Shells | Lo'ak Sully

Part 10: Danger ahead

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(POV: Ni'teya)

Somehow, the sky that lies above the sea is darker than others. The moonlight doesn't provide it any brightness, it only makes the dark that much more noticeable. Something about it is threatening; Like it knows we shouldn't be out here, as do I. I know too well that we shouldn't be out here, but we're too far gone; Everything has gotten too far.

As I peered out into the black void above me, Lo'ak made me look at him instead. He called my name, telling me to 'look.'

So I did.

Resting on the horizon ahead lay a new sight; A shadow, a shape up ahead that looked much too sized and perfectly etched to be a rock or any other type of natural formation, no. I could tell just by taking it in that it was what we were looking for. It was the ship, his ship that we hadn't expected to find so soon. Even though it was a great distance from the reef, it wasn't as if it was exactly hiding.

Simply, they were playing one lousy game of hide-and-seek.

The two of us started gaining on the shadow, allowing it to become clearer to us as it approached, revealing itself to be as we'd thought. We stopped a safe distance away from the ship, behind a few rocks that spouted out from beneath the ocean's surface.

"Okay, pass me one." I said to Lo'ak, holding a hand out in front of his once we'd swam up to the rocks. What I meant by 'one' was one of my smoke-bomb inventions that we'd planned to bring with us to use. We were going to throw them at the ship's guards, the ship's walls to make them explode, the ship's windows and so on as to cause as much of a distraction as possible to then sneak onto the vessel and locate Quaritch.

However, I quickly realised I shouldn't have trusted Lo'ak with minuscule tasks.

When no object was placed into my hands I turned to him, finding an infuriating sight; Lo'ak had narrowed his eyes and was showing the fakest looking smile I'd ever seen. I plainly looked at him for a moment, flicking between different routes I could very easily take in that moment.

"Lo'ak. Where are my smoke-bombs." I said, not really asking as I already knew the answer.

He blinked a few times, keeping his same expression whilst his eyes slowly began to show faint hints of struggle. "Listen." He started, dropping his fake look and reaching to grab me or stop me somehow without knowing what I was about to do. However he was much too slow to be able to dodge my blow as I hit him across the side of his head, not too hard might I add despite his over-exaggerated reaction. He started ducking and hiding his face as he frantically confessed to his mistake. — "Wait! I thought you'd get mad at me if I told you back at the island so I waited—"

He paused when he saw me aim for his head again, turning away again as he held onto the rocks. "Wait-wait-wait! I didn't pick the bag up on the way out because of how quickly you told me to get out, I'm sorry!" He begged.

"Don't put this on me!" I raised my voice a little before deciding not to get too angry at him considering the vitality of the situation. I quickly realised that we had bigger issues to face, thus dropping the matter of Lo'ak's stupidity as I started to think of a different approach.

It didn't take me long to figure one out.

I swam back towards the ilus, reaching into one of the side-satchels I'd attached earlier that evening, picking out several arrows.

"Hey! Those are for later, what—" Lo'ak tried to speak however he stopped as soon as he picked up on the fact that I wasn't listening.

I then reached for my bow that had been wrapped around me, placing one of the arrows into it and inspecting the ship before I went ahead and shot three specific spots; One, breaking a window and distracting guard A. Two, hitting a propellor at the upper end of the ship, sending a few other guards away from the front entrance. Three, hesitation. I was aiming for the guard that was blocking our only entrance's door. Straight in the head.

I gulped, preparing myself for what I was planning to do before, shifting my bow's aim at the last second. I hit a spot that would lead the guard away from the door for a significant amount of time if he heard it; Which he did. Once I had, it was go-time.

I rushed Lo'ak, pulling him up and around the rock and telling him to swim for it until we were at the ship. With an incredible amount of stamina, we climbed onto the ship and made our way into the doorway, checking to see if the coast was clear before entering entirely.

We crept through the ship, hunting knives in hand, inspecting corners and corridors as we travelled them, hoping to catch wind of Quaritch or anyone we could use to get information out of, such as his whereabouts. It was much colder than I remember, or maybe that was simply due to the fact a fire wasn't surrounding us this time. — As we were about to enter another doorway, Lo'ak placed a hand out, stopping me quickly.

"Sh." He whispered, even though I wasn't saying anything to begin with which I found rather rude. "Someone's coming." He told m, making me listen much more closely than I had been previously, then being able to make out the faint clangs of footsteps on the metal floor. The two of us started backing up slowly, trying not to make a sound. In order to hide from the person approaching, we had no other choice but to back into another doorway, one we'd missed on the way in.

I reversed, breathing out deeply once the two of us were fully inside the room, out of sight. Lo'ak sighed too, speaking quietly. "I don't think it's Quaritch, he doesn't sound—"

"He doesn't sound what, son?" A voice startled me from behind, causing me to shoot my entire body around to face whatever had made it. Then, heartbeats. I stared up at the man Lo'ak had almost insulted, noticing the two armed guards he had with him. My immediate thought was of course to run however they were much too close. They'd catch us for sure if we tried anything then.

"Say now, what's this? How nice of Sully to let you visit." Quaritch smiled slyly, signalling with his hands to let his gaurds know what he wanted them to do. From there, they placed themselves behind me and Lo'ak, bringing our hands behind our backs to hold them in place, to prevent us from moving. I started to struggle, to hiss. So did Lo'ak.

Quaritch laughed when he saw us react, crossing his arms in a smug manner as he tilted his head with a smirk.

"I knew he'd get my message."

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I do apologize for how late this update is! I've been swamped with A-Level work however it's slowing down a little now - bare with me! <3