Eight oâclock, many of the Thalassa âs guests were woken up by the heat.
âWhat happened? Are the air conditioners down?â
Li Shao rubbed his eyes and threw the covers aside. He was just about to go back to sleep when his stomach rumbled, its protests bringing a sigh to Li Shaoâs lips. Even if the beef noodle soup was $100 per bowl, heâd still have to buy one even if it cost him a kidney.
Throwing on a random pair of jeans and a patterned shirt, Li Shao was debating whether to wear a jacket when he opened the door. Instantly, the intense heat waves made him feel like he was still dreaming.
This⌠was practically 30°C! <sup>1</sup> 86°F
There was no AC in the hallway, and even if there was, who in their right mind would turn the heat up this high? For what? To ogle at girls wearing even less clothing? Li Shao couldnât understand what had happened.
Frankly, there werenât many who were as stingy as him, so most people who werenât at the party were instead at the bar for their own wild night. As a result, Li Shao didnât see anyone until he climbed another three flights of stairs. There was a man bent over the railing, still clutching a beer bottle in his hand. His hair and clothes were all dishevelled, and Li Shao couldnât see his face for identification.
âWhat was he thinking? You could probably get ten of those bottles on land for the price of one here.â
Li Shao rolled his eyes and turned the corner. He then saw a person dressed in the staff uniform curled up at the foot of the stairs, his hands reaching out as if wanting to grab onto something.
âSeriously? Even the crew is allowed to drink?â But Li Shaoâs intuition told him that there was something wrong with the way the crewmember was laying. He only had one shoe on his foot, and his positioning looked like he had rolled off the stairs altogether. Plus, that neck, it seemed way too crooked!
Li Shaoâs eyes widened in shock and he let out a scream. He realized that the exquisite, crimson carpet was speckled with darker spots. His cries jolted the previously silent floor into a commotion.
âWhoâs yellingâ fuckâ whyâs it so hot?â
By the time the nearby cabin doors were opened, Li Shao had already ran to the staircase on the other side of the hallway. He was timid and didnât want to attract trouble, especially now, after seeing a dead body. Luckily, despite the tragedy, it was a staff member, so he shouldnât have to bear any responsibility.
After climbing onto the deck, Li Shao stared dumbly at the bodies strewn under the sun.
Most of them were crew members frozen in odd positions, such as curling into a ball, crawling towards the shadows, or laying flat-out on the floor. The closest corpse to him was a waitress with bugged out eyes and a mouth distorted into a strange wave. With her face covered in dried blood, she appeared to have been dragged straight out of a horror movie.
âAHHHââ
Li Shao let out a terrified shriek and moved backwards until his back hit hard on the walls that divided the deck. He pulled at his hair uncontrollably as his mind raced: Whatâs going on? Is this some new prank show? How did everything become like⌠this⌠overnight?
The guests below continued to curse until another scream arose. Those who discovered the corpses began to talk amongst themselves in panic; nobody realized the second scream that disrupted their dreams came from the deck.
Li Shao looked around in desperation. He had to get out of here .
Um, this often happened in movies: when confronted with a place full of strange corpses, regardless if the murderer was human or not, they would be hiding nearby, waiting for the moment to grab you from behind!
Li Shao quickly pulled away from the wall he was leaning against.
He sprinted madly, reaching the spiralling staircase within a minute. At this moment, he could barely feel the scorching pain of the sun shining down on him. Li Shao thought anxiously, why had no one discovered the dead bodies on the first deck?
He subconsciously avoided the body that had climbed halfway up the stairs but then died. All of sudden, he was reminded of the man he saw this morningâ he probably wasnât a drunkard.
Goddammit, this doesnât look like a film set, whoâs playing these disgusting pranks? No, no, this seems to be real!
Li Shaoâs brain stopped processing.
As he continued to run, he realized that every place was empty, including the finely-decorated luxury stores. Each and every one of the recreational facilities on the Thalassa Goddess, even if all they sold were shoes and bags, never closed. Thus, they didnât have lockable shutter doors and instead only installed pin-sized security cameras.
When Li Shao passed the third Italian designer store, there was a voice warning him: donât take anything. This may all just be a sick joke of the rich. The bodies might be fake, meant to scare people like him whoâd boarded the cruise out of pure luck, entirely for the enjoyment of the wealthy. If he took anything valuable, itâd be over. He could lose his job.
âLi Shao!â
The voice was foreign, but familiar.
Li Shao shivered unintentionally and ran faster, but he was quickly caught up to and the person behind him grabbed his shoulders.
âNo, it wasnât me! I donât know anything!â
Li Shao reflexively struggled against the person. When he looked up and realized it was Xia Yi, he froze for a good ten seconds before collapsing to the ground like a deflated balloon.
His face was pale and he shook uncontrollably. âXia-Ge⌠thereâs so many dead bodies over there!â
Xia Yiâs gaze sharpened, but he didnât speak. Instead, he pulled Li Shao up from the floor and quickly entered a Chinese restaurantâ yes, the one theyâd gone to for their first dinner on board.
The diner, too, was empty, but from the knocked-over tables and chairs and the broken flower vases, one could tell how much of a hurry the wait staff were in when theyâd left. Yes, it had to be the wait staff as this was the third day of the voyage and no person whoâd spent the night partying would wake up before ten in the morning.
âXia⌠Xia-Ge?â
Li Shaoâs senses returned and he looked around at a loss. What were they doing in the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant?
Xia Yi remained reticent as he unfolded a table cloth heâd grabbed from somewhere. He then started to search for sealed and canned food alongside bottled alcohol while ignoring any ready-to-eat meals that required microwaving.
Li Shao was slightly shocked and stuttered, âXia-Ge? This⌠this isnât good, and anyhow, even if weâre stealing, shouldnât it beâŚâ
Shouldnât it be things that were more expensive? Uh⌠or could it be that the stores had security cameras while the kitchen didnât?
Actually no, this made sense considering the price they charged on this cruise. They were practically robbing a man for a meal!
Li Shao thought he understood and also began searching for drinks and costly food items, but what was there in a Chinese restaurant? Not much other than several raw dim sum and live abalones in the tanks; he couldnât eat any of that. Li Shao was both hungry and thirsty, so he poured a cup of cooled soymilk and began to chug it down.
Suddenly, the entire ship tilted left and Li Shao bumped into the oven, which caused him to not only spit out the soymilk, but also almost choke to death.
âWhatâs going on this time?â
Before Li Shao could stand back up, Xia Yi left the broken alcohol bottles and dashed out of the kitchen.
Directly facing the kitchen door was a giant window with a clear ocean view. Xia Yi froze.
The Thalassa Goddess stood 49 metres above the ocean surface; its ten decks added up to be 36 metres, with another 13 metres below. But what had he just seen? A ginormous tentacle covered with suction cups slid across the window. The seawater rolled off the glass panes, and that part of the tentacle alone was as thick as an adultâs arm. The most terrifying thing was its color: distinct blue markings imprinted on brown skin, drawing out fearful cries from anyone who came across the beast.
âAHHââ
After stumbling out of the kitchen, Li Shao slammed headfirst into the table, he knocked out two teeth and immediately had a mouthful of blood.
But the tentacle didnât penetrate the glass and instead glided down the window. Xia Yi stared for half a minute before running to the edge to peer down, only to catch his breath in his throat.
The once azure ocean now surged with spindrifts as white as snow, covering the surface like an endless pool of foam. In its midst was a colossal beast waving eight tentacles that were 20-or-so metres long in a way that seemed as if it was about to grasp onto the Thalassa Goddess. However, it either didnât know how to use its powers, or the Thalassa was just too big, because it did nothing. The beastâs round body broke through the surface, and its width alone was at least eight metres and surprisingly spherical. Blue rings circled its tentacles and blue hollow dots littered its body.
Xia Yi thought he saw a silver light flash in the waves.
The sea monster that was obviously an octopus retracted its tentacles with a splash and began to sink into the depth of the sea.
âWhat kind of monster was that?â
Li Shao shivered and refused to go near the window, nor did he let go of Xia Yiâs arm after latching onto it.
âWas this the thing that killed all the people on board?â
âNoâŚâ
Xia Yi murmured, distracted by the wavy sea.
Why wasnât the sea monster afraid of the sun? The radiation was present regardless of day or night. The people on the first deck probably died sometime before daybreak when the boisterous party muted any shrieks of terror,but the wait staff and crew who hurried to leave had probably spread the news already.
Sadly, all the guests at the time were either sleeping or drunk, and the radio on the Thalassa had broken, so they couldnât announce anything through the PA. There was also the sudden power outageâ
Xia Yi began to move towards the door. Though he didnât care much about being alive, he didnât want to die randomly and pointlessly.
Even if the end of the world really came, he would find a safe and quiet spot where he could slowly reminisce about the good memories of life before dying with no regrets.
His original purpose behind coming to a restaurant was to find a small knifeâ not for protection, but for the possibility of a quick death. Still, since heâd ended up seeing food, he naturally took some. Xia Yi also happened to remember that Li Shao was still in the cabins below and went to find him.
ButâŚ
Could it be that these sea monsters that were supposed to exist only in sci-fi movies also knew that doomsday was drawing near and thus decided to eat well for one last meal? Otherwise, why had such a massive creature disregarded the change of water pressure and appeared at the surface?
Li Shao sat on the ground, sweating profusely while his teeth chattered.
Xia Yi looked down at him. He didnât like this assistant of his; Li Shao was clumsy, stingy, and liked to take advantage of things, but at the same time, was the person who was âwithâ him. To Xia Yi, this relationship held enough weight already. So, despite not knowing how to fully explain his words, Xia Yi still said quietly, âGo find food, water, a knife, and then⌠find a quiet place to say goodbye to me!â
Li Shao eyes bugged slightly. Goodbye? Did that mean Xia Yi was going to leave this place?
âNo, no, no, Xia-Ge, you canât leave me here!â
Xia Yi didnât brush off Li Shaoâs hand that was clutching his arm. He just stayed silent for a moment before speaking again, âLi Shao, thereâs no other way out. Weâre all going to die⌠havenât you noticed?â
âWhâ what?â
âThe Thalassa Goddess⌠has long stopped moving.â