Suddenly, the ship exploded with a violent crunching sound of metal on rock. The floor below them shuddered and rumbled, sending everyone standing crashing to the oily slick floor and sliding backwards. Everything pitched to the side as the ship's powerful motors forced it further and further up whatever coastline they had shipwrecked on.
Mina scrambled to her knees and lept through the open doorway out of the holding area, slamming hard into the wall. The inmates clung the bars of their cells, and the mutilated bodies of gaurds slid along the dark floor leaving bloody trails behind. She pushed herself up, and when she felt the ship tilt, ran along the wall and dove through the open hatch to the next level. A fire was burning here, and inmates were screaming, running everywhere. The guards on this level, who apparently knew nothing of what had happened in The Pit, were unlocking doors and then scrambling out the hatch to the deck.
She ran with them on bare feet, her hair wild and slick with sweat. She could hear the lower deck filling up with water. "Good. Drown and die!" she thought as she clambered for the ladder. When she got to the top, she felt the ship tilt again, hard. With a thunderous crash, The Quiet Place righted itself. "Mina! Don't go up there!" she heard one of the guards say. She held tightly to the ladder as the ship shuddered and groaned before moving on over the ocean.
The guard heard them before he saw them, but he knew he had to do something. The inmates from The Pit were trying to get out. Quickly, he reached for the hatch to shut it. A massive, tattooed arm shot out. The guard slammed the hatch down, elliciting a howl of anger and rage from the inmate below as he drew his broken arm back. The hatch shut, and with the spin of the handle, they were locked inside.
Mina climbed up the ladder. "Mina, no!" the gaurd said, catching his breath. She popped her head out, and gasped. They were in the open ocean. Inmates were holding onto whatever they could as they made their way to the bridge. She could see the scared crewmen inside desperately barricading the door, but she knew what was going to happen eventually. She slid down the ladder, and closed the hatch.
The guard stood up, and looked back towards the cells. The lights were on emergency power, and Mina knew, before he said anything, that they were trapped with the insane above them, and monsters below them. Mina sheepishly walked over to the gaurd. "Thanks." she said.
He turned to her, and her mind froze. "Don't mention it." he said with a grin. This wasn't a gaurd at all... |