Moon Theory [BL]

A lone vessel sways in the sea, its lopsided mast illuminated by moonlight. It is the only beacon of light amidst deep, dark waters, attracting unwanted company from high tides to low, the sea creatures slamming onto the keel. Two hours in sail and the First Unit is struggling to hold on.

An epileptic flash of light and then a foreboding rumble of thunder – the storm has gotten considerably worse.

“Should we make a stop?” Jae has on a wetsuit under his uniform and his entire body is drenched. He is manning the stern and the entirety of the back, making sure nothing gets close to the ship’s propeller. The signs of exhaustion are clear on his face. “I don’t know how possible it is to get through the Paramus tonight. We might have to dock on the east.”

“It doesn’t matter if we don’t cross.” Yang Rong has used up tens of ammo packs in the last hour alone. Though he too is drenched, his countenance remains the same – composed, hardened, battle-trained. He hauls up a large net and tosses it into the water. “We only need some fish.”

“W-What do you mean it doesn’t matter?!” Jae is on strict lookout duty. He’s still using that same pair of binoculars, his body leaning dangerously close to the ledge of the starboard. “If we don’t cross the river, then aren’t we dead, Colonel? And we’re not getting fish, we’re getting radioactive fish! They don’t even look like fish—I mean, what even is that thing?”

‘That thing’ refers to the two-meter long seabass with tentacles. The half-dead fish plops pathetically on the deck, mere meters away from Yoo Seok who is studying it with interest. Green scales, blue gradients, large holes by its fins. There are tentacles – pinkish slimy things – wriggling out of the holes. They look to be parasitic worms.

The unsightly creature has been captured over half an hour ago. Even without water, the seabass has remained alive. They’d taken measures to encage it, of course, but such a mutation signifies just how dangerous the seas have gotten. Even in coordinates so up north, the sun’s rays have penetrated into the waters.

The beast flops once more then emits a faint croak, its body twitching right as it dies.

“Thirty-eight minutes,” Yoo Seok records. “Two hundred and five centimeters in length, eighty in width. This is the largest. We haven’t seen a single one this interesting.”

“Please don’t say that, hyung.” Jae shoots him a depressed look. His eyebrows droop down. “Sooner or later, we’re going to encounter the kraken.”

“The kraken doesn’t exist.”

“It might as well exist!” Jae shudders. “These anomalies are getting stranger and stranger. If fish start flying, I’m going to die. I’m not versed in deep-sea battles so… I would prefer we leave early. Colonel Yang, can we abort this mission? You can tell them that we got into a shipwreck – which, technically true – and then we ended up not dead, but majorly injured and therefore we need a year or two of rest and… Um, Colonel Yang? Are you listening?”

Yang Rong finally looks at him. “What?”

“Well I was talking about the kraken and you didn’t respond so—"

“The kraken?” Yang Rong is disinterested. “If it appears, we’ll cook it and eat it for dinner.”

“…Oh.”

So it seems the colonel doesn’t want to indulge in conversation tonight. Yang Rong is in an inexplicably poor mood and his aura depicts it all. The air around him has condensed into suffocating smog, and if anybody were to get closer, they’d be swallowed alive. His hands are tapping intermittently on the edge of the ship, a habit he has when impatient, and his body language all but screams displeased.

Imagination also holds that the clouds above him have darkened to an even stormier black.

Jae looks at him nervously. “Is… Is there something wrong, Colonel Yang?”

With Li Jiayun manning the engine room, only three men are left outside on the deck. Two of them are incredibly socially inept as well, which leaves Jae, the only cognizant one, to lessen the tension. It makes sense that all of them are on edge, both literally and figuratively, but some missions go by smoother when all soldiers are on the same page and… when the colonel hasn’t issued out orders for the past two hours, the First Unit is undeniably not on the same page.

Yoo Seok is merely observing whatever anomalies they’d captured, Jae is left fumbling around at the back of the ship, and Li Jiayun may be going the wrong way without proper navigation, propelling them to some unknown part of the world. At the very least, they do have oxygen tanks equipped just in case they sink – not an extremely comforting thought, but they don’t have anything else to be optimistic about.

“Why?” Yang Rong replies sharply. “What could be wrong?”

“…Everything is fine.” Jae is quite a receptive person, but even he has trouble identifying Yang Rong’s source of irritation. It may be that the colonel hasn’t slept for two days going on three – those dark rings under his eyes only make him more intimidating – or it could be that the weather suddenly broke into storms mid-sail. The default navigator, Jae himself, hadn’t forecasted such a grim outlook. “…I just thought that you looked tired, is all. How about you um, go take a rest? Seok-hyung and I can handle the rest and you can head in the cabin."

“The cabin?” Yang Rong gives him a dark glare. It’s as though the weather mirrors his mood, the skies parting to smite down on the earth. A crackle of thunder descends dangerously close to the ship. “I can’t go inside the cabin. He won’t let me.”

Three years into the job and Jae still finds himself unable to weigh the colonel’s emotions. Li Jiayun is usually one to calm their leader, but with himself substituting, Jae is treading onto unfamiliar territory. He falters in his speech. “Noah is a good person… If the both of you got into a fight, you should apologize and—”

“I’m supposed to apologize first?” Colonel Yang narrows his eyes. “I don’t even know what I did to make him angry. He is throwing a tantrum again and I’m out here, locked out of my own ship. Me, someone of such status, someone with such good looks, thrown out into the rain and due to be zapped by lightning – does this sound alright to you, Jae?”

“…No?”

The colonel grabs the fishing net and hauls it up, taking along dozens of tiny fish. None of them look radioactive and he throws the net back down, hoping for a bigger catch. The waters are swaying high tide, splashing dangerously close to deck. Yang Rong frowns and raises his voice, calling out to Li Jiayun operating the helm. “Hey! Steer it properly! Why are we sinking?! This is a navy vessel, not a paddleboat! Do you think we have all day?!”

“Yes, Colonel!” comes the strangled voice up front. “But I am trying my best! I don’t know how to pilot this! There’s no manual!”

“What manual?!” Yang Rong shouts again. “People who rely on manuals are inadequate! What, do you think we’re one of those small-scale, rugged idiot forces down south? We’re the First Unit – number one in capture rate, number one in mission success rate, number one in everything! It’s just manning a ship! Press a few buttons and improvise! Don’t complain again or I’ll throw you into the city patrol unit, you fool!”

“U-Uh okay!”

Nobody tells him that the First Unit is number one in both mission count and death count. Li Jiayun tries her best, but the ship is rapidly being swept away by the current – not so much her fault, really, when the flame and scuffle had drilled numerous holes in the vessel’s anterior.

A particularly loud rip crashes against the bow, the current overflowing from bottom to stem. A plank is washed apart during impact, the already rusted nails popping off in collateral. A stream of freezing cold water makes way onto the deck. It comes in waves – first through a small crack in the wood and then through a dent in the hull.

“Ahh! Colonel!” Jae’s shout is almost lost in the storm. “There’s a hole by the rudder!”

“Colonel Yang!” Li Jiayun is straining to steer them upright. The vessel is imbalanced and shifting forebodingly to the right. The weight of it is submerging under water pressure. “We’re sinking!”

Yang Rong groans in exasperation and runs to the upper compartment. He throws down a multitude of equipment, uncaring of how haphazard he’s being. “Inflatables. Take the spearguns and the oxygen tanks just in case. Someone—fuck, someone get Noah and the little kid.”

In the face of disaster, the First Unit is exceptionally capable despite how rushed they sound. No wasted movements and no unnecessary commands – each of the soldiers immediately heeds to their tasks. Jae defends the stern, stubbornly shooting at the anomalies that come near. He battles through thunder and rainstorm with only a muted stern light to guide his way. The vessel has yet to sunk underwater, but Jae is already drenched from head to toe.

It’s a miracle Yoo Seok can find his balance along the capsizing ship. He heads to the cabin and knocks twice – the door is still locked. Low noises come from inside but the soldier doesn’t care to address them.

“Come out,” he says matter-of-factly. “The ship is sinking.”

A rattle of the lock being undone and then Ming Tang appears beside a half-asleep Noah. Yoo Seok raises an eyebrow at the young man’s unenergetic appearance – messy hair, sweat-sheened skin, damp clothes. He has the colonel’s bag slung over his shoulder and he looks worse than he did two hours ago, if that were possible. That pasty white complexion isn’t helping his case. There’s also a linger of something bitter in the air.

Yoo Seok takes a tentative sniff. “Medication?”

Ming Tang answers, “Antiseptic.”

An obvious lie. Yoo Seok doesn’t care to probe further, however, and he merely flicks his fingers in gesture – “let’s go.”

When they leave the berthing, the flood has already reached below their calves. Another crackle of thunder and the mast is struck. The ship reels back and forth critically, the vertigo enough to make the passengers nauseous. A chaotic whirring of the propeller, a mechanical hum by the sides of the vessel – lifeboats being sent out.

Indistinct yelling, gunshots, more yelling, then in the peripheral, a grenade is reflected off dim navigation lights. The lever glints a peculiar shade of silver-red, slows down in trajectory, and lags in mid-air. Yang Rong, Jae, and Li Jiayun simultaneously make a mad dash to where they are by foredeck. The three soldiers, clad in black, are moving so fast their figures blur like silhouettes.

“Run!” screams a very familiar voice. “Run for it!”

Déjà vu. Li Jiayun grabs Ming Tang at the same time Jae grabs Yoo Seok, and then Colonel Yang, with no time to hesitate, snatches Noah by the forearm and runs.

The grenade detonates behind them, destroying the entire front of the ship – a familiar scene, except this time, the impact sends everyone bulldozing towards the end of the ship, dangerously dangling off the edge.

The scene is complete chaos. The torrential rain hinders, and the flickering lightning is epilepsy to the eyes. The platform is wrecked, splintered apart, and the passengers are pelted with rough shards. Their bodies are pinned together, their limbs sprawling out in dislocating positions. Heavy breathing, groans and grunts, a particularly raspy gasp.

“—You smell,” Noah chokes out, scrunching his eyes in pain. “Get…off!”

“Fuck! Is this really the time for that?!” Yang Rong traps him underneath, unwilling to let him go – and for good reason, because if they were to topple even a few inches downward, they’d be sent sprawling into the sea. The colonel, bathed in blood, has one hand on Noah’s waist and the other on a fragile piece of wood, straining to hold the weight of two grown men. “Be good and endure it, okay! Do you think your Rong-ge enjoys being on top of you like this?!”

The water level has reached their upper thighs. Next to them, another mindless conversation is taking place.

“It’s the kraken!” Jae shouts hysterically as he clings onto his companion, Yoo Seok. “It actually appeared!”

“Stop screaming into my ears,” Yoo Seok replies as he hangs onto a flimsy rope. “I can hear you just fine.”

“T-The kraken!” Li Jiayun shivers uncontrollably from the freezing waters. She’s shorter than the rest of the soldiers, and her abdomen is completely submerged. “W-What s-should we do, C-C-Colonel?!”

Ming Tang, somehow holding his own weight by the ledge, corrects them casually, “It’s not the kraken. It is an amalgam of goby fish that has gathered en masse. The water’s refraction makes the blob seem larger than it actually is, and with such strong riptides, its body sways in perpendicular directions, looking like tenta—"

Jae screams, “The kraken!”

The amalgam is enormous. The grenade had struck down half of the mass, but it leaves a gory, grungy mess on the planks. Radioactive goby flops onto the foredeck, and it is then that they see how abnormally large the fish are – over two and a half meters, even bigger than the previous seabass in terms of length.

They conglomerate into a squirming lump like parasitic worms. Some of the creatures are headless yet still moving, their viscera protruding out of the sockets. Mutated gobies on the foredeck, unknown looming predators under the sea – the passengers are surrounded in every direction.

Where a large hammerhead swims, the sea riptides to part for its way. The shark rams into the vessel underneath, fracturing off bits and pieces of metal. The shards cut into their skins and the colonel takes the brunt of it, positioning himself to cover for his squad and for Noah who lies motionless underneath.

“There’s a wave coming!” Li Jiayun’s head pops out of the water and her words come out in gurgles. Her body is already sunk under as she struggles to wield a spear-like weapon. The tip of it is coated with phosphorous, the green light providing some visibility in the harsh underwater.

“Get rid of the shark first,” Colonel Yang orders. “The rest of you… prepare to swim. If you don’t make it to the boats, then I’ll see you next life.”

At that moment, the wave – rogue – surges above the capsized ship. Fifty meters high going at one hundred knots, the winds propel it lethally against them. The roaring wave consumes all in its path, sweeping every single passenger off board and plunging them deep into the sea.

The crash of it is louder than the rippling thunder, reaching ear-splitting decibels, engulfing all other sounds in its wake. The skies flash in ominous white and then the wave doesn’t stop – it billows outward more and more, an unending surge that renders them helpless. The scene is oscillating whites and blues, dirty gray clouds, splotches of red. A small dither of blood that’s swept away just as quick.

Pathetic gurgles, flailing limbs.

The pressure crushes them instantly.