like that. He was so imaginative. I used to tell him that it was no good to make up ridiculous things like that. ''It isn''t going to help you in real life,'' I said. I knew that I was losing my mind so I took a deep breath, turned around, and walked away without looking back. It was the hardest thing I''ve ever done in my life, but I knew it couldn''t be him. He''s dead. Dead. Chapter 5: Crossing Grace had another dream. She saw herself at the bottom of the ocean, pinned to the sand by a heavy metal surgical cart. Her skin was milky white and her eyes stared unblinking into nothingness. ¡°Easy there. Easy.¡± The voice was gentle and hollow. It floated in through her ears like a cold breeze. Grace tried to open her eyes, but she couldn¡¯t. She tried to open her mouth to scream, but she couldn¡¯t. She tried to breathe, but she couldn¡¯t. It was like she couldn¡¯t feel her body. ¡°Relax. Let it wash over you.¡± She tried to do as the voice said. Slowly but surely, she felt her form gradually slip out from the darkness. She felt her fingers twitch and her brow tighten. ¡°There we are. Now, try it again.¡± It was a dream, wasn''t it? Everything was a dream? Grace opened her eyes. No, there it was. The bone white sky. The fog. It was still there. She sat upright and retched like he hadn¡¯t taken a breath in days. Before her, sitting on the stump of a tree, was a silhouette of a man. It was entirely featureless, like he was made of shadow. Her voice croaked and cracked a few times before she managed to say, ¡°W-Who are you?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not going to hurt you,¡± it said as it raised its hands. ¡°I just wanted to make sure you were alright. Are you alright?¡± The nurse swallowed and rubbed her forehead. "I feel¡­what the hell did you do to me?" After pausing for a moment, the figure stood. "Nothing. This is all quite normal, Grace. You''re becoming¡­acclimated to this place." The man''s mention of her name made her freeze. "Do you want to see him again?" the figure interjected. "He didn''t want to cross without you." Grace swallowed. No matter how she strained her eyes, they couldn''t pierce the veil of shadows that clutched the figure. It was as if she wasn''t meant to behold his image. "It''s okay, Grace. I''m not going to hurt you. Come with me," it said as it extended a hand out towards her. She jolted back a few steps. "N-No." The silhouette stood from the tree stump and clasped his hands together. "There''s nothing to be afraid of. He''s waiting for you." With that, it turned and paced away. Grace didn''t know what came over her. After the figure vanished into the shroud of mist, she threw herself in after it. Following a few minutes of sprinting, she caught up with it. Nonchalantly, it peered over its shoulder and chuckled. "I knew you''d come after me. The love that a mother has for her child is something else. It''s unquantifiable, immeasurable, isn''t it?" Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. Grace fought the fear that robbed her of her words long enough to ask, "W-Who are you? Where are we? What happened to my friends?" "So many questions, Grace. None of which are really that important. Oh, we''re here," it deflected. The pair of them came upon a grove of sorts in the middle of the forest. There were dozens of children wandering about, sitting idly, crying, or keeping themselves occupied with rocks, sticks, and leaves. The figure didn''t stop; he approached one of the children without even looking at their face. "I have a surprise for you, Keith." A small boy with deep brown hair shot to his feet and turned to Grace. He had freckles smeared across the bridge of his nose, a gap between his large front teeth, and his father''s blue eyes. Grace remembered what he looked like before he passed away. So frail¡­so weak. The boy before her was stout and healthy. "M-Mom? Is that really you?" Keith asked. Grace''s eyes filled with tears as she cupped her hands over her mouth. The figure took a knee in front of Keith. "Your mother is still a little confused, okay? Maybe give her some time." Keith nodded eagerly. His eyes glowed with empathy. "It''s okay, mom. I was scared when I came here too." Grace lowered herself to his height and wiped the tears away. "O-Oh God." The boy charged into his mother''s arms and they clutched onto each other for some time. Grace obviously couldn''t see the figure''s face, but she could sense a smile on his face. Keith pulled back and looked up at the figure. "Thank you for letting me wait for her, mister." Before the figure could reply, Keith''s face scrunched up. "Wait, where''s dad?" The question took Grace off guard. Once again, she froze. The figure answered it. "He''ll be coming soon. You two can cross first and wait for him somewhere more comfortable, okay?" Keith smiled. "Okay. Come on, mom. Let''s go!" Grabbing her hand, Keith pulled Grace along as he followed the figure into the fog. The trees faded away, as did the grass. It was replaced by sand and boulders. Grace saw hundreds of other people milling about around her. The figure paid no mind to them. A wooden wharf of sorts, lined with dozens of confused people, extended out into the smoky water. They stopped at the very end of the dock. "Shouldn''t be too long now," said the figure. As they waited, Keith swung Grace''s hand back and forth as he looked around at the ocean. A boat pierced the fog; its bow sliced through it like a knife through butter. As the seconds went by, Grace could see that it was an incredibly long wooden rowboat. It had to stretch for at least twenty metres. At the rear of the vessel was another figure clad in a tattered hooded cloak, a long cracked oar grasped in its hands. He brought the boat into the dock, prompting all of the people to begin boarding. As he looked over the crowd, Grace could see a pair of piercing dark eyes upon a wrinkled face. "Here," said the figure as he held a hand out. In its palm sat four rusty coins. "Two for you, and two for the boy." Grace cocked her head. "What for¡­?" The figure jiggled the coins around as he said, "The toll. He doesn''t row for free, you know. Just make sure you give him one piece when you embark, then the other one when you alight." Keith stood on his tippy toes in an effort to see the coins. "Why?" With a laugh, the figure shook his head. "Just¡­trust me, okay?" Grace accepted the coins and gave two to Keith. "Don''t lose them, you hear? And do as our friend said. Just one first." "Yes, mom," he said bashfully. The two of them joined the stream of people moving onto the old man''s boat, leaving the figure and not taking another look back. The old man and his boat took them over the only waters left uncharted by mankind.