Snapping his eyes wide open, Jake looked around and couldn't remember where he was, who he was, or what he was doing, and then the recent events came flooding back into his mind. Clutching his head with one hand, it was at this moment that Jake realized that he was laying in the floor of a life-pod.
Sitting up, he looked at Owen and the man beside him, who largely resembled Owen, except older and appeared to have seen more of the world. A sharp pain then assaulted his head for a split second before he finally snapped out of his daze and asked Owen a question.
Owen's father was a few centimetres taller than Owen himself, his eyes were pine green and sharper, and his hair was entirely grey. Other than that, he was basically a carbon copy of his son.
"Owen, how am I still alive? I thought I was eaten by the Ghost Leviathan?" It was at this moment that Jake realized he just let something slip that he shouldn't have. As for Owen, who was questioned, he had a slightly bizarre look on his face as he scrutinized Jake.
"I don't know what happened under the water after you were swallowed, but I can explain the events starting directly from when you had been swallowed and what I saw. That is only if you tell me why you called that strange creature a 'Ghost Leviathan'."
Averting his gaze from Owen's, Jake nodded his head while looking around the life-pod to see if the doll that any fan of a certain famous YouTuber will get when they play Subnautica, and it was. Keeping his gaze focused on that doll for a few seconds, Jake's attention was then grabbed by what Owen was saying.
"After you were swallowed I had decided to stay and pray for some kind of miracle, and there was. Six minutes after you were eaten, the water around the area you had been swallowed started getting agitated, and then the sea creature you call 'Ghost Leviathan' shot 10 metres out of the water.
It fell back into the water and made a large wave that swept me away for a few dozen metres. After a minute of cautiously watching the creature, I swam closer and crawled inside it's mouth to find you. Once inside it's mouth, I crawled towards it's stomach and had barely placed a hand in when I had to take it back.
The acid in the stomach of that creature was incredibly strong. So strong in fact that I don't doubt it could have dissolved all the flesh on my body in under five minutes, at which point I would already be dead. When I had taken my hand back my hope of you still being alive dwindled, but then I saw you float towards me.
I grabbed your arms and had to drag you out of the creature's stomach and mouth. We then swam here and met up with my father who is a doctor, but seeing as how you don't remember I can only assume that your will to survive was so great that you subconsciously helped yourself stay afloat.
My father then injected you with two doses of adrenaline to wake you up. It had only been 2 minutes since you were injected with the adrenaline before you regained consciousness. Now, can you tell us why you called that creature a 'Ghost Leviathan' since I told you what has happened up until now?"
Digesting the recent events that happened while he was unconscious, Jake thought about what he would tell Owen and his father, but then he had a brilliant explanation that wasn't too unbelievable. "I called it a 'Ghost Leviathan' because it's a fitting name, one I had came up with when I thought I was going to die.
It looks like a ghost and is as big as a Leviathan Class creature. I had encountered some other Leviathan Class creatures while on my way to rescue some of the other survivors. There are two other large creatures in the Leviathan Class that I had encountered on my way to Life-pod 4.
One of them I named the 'Reaper Leviathan' and the other the 'Gargantuan Leviathan'. The Reaper Leviathan was 50-60 metres long and was a mixture of the colours grey, blue, and red. It had four large pearl black eyes, four red mandibles that destroyed Life-pod 4, and a red horn like protrusion on it's forehead and chin.
The Gargantuan Leviathan bit the Reaper Leviathan in half just as the Reaper Leviathan was about to eat me and another crew member named Derek. I am unsure as to how long the Gargantuan Leviathan was since it had barely come out of the water when it attacked the Reaper Leviathan.
It had six eyes, six tentacle-like things growing back from it's skull that grew towards the back of its body, and it was black in colour with a bluish-grey underbelly. Other than that I wasn't able to get a clear view of what exactly it was."
Seemingly accepting what Jake had said, Owen and his father were shocked at what this man had been able to experience in under 3 hours since they had been on the planet. Then again, unlike them, he had been constantly swimming around while looking for other survivors and rescuing them.
Sitting in silence for a minute, Jake finally remembered that there were still three more life-pods that had people that needed saving. Quickly standing up, he made sure not to stand up to his full height before pushing open the hatch of the life-pod.
Before exiting the life-pod, he reached down and grabbed the small doll that had been fabricated by Owen's father. "We need to go, it is no longer safe at this life-pod. We must return to Life-pod 5. I also need to go and find other life-pods and save any survivors."
With those words, he exited the life-pod and waited for Owen and his father to follow him out, and they did. Helping them up and out of the life-pod, Jake descended into the ocean and started swimming back to Life-pod 5 while Owen and his father followed behind him.
They swam for 10 minutes before they reached Life-pod 5, which had Derek, William, Ozzy, and Ryley all sitting on top of it while their legs were dangling over the side. Some sort of makeshift umbrella was above their heads to stop the sun from giving them bad sunburns.
When they saw the three people that were swimming towards them, Ozzy was the first one to shout out as he waved wildly at them. "Jake! You're back!" Cupping his hands over his eyes, Ozzy then saw Owen and his father were the ones following behind Jake.
Reaching the life-pod, Owen and his father climbed on top of it and shook hands or hugged the other survivors, but Jake didn't stop swimming. Only changing his direction to start heading towards Life-pod 6, he barely waved behind him at the six men on top of the life-pod before leaving.
"Where do you think he's going?" Ryley asked the question on everyone's mind as they all watched him silently swimming further and further away. "He's probably going to save more survivors." Derek was the one to answer this time.
"Ever since I first met him he has been constantly saving people. The only time he didn't was when he rested for a minute or two and when he got his injuries partially taken care of." Derek spoke again since he was the first one that Jake had saved, not counting Ryley since he didn't necessarily save him.
Owen withdrew his attention from the conversation and looked inside the life-pod to see who was all there, and he was surprised to see who the people inside were. "Mary? You're alive too?" Mary, who had been monitoring Berkeley's condition, looked up when her name was called.
Surprised at who had called her name, she responded with a question of her one. "Owen! I see that Jake has rescued you as well. What about Theodore, your father, is he here as well?"
"Yes he is. If it wasn't for him then myself, Jake, and he himself probably wouldn't be alive and able to see you guys. Jake was given two dosages of adrenaline and will probably crash soon, he isn't exactly normal.
The dosages were meant for people who are closer to our body size and not someone like him. I would presume that's why whatever medication or drugs he has taken didn't last as long as they would have if used on us.
Also, I have speculation that he might know more about our current situation then he let's on about. How is it that he knows where are life-pods were and what those creatures were. While on the way to the life-pod my father was in, we encountered a Leviathan Class creature that he named the 'Ghost Leviathan'.
He was swallowed by it and possibly would have died, but a miracle happened. That creature died somehow and it's stomach acid barely affected him compared to me. When I had touched it my hand felt like it was on fire while his entire body was floating in it and seemed fine."
Mulling over his words, Mary was about to reply when someone else did before her. "The reason he knew what to call that creature was because me and him have seen some creatures of similar size, two of them in fact."
Derek was the one who spoke, he was also thinking about what Owen had said, but he didn't think that Jake was hiding anything important from them. "As for how he found us? That could be explained with the fact that he guessed where our life-pods would land based on where he landed."
Everyone who was in and on Life-pod 5 thought about the man named Jake and the mysteries surrounding him. They all knew that he was hiding something from them, but most of them didn't think it was some kind of big secret that would drastically change how they would think of him.
Sitting in silence for five minutes, everyone's attention was suddenly grabbed when an explosion was heard off in the distance. Looking over, everyone on top of the life-pod saw a mushroom cloud rising into the sky.
"Isn't that the direction that Jake had swam in?" The silence was broken by William, who numbly voiced out his question. Gazing back and forth and one another, everyone hoped that Jake would be alright and that nothing has happened to him.
As for the person in question, he was currently gasping heavily for air while blood was coming from his ears and nose, same with the two women he was holding by the arms. Jake had arrived at Life-pod 6 only a minute before the explosion occurred.
When he arrived, he climbed on top of the life-pod and opened the hatch to look inside, that was when he saw that the woman in Life-pod 6 who had lit the flare was already holding it. "Drop the flare!"
Before any other action, Jake immediately screamed at woman, who was also looking at him questioningly. Shocked by the sudden scream, she dropped the flare and looked at Jake in slight fear and apprehension, but Jake didn't care.
Leaning half is body into the life-pod, Jake lifted the woman out, but then he heard the sound of the bottom hatch opening. A brief thought of how unlucky he was surfaced in Jake's mind before he reached down once again and lifted up the other woman.
"Take a deep breath!" Screaming out once again, Jake had an arm of each woman in his each of his hands before he jumped off the life-pod and into the ocean. Seconds after all three of them had landed in the water an explosion occurred.
Due to the proximity of their location to the explosion, the shockwave and sudden increase in pressure caused their ears and noses to start bleeding. It was accompanied by the feeling of having the wind knocked out of them, but Jake was much better off than the two women since he had trained to take hits.
Poking their heads above the surface, all three people gasped greedily for air while simultaneously avoiding the falling debris that was on fire. Jake had let the arms of the women go since they could swim in their own, but he stayed close to the women since he didn't want them wandering off.
"Sorry about my behaviour, however, I would think that you would rather be alive then dead." Jake apologized for his rude behaviour, but he was right and he wouldn't go out of his way to apologize further.
No one else said anything though as they were just blankly staring at Life-pod 6, which was a fiery wreck that slowly started sinking. Only after it had completely sunk did their blank stares turn to Jake, who was patiently waiting for them.
(I finished this yesterday, thank you all for the power stones. I will get to work on the next chapter in 2-3 hours. Until then I want to thank you once again for all the love and attention you've been giving my novel. Until next time. Peace out!)
(PS. I just found out that Jochi Kasar might have already been dead... I hadn't played in a little while and I could remember getting a distress call from life-pod 13. I thought that he was the one sending it, but then I listened to the audio logs a few more times and realized that he had already died while entering the atmosphere. Once I heard the distress call I realized that he had already died since it said "send immediate burial detail" or something along those lines.