Chapter 6: Unearthed Secrets

The Leviathan groaned as we touched down on her rusted deck, the helicopter’s blades whipping the air into a frenzy before finally settling into silence. The ship was a hulking mass of steel, a floating relic that had been lost to the world but now found by us. It was hard to believe that this rusted giant was about to become our new home.

Clyde’s eyes lit up the moment we stepped onto the deck. His gaze swept over the ship like a kid in a candy store, mentally cataloguing every bolt, every rusted seam, every potential project. He seemed to relax a little, like he’d finally found something he could trust - a machine, something with parts and systems that he could understand and control.

“Look at this,” he muttered, almost to himself, as he found a stash of tools in one of the storage rooms. There was an impressive array of equipment: wrenches, hammers, welding gear, and a stack of industrial-sized gas canisters. His hands moved over the tools reverently, like he’d just been handed a treasure chest. “This is good. Real good.”

In another room, we stumbled upon a large generator, its casing covered in dust and rust. It looked ancient, but Clyde crouched down beside it, inspecting the machinery with a practised eye. “She’s not dead,” he said with a smirk. “Just needs a little love. I can get this running.”

Slade was just as eager, though his excitement was of a different sort. He’d brought a laptop, a stack of external drives, and enough protein shakes to last him weeks. He set up shop in what had once been the captain’s quarters, the one room on the ship that still had a bed in one piece. As he booted up his laptop, the glow of the screen lit up his face, giving him a manic, almost feverish look. He was in his element, the same way Clyde was with his tools.

We agreed to split up and explore the ship, each of us drawn by different purposes. Clyde wanted to get a sense of the ship’s mechanical heart - the engine room, the generators, the fuel reserves. Slade was more interested in finding a secure place to set up his digital lair. As for me, I was looking for a place where I could be alone, where I could think, where I could write. I hadn’t written anything in weeks, maybe months, but this ship felt like the kind of place where words would come spilling out whether I wanted them to or not.

The ship was vast, a maze of corridors and rooms that all seemed to lead to nowhere. I wandered for what felt like hours, each turn taking me deeper into the belly of the beast. The air was thick, stale, and tinged with the smell of oil and rust. Every step echoed through the empty halls, reminding me just how alone we were out here, miles from any shore, any sign of life.

Then I found them.

The engine room was cavernous, a dim, oppressive space filled with the hulking shadows of machinery long since silenced. But it wasn’t the machines that caught my attention. In the far corner, huddled together like they were seeking warmth in this cold metal tomb, were the remains of the ship’s original crew.

Seven of them, dried out husks in tattered clothes, their faces frozen in expressions of fear, pain, or perhaps resignation. The sight hit me like a punch to the gut. I wasn’t prepared for this. Their bodies were so far gone that it was impossible to tell how they’d died - starvation, disease, maybe something else. But the fact that they’d all ended up here, in this one corner of the ship, struck me as strange. Had they died here together, clinging to some last hope? Or had they been dragged here, their bodies dumped in this hidden corner to be forgotten?

I didn’t linger. The air was thick with a sense of dread, and I felt like I was intruding on something I wasn’t meant to see. I backed out of the room, my heart pounding, and made my way back to the deck as quickly as I could without breaking into a run.

When we reconvened in the ship’s main cargo hatch, the others were already there, waiting. Slade was the first to speak, a triumphant grin on his face. “You won’t believe what I found,” he said, his voice brimming with excitement. He’d stumbled upon a huge storage area filled with canned food - enough to last us for months, maybe longer. “We’re set,” he said. “We can stay out here as long as we need to.”

Clyde, ever the pragmatist, had been inspecting the ship’s cargo. There were massive tanks of fuel stored in the lower holds, more than enough to get the generator running and to keep the helicopter fueled up if we needed it. But we all agreed that the helicopter should only be used for emergencies. The ship was our home now, and the less we needed to rely on the outside world, the better.

Then it was my turn. I told them about the bodies, about what I’d seen in the engine room. Slade’s grin faltered, a look of queasy fascination taking its place. He looked sick like he was trying to wrap his head around the reality of it, like he was seeing the spectre of his own future in those dried-out corpses.

Clyde’s reaction was different. He barely blinked, his expression remaining stony and unreadable. “We need to deal with them,” he said simply, and without another word, he grabbed a pike and some old tarp from the cargo bay.

“I’ll help,” I offered, and for the first time since we’d arrived, Clyde’s face softened. He nodded, grateful.

We worked quickly, our movements mechanical, and methodical. The bodies were light, brittle, almost like they were made of paper. We wrapped them in the tarp, trying to show some semblance of respect, though in truth, I just wanted them gone. The sight of them had rattled me more than I cared to admit.

One by one, we carried them to the edge of the deck and let them slip into the water. The ocean accepted them without a sound, the bodies vanishing into the deep with barely a ripple. It was over in minutes, but the weight of it lingered.

As the last body disappeared beneath the waves, I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were somehow sealing our fate. We’d cleaned the slate, but at what cost? This ship, this journey - there was something dark at the heart of it, something we couldn’t yet see but that I could feel pressing down on us, tightening its grip with every passing moment.

We stood in silence for a long time after that, each of us lost in our own thoughts. The sun was setting, casting long shadows across the deck, the ship creaking softly as it swayed in the water. We were out here now, alone in the vastness of the ocean, with only each other and the ghosts of the past to keep us company.