Before I could protest, he leaned in, sealing my lips with his. His kiss was passionate and intense. It was right. I lost myself in the sensation.
But it felt like he was saying goodbye. Like the world was ending. I pressed closer, hands intuitively rising to cup his face, gentling it into something softer.
This isn’t goodbye.
He broke away at last, expression fierce. “I’m not nearly done with you. Don’t die,” his voice was resolute.
Like you can order someone not to die.
A smile clawed its way past my defenses. “I won’t,” I promised.
I hurried over to the stack of weapons, eyeing the selection. It was unlikely that I’d be able to do much damage with a close range weapon. My skill at throwing was spectacularly awful, but with Luck on my side, I might be able to land a single hit. I grabbed a harpoon.
If I had to die today, I would die fighting.
I caught a glimpse of Corra’s red hair heading toward the helm.
“Look out!” Someone screamed.
The Arc careened as a tentacle wider than my shadow cuffed the edge of the rail. It was grotesque, oily black like a giant rotten noodle with suction cups the size of dinner plates peppering its underside, and double rows of wicked curved hooks framing the sides. The caustic stench of miasma wafted up off the appendage, burning the back of my throat.
The tentacle thrashed against the barbed rope and crate barricade. I clung to the main mast, trying to stabilize myself against the lurching of the ship. Several people rushed forward, stabbing at it. I joined them, running forward to cut at a suctioncup with the end of my harpoon. The cut I made was shallow, the spongy girth of the tentacle too dense to pierce without my entire weight behind it. I leaned in, trying to force the harpoon deeper.
The muscular sheath surrounding the curving hook contracted, angling the hook until it dug into the back of my hand. I jerked back before it could cleave its way through my entire hand.
A deep beastial bellow blanked out all thoughts from my head. Slapping my hands over my ears, even with blood gushing over my fingers, the incomprehensible blasting roar of sound drilled itself into my skull.
With shaking hands, I picked up my harpoon as the noise stopped. My grip was slippery with blood.
No time like the present for some Luck and Perception. I activated both. We’d need everything we had to take something this tough down.
The tentacle unfurled as it retreated back toward the main body with a grinding wail and liquid quickness, leaving behind a slimy trail of oozing dark blood.
A human body was dragged after the tentacle, someone unfortunate enough not to release their weapon fast enough. A flash of brown hair, and they were gone.
Their blood curdling scream sent pins and needles up and down my skin, before chaos spread over the main deck. So many people were shouting. Many others were cowering.
Transfixed, I stared at the smears of blood the appendage had left on the edges of a crate.
Determination stiffened my spine.
If it bleeds, it can die.
Miasma belched upwards beside the Arc, screams splitting the air as several people were caught with acidic droplets.
A mountainous primordial mass rose like a shadow breathed into life from a nightmare. A forest of fleshy tentacles wriggled and flapped like bulbous worms from fresh dirt. Two deformed black eyes were sunken into hollows on its viscous wrinkled body, one dwarfing the other in scale. Its head spiralled up in a conical gelatinous structure to a pointed tip.
It was so alien, so arcane and horrifying that I was momentarily struck dumb. My pulse flailed under my skin.
The miasma was bulging and swelling beneath the force of such a large creature, and I lost my grip on the mast to one significant lurch. Tumbling end over end, I landed on the far side of the main deck, thin rail the only thing separating me from the lethal miasma below. And the Arc was pointed down toward it. My stomach tried to escape through my mouth.
A loud groan alerted me in time to move, seconds before a crate crashed beside me, cracking open on impact.
The loud buzzing of invisible insects brushed by my ears.
I recognized it now. Perception warning me of lightning, about to strike.
There was a much cherished conductive metal in my pant’s front pocket. Hope swelled up in me.
