Opening the lid of a can of rations, he received a wooden spoon from Theon and dug into the meal.
"Tastes like shit." Spitting away the aftertaste, Allen shoved another mouthful down his throat.
'Taste?'
Syllian belatedly realised he had somehow finished half the can in such a short span of time.
The brown-haired boy looked at Syllian's can and muttered with confusion, "I still don't get it, how can you eat this stuff so easily?"
"It's pretty good."
"Lier."
Allen turned back to his food and ate away.
Yeah, Syllian lied.
He didn't taste a single bite.
'The Night.'
She is The Night, She is the Caller of The Night.
That was different from what it told him.
It told him to run from the Call of The Night, not from the Caller of The Night.
That small difference mattered.
Tug-
The hand pulled him again, and Helen's dark eyes swirled with a myriad of emotions as she slowly gripped his shirt.
"You said that out loud."
'Wha-!'
Syllian held himself back and asked, "Said what?"
Staring past loose strands of dark hair, Helen lowered her gaze and gripped his shirt harder.
'Damnit.'
She wasn't speaking.
'What did I say out loud?!'
Luckily no one else heard him, but still...
Stuffing the rest of the food into his mouth, Syllian glared up at the occasional flashing lightning bolts in the distance.
'What happens now?'
-----
Nothing, apparently.
Splash...
A gentle wave crashed over the dirt and rose up the side of the small ledge to the edge. The water level stopped just beneath Syllian's shoes.
Syllian sat on the edge of the island all alone, if you counted Helen as nothing, that is.
4 hours had passed since a new day came around.
His back and injuries ached slightly, but it wasn't enough to cause real discomfort.
[First Trial]
[Return that which does not belong to you.]
And.
[Third Trial]
[The call of the night beckons all; the call of the night swallows all.]
[The call of the night approaches.]
[Run]
Syllian was profusely worried now that he had time to think everything over.
The Third Trial was simultaneously straightforward and terrifying, but simple. He just had to run away from whatever the Call of The Night was.
His new worry was the First Trial.
He basically understood it now, but understanding what had to be done didn't make it easier in any way.
"Finch, Crude is calling you."
Behind Syllian, Riley's voice called him over.
"Alright."
Patting the dirt off his body as he stood up, Syllian faced the man who had initially accused him of treason.
Riley looked at Helen, shook his head, and turned around, signalling for Syllian to follow.
Walking peacefully through the dreary island, he enjoyed the surrounding ambience to its fullest extent.
Because soon, it would be no more.
---
Crude stood in front of the stele of the Mistress of The Night with Allen.
Riley cast a side look at them and walked back to their temporary camp, he had something else to do with Orland and Danny.
Namely, create barricades just in case of an attack.
"Took you long." Allen poked Syllian's side.
Flinching from the ticklish sensation, Syllian poked back.
"You like touching men too much, feeling lonely?"
"And you like hanging around Helen too much, fe-"
Bang!
A solid fist plunged into Allen's abdomen, it was Syllian's pale, dainty fist.
It might be small, but it still packed a punch.
"Don't you try saying something like that."
Bent over in pain, he slowly raised his thumb, "Y-yep, got it..."
That was a line even Syllian wasn't willing to cross, not even jokingly.
"That's enough you two, listen up."
He gave Allen a moment to recover with his arms crossed.
Once Allen was ready to listen again:
"I want you two to head back to The Adler, once there I want you to go to the storage and bring out another crate of spare planks, we're running a bit low here."
Crude expected some sort of response but Allen was still busy patting down his abdomen and Finch was unresponsive, for some reason.
"Got it?"
"Got it." Syllian replied to him.
Content with them, Crude wished them luck and returned to their base camp.
It shouldn't be too dangerous now that they had completed an initial search of the island and hadn't been attacked even when roaming alone.
And even if they did get attacked, bringing more people just meant more would die.
"Let's go." Syllian picked up a candle that Crude had left on the ground for them, glanced at the limping Allen, and went on his merry way.
Minutes passed, and they arrived at the pathway of dead leaves.
While the trees around were vibrant and luscious, the leaves here were stale and broken.
Syllian didn't understand why they were here, and he didn't want to find out either.
It smelled like something bad.
But it was probably worse than it smelled.
-----
The dishevelled Adler was in sight again, the ship had been in stasis since they left it. Only the swaying ladder brought some life to the dying ship.
Walking to the ladder, Syllian was first to climb up, followed by Helen and Allen.
Back on the deck they walked past the multitude of broken sections littering The Adler and entered its innards again.
As the only three on the ship, Syllian constantly felt like someone was watching them from the corners of the darkness.
It didn't feel like their ship anymore.
It was a stranger.
'Not that it was ever mine.'
Sometimes Syllian almost forgot that this wasn't the real world.
This wasn't Earth.
This wasn't the ruined city either.
This was a tomb for the wicked.
He just had to make sure it wasn't his tomb, there was a whole world waiting for him out there after all.
Not that there was anyone waiting for him, maybe that man, but otherwise there was no one.
'Maybe she's still around though.'
Moving aside a plank of wood that blocked the entrance to the storage room, Syllian entered the dark room first.
'Just on the other side, maybe.'
Syllian and Allen split up to search for the crates of wood, they never really came here so they were unfamiliar with the placement of the items.
"We should have asked Crude."
Syllian wholeheartedly agreed, "I forgot."
"And I was in too much pain to remember."
"I didn't punch that hard, and you deserved it."
Allen shrugged his shoulders, but Syllian couldn't see it in the darkness.
"Found it."
Calling Syllian over, Allen threw aside some debris, revealing a few crates of planks stacked on top of each other.
Syllian lit up the crates with the handheld candle and let the boy do all the work.
Allen grunted a couple of words of complaint but did the work in the end, he didn't want to suffer another brutal Helen attack.
Opening the top crate, Allen asked for the candle from Syllian and lit up the inside of the top crate.
"Looking good..."
Syllian hummed to himself as he looked around the dark storage room, 'I wonder if there are nice houses in the Inner District.'
His eyes suddenly landed on a patch of darkness on the other side of the room.
"That's-"
"Finch!"
The boy's body charged backwards, colliding with Syllian and Helen as he pulled them away before they could understand what happened.
"What?!"
Allen didn't respond but looked up at him.
His face was pale, his teeth were clattering, and his eyes were constricted to the limit.
They were the eyes of someone who had seen something they shouldn't have.
"It's-It's-!"
Allen's teeth clattered viciously, he wasn't in any position to talk.
Syllian decisively pulled Allen's arm off, took the candle, and snuck up to the crates again before Allen's shocked gaze.
If Allen lived after looking at it, he would too.
And the boy clearly wasn't able to talk.
Clenching his cold fist, Syllian walked through the flickering darkness.
Thump.
Syllian heard his heartbeat.
Drip.
Felt his sweat dripping down his face.
And then he arrived at the crates once more.
Lifting the candle in his hand, Syllian carefully lit the interior of the crate. And inside, he saw exactly what Allen had found.
Squirming darkness.
Tentacles.
Coils of impregnable steel ripped through the fresh wood.
And following the tentacles, it didn't end with just the crate, the tentacle continued down...
Through every crate below it...
Into the hull of The Adler...
And around the entirety of the storage room.
They weren't in the belly of The Adler anymore.
They were in the belly of the Mutant of the waters.
Syllian took one step back, then two.
Then three...
Up to Allen and Helen.
Turning to face the frozen Allen and confused girl, he slowly took in a deep breath and said:
"We go to the pantry, take the crates there, and leave."
Allen didn't move.
Syllian gripped his shoulder with his free hand, "Now."
Nodding, Allen instantly exited the storage room.
He no longer felt safe, not just felt, he knew that he was no longer safe.
The walls around them, the ground beneath them, even the air itself-
'It's all.'
-the enemy.
Rushing through the corridors, Syllian looked into every open door he found, and with each one he searched his already pale face drained even further.
His heart felt like it had been dunked into ice, drained into a macabre pool of blood, and left out to dry.
It was everywhere.
This was no longer The Adler, not the one they knew.
Arriving at the pantry, Syllian handed the candle to Allen to look out around them, and slowly opened the door-
Black.
A wall of pitch-black covered everything in front of him.
Thump-
It beat, veins of pulsating black rushed with blood.
Fwish...
It moved, coiling and solidifying further.
Syllian's facial expression didn't change in the slightest, he just slowly but surely closed the door.
Creak.
Slowly...
Thud.
It shut once more.
Looking at Allen, Syllian didn't need to say anything.
---
It never attacked them, maybe it didn't care or wasn't interested in them for now, but they finally made it out of the belly of the Mutant.
Syllian pointed to Helen and Allen, then pointed to the ladder, telling them to get down.
Allen pointed to Syllian, asking him 'What about you?'.
Syllian pumped his fist, and tapped it on Allen's chest:
'Don't worry.'
Helen didn't follow him this time, she decisively followed his decision and exited the ship via the ladder with Allen.
As for Syllian, he went up the stairs to the stern of the ship, where the helm was.
Taking a few careful steps through the stern, he approached the fence and leaned over the edge of the ship.
And waited.
RUMBLE-!
A crackling bolt of lightning rushed into the nearby waters, lighting up the night sky in its usual routine.
Dense coils of tentacles wrapped around the hull of The Adler, glimmering in the light of the lightning.
And these tentacles didn't just wrap around The Adler, they broke through its hull, feeding on every section of the ship.
All but the front end of the ship.
That haunted Syllian.
If it purposefully didn't aim for the visible section of the ship-
Rumble...
The tentacles shifted.
"What is it-!"
BANG!
And smashed into the rudder of The Adler, ripping it off clean while Syllian held onto the fence as the ship swayed violently.
'-if it didn't aim for the visible section on purpose, then it didn't want us to know-'
The tentacles didn't stop there.
Unfurling like the sails of The Adler, the tentacles slowly reached high into the sky.
Soaring above Syllian like the first night he arrived.
'-to know what it was doing.'
But now they did.
FWIP-!
The air itself screamed as the rising tentacle whipped down.
BOOOOOM!!!