Chapter 7 - War with the Mermen

Under the cover of the night, an eerie silence enveloped us. Thanks to the presence of three moons, the darkness was illuminated more brightly than a normal Earthly night. The sole audible sound was the rhythmic crash of waves on the beach. As the tension mounted, our fingers rested uneasily on the triggers, our hearts racing with fear. We stood there, holding our breath in anticipation of their arrival.

"They are here" I muttered, a mixture of dread and determination in my voice.

Then they came, emerging from the dark waters, there were nearly thousands of mermen advancing towards us. Their eyes were glowing with eerie blue, their armor glistening under the moonlight.

"Men! Open fire" I commanded.

We opened fire, and the rapid firing sounds of bullets filled the air. Bullets ripped through their ranks l, yet they kept pressing on relentlessly.

The battle was fierce and chaotic. They retaliated against us with their pressurized water weapons, and some of my men started to get injured.

"Bring out the explosives" I shouted.

We used the grenade launchers to target groups of them, hoping to thin their numbers. Explosions echoed, groups of them exploded into a bloody mist, chunks of their flesh scattered everywhere and the pungent amalgamation of gunpowder and blood saturated the air, permeating our surroundings.

Our machine guns kept firing without any rest, cutting through everything in their path. While their armor provided some protection, it was no match for the onslaught of bullets.

Rivers of blood started to flow, Their numbers began to dwindle. The beach was littered with their bodies and ours, a scene of carnage and desperation.

The sun began to rise and the remaining mermen retreated into the ocean. The battle was over, but the island bore the scars of our struggle. Only six of us remained, battered and wounded. We had won, but at what cost? Our bodies ached, our spirits were weary, and questions lingered in the air.

We tended to our wounds as best we could, using what medical supplies we had. But we knew our fight was far from over.

On the fourth day, we planted some land mines earlier and took turns to sleep. Why are we fighting like this? We could have left this island earlier, if we had done that then this whole ordeal could have been prevented.

"Men, we are leaving this island. We will use some of our remaining explosives to free NS Scorpion and will go back to port Aurora and regroup with Commander Norman and the other"

The NS Scorpion is docked on a sea cave we found on the island we were only planning to stay on this island for a few days but because of an earthquake the entrance to the cave was blocked by falling rocks, stalagmites, and stalactites, we could have used a torpedo to destroy the blockage but it would be little too powerful and the whole cave could collapse.

The reason we didn't leave early was because we had many injured soldiers who were severely injured but not only six of us remain, we should have carried them and should have left this cursed island sooner.

Me, Sam, and Max went to the cave to clear out the blockage. There was another cave on the island which leads us to the sea cave. It's just a five minutes walk from the beach cave you have to walk north until you see a huge Banyan tree and then turn left and walk a few minutes until you see a small rock formation once you get closer search for the cave entrance.

Unfortunately, the entrance to the sea cave is small it's only around 100 inches which are big enough for two people to enter at the same time but it's small compared to other cave entrance.

We went inside, it was dark because of the blockage from before we use our flashlights to help us see better, Sam and Max approached the blockage, placed the bags that we used to carry the explosives down, and started setting things up.

After a few minutes, everything was ready to go.

"All right men fall back" I commanded.

*Boom*

With a loud ear-rupturing sound the blockage started to collapse and because of the huge shock wave stalagmites and stalactites started to fall from the top of the cave we hurried and exited the cave and after a few minutes we entered the cave again the sunlight enter the cave and illuminated our surroundings and the Majestic NS Scorpion came into our view.

"Alright Men we did it, now let's go back and tell our comrades the good news, and let's get out of this hell hole"

Then both nodded and we exited the cave, The sun was starting to set then we suddenly heard a loud booming noise coming from the beach

*Boom*

"Wha-what's happening on the beach? Men let's hurry up and go"

We started sprinting so that we could reach the beach as fast as possible, and what we saw sent a chill down my spine. There were thousands of mermen attacking our beach cave, there were few hours left before sunset, these bastards made a sneak attack and attack us before night.

One of the people from the beach cave saw us and yelled an instruction to the others.

"Captain and the other are here, make a path so that they can reach the cave"

And they did just then, we reached the cave and asked him what happened.

"Captain, we were packing the thing in order to leave this island. Suddenly thousands of them started emerging from the beach and started attacking us. Luckily the land mines we planted early helped us a lot and killed nearly one-fourth of their forces but Alex is down one me an-"

Suddenly his head exploded like a watermelon his blood and brain matter hit me on my face I was startled and took a step back and tumbled and fell down on my back, I looked at the beach. It looks like one of the mermen managed to hit him with their pressurized water weapon.

We were naive we thought they only attack at night but they used that against us and manage to make a sneak attack. And now only four of us are remaining and most of our weapons are packed away we can't retrieve them and use them on time.

Then suddenly something worse happened they managed to bring one of their mounted Hydro cannon, it was on top of some kind of vehicle that was the as same size as a small row boat, and they started to charge that thing.

"Everyone fall back they bought one of their hydro cannons"

They did just that and we retreated near the cave we had some grenades and a few grenade launchers on hand and we also had our standard assault rifles on hand.

"Men open fire! Use everything you have to survive" I shouted.

We started using the grenade launchers on groups and prevented them to form groups and singled them out and we used our assault rifles to kill the singled-out mermen. If they somehow got closer to us and tried to attack us as a group we used the hand grenades to vaporize them into a bloody mist

One of them left the cave to take a closer look at the advance of the mermen.

"You fool get back inside or else-"

*Boom*

Before I could finish the sentence he exploded into a million pieces and was turned into a bloody mist, I peeked to see what happened it looks like they hit him with their hydro cannon, That idiot I told him to not leave the cave, and now he ended up as a bloody pile. We can't even bury him now.

The battle persisted, and the three of us almost succeeded in decimating thousands of their troops, largely due to our skilled use of explosives and advanced weapons. It was difficult to conceive the possible outcome without our technology.

Despite their significant casualties, they continued their relentless assault, resembling machines in their unwavering advance. Did they not experience fear? What compelled them to go to such extreme lengths to eliminate us? Moreover, why do they consistently retreat at the break of dawn?

We somehow endured until morning, managing to eliminate nearly all of them as the remaining few retreated. However, we bore the heavy weight of wounds, bleeding profusely, and our bodies were ravaged by the intense struggle.

We somehow retrieved the hydro cannon and a few of their handheld pressurized water weapons, stashing them under the bed alongside the machine gun.

Only me, Sam, and Max are alive now. Sam has passed out because of the blood loss and is lying on a bed and Max is sitting down on the ground, and I am writing this diary.

I could see the sun in the sky, I don't know what will happen to us tomorrow but we somehow managed to live today, let's get some rest and leave this hell hole.

I am tired I will lie down on this table and take a little nap.