The Last Fisherman of the Drowned Word

Bab 6 : The Sinking Outpost

Chapter 6: The Sinking Outpost

The ship groaned against the rusted moorings of the station, a spindly, terrifying structure of welded oil tanks and salt-eaten catwalks that rose out of the waves like a skeletal finger.

Mirella killed the engines, the sudden silence hitting them harder than the roar had. She wiped grease from her hands onto her trousers and glared at the rusted ladder leading up to the platform.

"Stay close," she said, her voice sharp. "This is a low-rent stop. People here are desperate, and desperate people don’t play fair."

"I’m right behind you," Caio replied, testing his footing on the swaying deck. "Are we actually going to get enough supplies to make it?"

"We’ll get enough to survive," she muttered, climbing over the railing. "If the traders aren't dead or drunk. Come on."

They hauled themselves up the ladder, the metal biting into Caio’s palms. When they reached the platform, the air hit them—not the clean, sharp salt of the open sea, but the thick, cloying stench of rot, ozone, and unwashed bodies. Dozens of people huddled under patches of canvas, eyes hollow and skin grey, watching them with a mixture of suspicion and apathy.

"Mirella," a man croaked, stepping out from the shadows of a fuel canister. His apron was stained with oil, and his eyes were bloodshot. "You’re back. You’re lucky to be floating."

"Luck has nothing to do with it, Silas," Mirella snapped, her hand drifting toward the hilt of her knife. "We need clean filters and rations. The good stuff, not the sludge you keep in the back."

"Prices are up," Silas spat, gesturing vaguely at the sinking horizon. "Everything’s up. You want supplies? You pay in scrap metal or fuel credits."

"I have the metal," she said, pulling a heavy, rusted coil from her pack. "But look at this place. The water line is at the second tier. It’s supposed to be at the fourth."

Caio looked down at the support pillars. They were submerged, the waves licking at the underside of the main deck.

"He’s right, Mirella," Caio whispered, his voice trembling. "The base is buckling. The structural integrity is failing."

"Don’t start, kid," Mirella warned under her breath.

"I’m telling you, look!" Caio pulled at her sleeve, his eyes darting to the shifting shadows beneath the water. "It’s not just sinking. The current is pulling the whole structure apart. If we don’t leave now, we’re going down with it."

Silas laughed, a jagged, wet sound. "Go down? We’ve been here for three years. This station is solid as the day it was built. You’re just another spooked drifter."

"I’m not a drifter!" Caio shouted, his voice echoing off the corrugated metal walls. "I’m telling you, the displacement is wrong! Look at the pressure gauges on your own wall!"

"Caio, shut up," Mirella hissed, grabbing his arm.

"No, look at them!" Caio pointed at the antique dials. "The pressure is spiking. Something is pulling from beneath. You’re going to collapse in less than ten minutes!"

The crowd on the platform stood up, their movements sluggish and confused. A woman near the edge started screaming, pointing at the water. "The anchors! The chains are snapping!"

"Everyone, back to your hulls!" Silas bellowed, though his own face had drained of color. "It’s just a tide shift!"

"It’s not a tide!" Caio stepped forward, his heart hammering against his ribs. The System flared in his vision, a blinding, electric white.

[System Alert: Immediate evacuation required. Structural collapse imminent in T-minus 300 seconds.]

"Njord, is there any way to stabilize it?" Caio thought, his mind racing.

"None," the AI replied. "The station is a dead weight. You have to move, or the pull will drag your ship down, too."

"Silas, you have to cut the lines!" Mirella shouted, sensing the change in the air. She looked at Caio, her eyes wide. "Caio, you said ten minutes? Is it faster?"

"It’s now!" Caio cried. He felt a sharp, tearing sensation at the base of his brain, a burning heat that pulsed behind his eyes.

[Warning: Accessing high-level predictive data will result in significant memory degradation. Confirm?]

"Do it!" Caio gasped, clenching his fists.

A memory of a birthday—a cake with candles, a song he couldn't quite hear—flickered and vanished, replaced by the stark, terrifying map of the station’s structural weak points. He felt his childhood home, the sound of his father's voice, evaporate into the ether of his own mind.

"Everyone off the platform!" Caio yelled, his voice sounding unnatural, booming with the authority of the System’s projection. "To the boats! Now! The pillars are shearing!"

"He’s crazy," one of the locals yelled, but the entire platform lurched, a sound like a giant snapping a dry twig echoing through the foundations.

"Move, you fools!" Mirella drew her weapon, aiming it at the chain locks. "Run for the docks!"

"Why are you helping them?" Silas grabbed Caio by the collar, his breath smelling of sour mash. "What do you know that we don't?"

"I know that your life is worth more than this scrap!" Caio shoved him back, his head throbbing with the effort. "Look! The main pillar is buckling!"

As if on cue, the center of the platform groaned, the metal bowing inward. A woman nearby scrambled toward her small skiff, screaming for her children. The chaos erupted instantly. People began running, trampling over each other to reach the tethered vessels.

"Get back to the ship, Caio!" Mirella grabbed his arm and dragged him toward the ladder.

"We have to help them get loose!" Caio pleaded, his vision blurring. He felt hollow, as if a large part of his soul had just been deleted.

"We’ve done what we can!" Mirella shoved him onto the ladder. "If we don’t get away, we’re going to be sucked into the debris field!"

They scrambled down the ladder, their hands slipping on the grease-slicked rungs. They hit the deck of their ship, and Mirella didn't even wait for him to stand up before she slammed the engine into gear.

"Cast off!" she screamed.

Caio grabbed the line, his fingers numb. He pulled the knot loose, the coil hitting the deck with a heavy thud. The ship lurched, pulling away from the sinking station just as the sound of tearing metal reached a crescendo.

"Caio, look," Mirella whispered, her voice uncharacteristically small.

He turned. The station was folding in on itself. The pillars snapped like matchsticks, and the entire structure collapsed into the churning foam. There was a massive splash, a fountain of salt and debris, and then, in the blink of an eye, it was gone. The ocean was flat, indifferent, and empty.

Caio leaned against the mast, his chest heaving. He reached into his pocket and touched the locket, but he couldn't remember why he had it. He couldn't remember who the woman inside was. He just knew he was alone.

"We lost them," he said, his voice a flat, dead monotone.

"We survived," Mirella countered, though she wasn't looking at him. She was staring at the spot where the station had been. "How did you know, Caio? How did you know exactly when it would fall?"

Caio didn't answer. He looked at the water, then back at the empty, gray sky. He felt the cold hum of the System in his head, a parasite that had just fed on his past to secure his future.

"I just did," he said.

Mirella looked at him, her expression a mix of awe and fear. She knew that look—the look of a man who had traded his humanity for a pulse.

"Are you okay?" she asked, stepping toward him.

Caio closed his eyes, trying to conjure a single image of his past, a single comfort from the world that had drowned. There was nothing. Just the silence of the ocean.

"I’m fine," he said, though he didn't feel like a person at all. He felt like a ghost, drifting on a ship made of wreckage, heading toward a horizon that might not even be there. "Let’s keep moving. We don't have enough supplies to sit still."

Mirella nodded, her face turning pale. She turned back to the wheel, her movements stiff. "Right. The Shallows. We keep going."

"Yeah," Caio said, turning his back on the empty water. "We keep going."

The ship cut through the dark, rolling waves, leaving the graveyard of the station behind. Caio stood at the stern, watching the foam churn in their wake, waiting for the next memory to slip away, waiting for the ocean to finally have its fill.