NOVEL WEB Chapter 7: Beneath Us, Teeth
Reed tossed and turned in his sleep. In his dreams, he was still back in New Florida. He had, in his dreams, finished his Advanced Martian poetry course, which he had every week on a Friday right before his ISLE coaching classes down the central promenade past his home on deck four.
Families on Sector 43 coughed up every single space credit they had to get their children the best coaching they needed for the exams. It was their lottery ticket to a better life, to a life of dignity and respect that New Florida's faux meritocracy never offered them. Besides, a higher ISLE course could allow them to earn merit-based talent visas to immigrate to the better developed, richer space stations and planets held by the People's Republic of China.
Reed already had planned where he wanted to go: Tsinghua University's New Guangzhou campus. There, the Bai Meilin scholarship program offered a fully-funded four-year Bachelor's degree, encompassing Political Science, International Relations, Intergalactic History, and Anthropology.
The scholarship package was comprehensive, covering housing, a living allowance stipend, and two round-trip spaceship journeys. Convenience was a main factor in his decision to pick that station, as New Guangzhou was merely a short hop across the vacuum from New Florida, much like Tijuana is to Los Angeles.
Upon graduation from Tsinghua, those who have a grade of 85% and above get Chinese work visas which allow them to work and live anywhere in China's intergalactic possessions. If they are then able to get a job above the prevailing average wage rate of their galactic region, they would be granted a permanent residence permit, which could be turned into Chinese citizenship upon marriage to a Chinese national or upon proving proficiency in Mandarin Chinese.
Reed wanted to leave the United States' space possessions and migrate to China. It offered a better life, and better healthcare, and an opportunity for his mother and brothers to thrive.
"Reed! Wake up!"
His eyes blinked open.
"Juno?" He sat up, dazed. For a moment, the humid cabin walls blurred with the clean chrome of his dream. New Florida was gone. In its place: the tight press of damp gear, the stench of sweat and mildew, the muffled hum of alien rain outside.
Damn, he thought. It felt so real. Sleep was a drug now—the only escape. He hated Juno for pulling him out.
"We've got to move. Tide's dropped."
Reed looked around. Everyone was up. Suited. Packed. Silent.
He strapped on his helmet.
"Let's go."
Juno hesitated. "Are you sure about this plan? I know the water's low, but... what about those fish things?"
Reed adjusted the straps on his pack, cinched them tight. His breath tasted like metal and rot. It had been three days since anyone had brushed their teeth.
"We don't have a choice," he said. "We either take our chances out there—or starve in here."
A voice called from the lower level.
"Hey!" Leo clomped down the stairs from the attic, a lopsided grin on his face. "Found this in the toilet tank. Water pressure was dead, so I popped the lid. Look what was inside."
He pulled it from his suit pocket.
"A Rockbatton?" Reed blinked. "Old-school piece."
"Yeah. May I?" Leo handed it over.
Reed examined it. "430 BX. Waterproof pistol, but still gunpowder-based. Saw one in the Online Museum of Lethal Weapons. You unseal this slide here… remove the safety here…"
A click echoed as Reed chambered a round.
"Damn," Felix murmured. "Never seen a real firearm before. Feels… wrong, like this belongs…like it belongs to a…a museum."
"Keep it," Reed said, handing it back.
Leo stepped back, palms up. "Man, I'm not using a gun."
"You have to," Reed said firmly. "We need someone who can shoot."
Leo hesitated. Reed pressed the mag release, checked the count.
"Thirty-one rounds." He locked it back in. "Low caliber. But better than nothing."
"Would it kill… the thing that killed Kye?" Leo asked.
"If it's human—yeah. If it's not… headshots. A few."
Reed racked the slide partway, just enough to check the chamber. A gleam of brass caught the light.
"One chambered. It's all we've got. Don't waste it."
Leo nodded. "Thanks, man."
"No. Thank you," Reed said. "You're our best shot."
"That has competitive shooting, not... this."
"Same thing. You doubt yourself. I don't."
Leo took the pistol, stuffed it into his side pocket.
Reed turned to Juno. "Here's the map. Have everyone scan it."
He laid it flat on the cabin floor. Juno knelt first, then passed it down the line—Margaretta, Sasha, Felix, Leo, Yasmine, Luca. Each tapped their slate and saved the scan.
Outside, the sky was bruising again.
The rain whispered as it fell—fine, persistent, cold. Like the planet was breathing against their skin.
The two rafts drifted in silence across the gray, glassy surface of the lake. Each paddle stroke echoed in the stillness. There was no wind. No birds. Just the rhythmic swish of plastic blades cutting water, and the occasional shuffle of soaked clothing.
Reed sat at the front of the lead raft, visor fogged, mind racing.
Ahead, the far shore loomed—jagged, tree-choked, and wet with mist. A few broken silhouettes poked out of the brush: shattered poles, a leaning scaffold of rusted girders, maybe even the top of a sunken truck. A forgotten world, smothered in green.
He tapped his slate again. No signal. No uplink. Just the static-riddled map they'd pulled from the shuttle's backup system, a corrupted display showing a triangle with bold lines around it.
A fort. That's what the symbol meant. He remembered from cartography class—back when things like maps, exam scores, and lunch duty still mattered.
He had no idea what was there now. No one did.
He only knew they had to try.
"Hey," Juno said quietly, paddling behind him. "You still think this is the best plan?"
Reed didn't turn.
"We don't have another one," he muttered.
"But just because we saw a fort symbol doesn't mean there's anything left. What if it's ruins? What if it's just—" she hesitated. "Worse?"
He finally looked back. Her eyes were hard but searching. Not challenging. Hoping.
"Do you want me to say we should turn back?" he asked.
She was quiet.
Felix, behind her, shifted in his seat. "We could wait it out. Maybe the current carries us to another side. Maybe we follow the shoreline instead of going inland."
Reed let the silence settle.
"Do you think it gets better if we wait?" he asked. "We've got half a tin of nutri-paste and three water packs left. No heat. No fire. No shelter. If we land and there's nothing—fine. At least we'll know."
He turned forward again.
"They built forts for a reason."
A voice crackled over comms—Leo, from the other raft. "Unless it was to keep something in."
That quieted them.
Even the paddling stopped for a beat.
The rain picked up—still light, but now steady. It stitched lines across the lake. A fine, shimmering curtain.
Sasha murmured, "I keep thinking… what if we're not supposed to be here."
Juno didn't respond. She gripped her paddle harder.
Then Margaretta said what everyone was thinking.
"What if the thing that killed Kye came from that direction?"
Reed didn't have an answer because he was starting to wonder the same thing.
The water shivered.
Reed noticed it first. A faint swirl beneath the surface—like heat shimmer, but cold. Alive
He tapped Juno's arm.
Another ripple. Then another. Spreading. Converging.
Reed's visor magnified automatically. What he saw made his stomach drop.
Slender coils. Rising. Circling. Dozens.
"Everyone, stop paddling," he said. "Now."
The rafts coasted to a crawl.
"What is it?" Yasmine whispered.
"Those Eels," Reed said, his voice a tight wire. "The ones that ate Liyen."
From below, they came.
Translucent, leech-colored bodies uncoiling from the depths. Their skin shimmered with veins of red and purple, pulsing with movement. They broke the surface one by one, mouths gaping with rings of needle-like teeth, blind faces turning toward the rafts like they'd heard something.
Then the first one struck.
It launched like a spring, slapping against the side of the lead raft, jaw clamping onto the rubber, biting deep.
"Hold on!" Reed shouted.
The raft bucked. Another eel hit from the other side. Then a third. A chorus of wet slaps, screeches of tearing plastic, and the hissing friction of bodies writhing across the pontoons.
Screams. Sasha shrieked as one slithered up her leg. Luca smacked it with his paddle, flinging it into the water where it vanished with a splash.
"They're breaching!" Felix yelled.
Juno kicked at one climbing the back of the raft, but another took its place, jaws snapping inches from her arm.
Then—
CRACK!
A gunshot split the air.
CRACK-CRACK!
Leo, standing now in the second raft, feet wide apart, pistol braced with both hands.
Another eel burst apart mid-air, a mist of shredded flesh and black ooze splattering across the water.
The other eels froze.
And then they turned.
Without sound, they vanished—plunging beneath the surface in synchronized motion. Gone as quickly as they'd come.
Silence fell. Only the panting over comms remained. And the hiss of rain.
Reed twisted around. Leo still had the gun raised, barrel steaming.
"You okay?" Reed called.
Leo exhaled. "I got one."
"You did more than that." Reed nodded, voice steadier than he felt. "You ended it."
Leo looked down at the gun like it didn't belong to him. Then he slumped into his seat.
"Screw this lake," Margaretta muttered, wiping gore off her visor.
Reed sat back in the front of the raft. His hands shook. He clenched them into fists.
The rafts began moving again, drifting slowly toward the shore.
The storm had passed. The water was calm.
But no one spoke for a long time.