Chereads / Nautiquarium - Aquatic Realm of Monsters and Mysteries / Chapter 6 - Captain Francis S. Slattery

Chapter 6 - Captain Francis S. Slattery

After having my morning coffee and a hearty breakfast, I continued exploring the cave. I remember seeing some kind of boxes covered in dirt and cobwebs near the beds so I approached them and cleaned those I opened one of them and inside were many glass bottles, I took one from the box and opened it, and gave it a smell.

It was Rum, and there were around nine bottles in a box and there were a total of five boxes. It was a good thing alcohol like Rum doesn't get spoiled easily and it can be used as an antibiotic, it can also be mixed with water making it safe to drink for a long time, and I was also running out of Alcohol from the supply ship.

"Looks like I found something really good"

After finding the boxes of Rum, I decided to go for a little walk and went outside the cave. The first thing that caught my eye was a bloody trail going toward the ocean where the carcass of the siren was supposed to be. It looks like someone or something dragged the siren back to the ocean but who would do such a thing? And why?

I don't feel good about this so I went back to the cave the half-opened military trunk caught my attention and I went to take another look at those military trunks. I removed the key from the opened truck and tried to open another truck with the same key, I was not very confident that it will work but let's try it anyway, and it opened.

"Wait what? does this mean?"

I tried opening the other trunks with the same key and they all opened, from my experience in the Navy I know that military trunks are not very easy to open.

I can only think of two possibilities either that the military trunks are very old and got rusted and damaged or that this is a Master key, but Master keys are not something anyone could have in the Navy, in order to have a master key you should be a high rankings officer like a commanding officer or a captain.

I looked at the skeletons unlike the other two. The one I got the key from was dressed differently, I was almost like he was a higher-ranking officer than them.

I kept all my speculation aside and looked at those military trunks there were a total of 10 trunks and what I found inside those trucks was a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one.

There were all kinds of guns, ammunition, grenades, and even land mines theses are not the only things I found inside there were so many non-perishable foods like dried beans, bags of rice, bottles of honey, bags of pepper powder, bags of salt, bottles of soy sauce, a bags of oats, bags of dried pasta, corn starch, corn syrup, lots of spices, tea powder and a lot of canned food.

With this many weapons and food supply one could wage a small war for a few months, were they fighting with someone? Who were they fighting with, these things are too much for just three people, if they had more companions where are they? What happened to them?

I turned around and looked at the skeleton that was sitting on a chair and lying on the table and asked,

"Who are you?"

I approached the skeleton and something caught my eye, there was an old notebook covered in dust under his hand. I gently remove it and blew the dust away and opened it and read the first page.

Francis S.Slattery, Captain of NS Scorpion

I knew he was a Navy captain that's why he had the Master key, I quickly glanced through the whole notebook and it looked like some kind of Diary Its entry starts on 24 May 1968 and ends on 1 January 1970, It's odd – if they were in conflict with an enemy nation, why keep a diary? Such a choice could potentially enable rival nations to gather valuable information about their activities and weaknesses.

I decided to take a look at the last few entries first because they could give me some information about this island.

1st January 1970: It's been almost a year and a half since we became lost and ended up in this strange world. If we were still on Earth, today would be New Year's Day. We would have been celebrating with our friends and family, sharing greetings, and enjoying each other's company. But here we are, trapped on this mysterious island.

I should have been more careful when we realized there were no people here. In this world, about 90% is covered in water, and there's only one large landmass that could be considered a continent. As a result, most islands around the world are inhabited by some form of population—whether regular folks or even cannibalistic pirates.

Only islands that are not inhabited have some kind of problem or curse, when we came to this world there were 99 of us and but now only three of us here, where did I go wrong? If I was not the captain and someone had taken that spot could have things gone better? I don't know.

When we came to this island a few days ago there were around 20 of us after a long journey at the sea. We thought we finally found a good place to rest only to find out that it was infected with the monstrous mermen.

They always strike at night. On the first day, there was only one singing along the beautiful shores of the beach. Many of my men were mesmerized by the beautiful song and the beautiful women singing it.

Some even approached her unconscious and the next thing we know she started killing people left and right and the people who were standing near the cave shot her dead, on the first day alone we lost three men.

We should have taken that as a warning and should have left the island but some men said that we should at least bury the dead so we decided to stay one more day, and at night there was a whole army of these creatures attacking us. There were nearly 150 to 200 of them.

Unlike the one from yesterday, these things were wearing some kind of armor that looked like it was made from some kind of scales and their shields. They looked like turtle shells. They were very durable and could even deflect some of our bullets.

They were armed with spears both short and long.

They were throwing their short spears and were using their long spears in melee combat and they were using some kind of projectile weapons they shot pressurized water.

I have heard about these strange weapons. There are two different types of them: the mounted one and the hand-held one. The mounted ones are as strong as cannons and can easily destroy a giant boulder in a single shot and the handheld ones are something similar to our pistols.

They shot a small amount of pressurized water. They are as strong as our pistols. We were lucky that there were only handheld ones. If they had brought some mounted ones we would have been in trouble.

Their projectile weapon has a major drawback: it takes a long time to load even one shot. Compared to our modern weaponry; they were like sitting ducks.

We somehow managed to get rid of them but not without casualties today nearly 6 of my men died and all of us were injured to some extent only around 6 of us including me can move to some extent we decide to go back and bring some supplies. Then we decide to treat our wounds and just rest for the day.

On the third day, one of my men went outside to take a leak then he suddenly ran towards me with a horrific face like he had seen a ghost or something, I went outside to take a look much to my horror there were no enemy bodies we killed around 150-200 enemies yesterday night but today there were not even one body remains, the only thing there is a bloody trail left behind, it looks like someone or something dragged all the bodies into the ocean I don't know if it's a good thing or bad.

Some suggested that we should leave this island as soon as possible, and I agree with them but we have too many casualties, and all of us are wounded. Only a few of us can move to some extent.

Let's rest for a few hours and think about what to do, I don't know if they will attack again today but just in case they did we need to get prepared, it's time to get out the big guns I sent some of my men back and told them to bring some belt-fed machine guns we have.

We have around 5000 bullets which should be more than enough to kill whatever comes at us, for now, I told my men to keep it under the bed and they also bought some grenade launchers, hand grenades, and even some land mines as well. It's almost evening, the sun's about to be set up and we should set up these machine guns to give those bastards a warm welcome.

It's time for war.