Nia kissed her teeth as she woke with blurry vision. It took a few flutters of her eyelids to see clearly. When she came to, she noticed several shadows encircling her. Once her vision was crystal, she realized the same men were standing around her from before she had blacked out. She was duct-taped to a chair, bolted firmly to the ground.

Theo sat not far in front of her.

"Good to see you again," he said.

"Look, I didn't see anything. Let me go. I promise I won't say a word," Nia said.

"Haha, which is it? You didn't see anything, or you won't say a word about what you saw?"

"I... didn't see anything," Nia said with shaky breath.

"You're a bad liar, and the tell in the way your lips quiver," Theo replied, pointing at her lips.

"I saw that too," sneered one of the men.

"We can't let her live," spouted another.

"Yeah, but first, we must find out if she's a spy," said Theo, as he signaled to the man behind her with a loud snap. The man peeled away from behind her and returned with a bucket in hand. She could tell it held something heavy from how he struggled to carry it.

Once he set it down, she saw that water filled it to the brim.

"Are you working for the government?" Theo asked.

"I'm just a kid from a poor village. And my mom and sister must be worried about where I am."

He got up and walked in a tight radius in front of her. Then turned toward her abruptly, rolled up his sleeve, and pointed to a tattoo on his arm. It was an image she had seen on the grenades, the symbol of the Syndicate.

“I don’t believe you,” Theo said. “You know the organization I belong to.”

Fear bit Nia's tongue. Not a word escaped her trembling lips.

"You know what, let's dump her head in the bucket," said Theo, gesturing at the others to pull her out of the chair. She wiggled as hard as possible to try and escape, but it was in vain. Two men stepped forward, yanked her from the chair, and dragged her toward the bucket of water.

"This is your last chance. Tell us if you are working for the government?"

"No," she screamed, shaking her head.

"Dunk her!" Theo thundered back.

Nia strained as hard as possible against the hands that drove her head toward the water. But the more she resisted, the closer the water came. In the final moment, she swallowed a massive gulp of air. Then, immediately, the water washed over her face and swallowed her whole head. She held her breath for a bit but then panicked. Her jaws widened against her better judgment, and the water rushed in, filling her mouth, throat, and nostrils.

They repeated the process twenty times.

Nia kept squirming like she had a seizure.

Then she felt some hands yank her right back up. She hacked up all the water she took in and coughed like a hag for a while, then wheezed in breath after breath.

"She's not a spy," said Theo. "If she were, the cops would have raided the ship already.

"How do you know?" Asked one of the men.

"Because, rookie, spies are trained to react more stoically than she is. Plus, we dunked her twenty times, and she hasn't cracked because she isn't hiding anything!"

"Oh," the voice replied.

"You don't look too good," said Theo, offering his hand. She waved him away. Then he ordered the two men to throw her back in the chair.

"Now that I know you're not undercover, I'm going to tell you the truth about who we are."

"Can you just let me go?"

"No, let's talk. Do you know what the biggest problem in the world is today?"

"Everybody does, the energy cloud in space that's eating our universe."

"Yes, but what's the cause of that?"

"There's no one to blame. It's a natural disaster."

"Sure, we don't cause natural disasters, but we can control how we respond to them, no? And our government isn't responding well."

"True."

"Right now, we have no idea if the cloud can be stopped or not because the government refuses to fund research into how to do it. And there's no serious contingency plan to build enough spaceships to get everyone off origin and the other planets in the rest of the Xymoran Federation to more distant planets that will take longer for the cloud to reach. And why would they, all the rich and connected people, government ministers, generals, and other leaders, know they can always get away? So they don't care about us."

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Nia sighed.

"Of course, as I mentioned before, we don't know when the cloud in space will devour our planetary federation because its growth seems irregular. But that could change tomorrow, and it could sprint to our planet. So we don't have the luxury of counting on that. We have to act as if it's going to happen soon, so we can hopefully be prepared long in advance. The Xymoran government has been bad long before this. That's why the Syndicate has fought them so long to protect innocent people. But the emergence of this cloud in space adds a new sense of urgency to the need to fight and topple the government."

"I get your point, but I don't think things will ever change," Nia whispered.

"Really," said Theo, pausing in disbelief. "No, things can change."

Nia tried to stop herself but couldn't and broke into laughter.

"You think there's going to be a revolution? Your beloved Syndicate has been fighting the government for so long, and you've failed because they are far too strong."

"Well, we're changing our strategies and tactics now. We won't fail this time. But I know how you feel. I was once like you, cynical and adrift in this cruel world. But the Syndicate gave me a purpose. It can give you one, too."

"So all this is part of your recruitment pitch," Nia chuckled, shaking her head. "I'm not interested."

Suddenly, the ship shook.

"What the hell is that!?" yelled one of the men.

A volley of loud gunshots, brawling, and foot stomps followed above deck.

Then a booming voice emanated from outside into the ship, "This is the Xymoran maritime police. Your ship is in violation of the nightly curfew, and all on board will be detained."

"Shit!" yelled Theo. "Couldn't one of you have mentioned the curfew?"

"The captain said he'd push the ship far away from shore so we'd be less likely to get raided," said one of the men.

"Clearly, he didn't push us out far enough!" Theo replied.

"No, she's not," Theo said. "You guys should start going up now. If they corner us down here, we're all dead."

The man nodded and began racing up the stairs.

Theo dashed toward Nia and pulled his knife out in front of her. When their eyes met, her whole body shivered.

"You have to come with me," said Theo before bending down to cut the tape that fastened her hands and feet.

"Hell no!" Nia said, though she was quietly relieved that Theo didn't mean to gut her with the knife.

"Didn't you hear me say police are on the ship?"

"Damn it! Then how are we gonna get off? Nia asked.

"We'll have to run up to the deck and then grab one of the inflatable motor boats and jet off in the dark," he said through clenched teeth as he strained to cut the last bit of tape off her.

"Did you just say go upstairs? Are you insane? It sounds like a bloodbath up there."

"Well, down here, our deaths are guaranteed. So let's go up and take our chances instead," he said, his face returning to its calm and inviting form. Nia couldn't quite explain it, but some combination of fear on her part and what seemed like genuine care radiating from Theo's face made her grasp his outstretched hand.

He pulled her up, and the two set off running, Theo with an assault rifle in hand and Nia trailing closely behind, sweaty and out of breath.

Racing up the steps, they encountered a Xymoran police officer. Theo fired, and the man flew back onto the deck, dead.

The deck was slick with blood and bits of flesh from edge to edge; it disturbed Nia deeply. They struggled to move across it without slipping as bullets whipped just over their heads. Theo traded fire with several police officers. But quickly enough, they reached the rear of the deck, where an inflatable motorboat was tied to the railing.

"Here it is," Theo said, gesturing to Nia to unfasten it. She began to disentangle the ties.

Nia was working as fast as she could but found it hard to focus in the din of a firefight. Covered in goosebumps from head to toe, she kept hoping that somehow, none of the bullets would hit her.

She managed to pull off the final attachment cord and watched as the boat dropped several meters, slammed into the sea, and shot towering jets of water spray right onto the deck. The rubber dinghy floated and began drifting away from the ship.

"Alright, you go first, and then I'll come," Theo said. "And don't get any ideas. If I see you trying to escape, I'll gun you down."

"Ok," she swallowed before climbing over the railing and standing on the ship's edge. She drew in a deep breath and then leaped into the sea.

For a few moments, she was flying, and then, splash! The water was colder than when she dove in earlier, so cold her teeth began chattering immediately. She made haste, crawled onto the boat, and checked the motor. It was fine.

Despite Theo's warning, she considered escaping for a split second, but her contemplation turned into hesitation, which deflated when she heard another splash and turned to see him rapidly kicking over toward her in the water.

He grabbed the edge of the boat and helped himself onto it. Nia watched, refused to help, and cursed him under her breath.

In front of her, he sat on the floor with his gun tucked beside him. He shivered the chill away as a few cold mists escaped his lips. Nia started the motor, and the boat roared away from the backdrop of the chaotic ship. They could see the ship burning as the raft moved across the water. It glowed like a massive lamp in the otherwise pitch-black night.

"What's causing the fire?" Nia asked.

"The gas canisters and grenades on the ship must have been hit in the firefight. The whole thing's gonna blow soon. Trust me. You might wanna look away."

But Nia's eyes were peeled. Even in all her years of diving, she had rarely felt so much suspense.

The ship was blown to bits that went up in a massive fireball. The ball of fire expanded outward and consumed the whole of the ship, and scarred the surface of the water around it into steam. At the same time, bodies and shrapnel were thrown into the water, accompanied by a boom that echoed like rolling thunder. The sound went out with an explosive wave so potent it drove the still night's air into a furious wind that whipped across the ocean and rocked the boat violently. Nia fell down in the boat but raised back up in awe. She felt goosebumps roll across her body.

"Damn!" Nia yelled.

Then she muttered quietly to herself in disbelief. She was struggling to process everything. What had started as a simple dive to retrieve her sister's bracelet had terminated in chaos.

Death is out to get me, she thought. I think it will this time.

Every hair on her body tingled; her throat was almost clenched shut.

"Oh, you've gone quiet," said Theo.

Nia's eyes met his with a piercing stare.

"Go ahead and sleep. I'll take over the boat," Theo said.

"I'm not sleeping with you around," Nia barked.

"I just saved your life, remember? And it wasn't a request."

Her mouth widened as she struggled to say something sharp and witty.

She moved away from the engine as he moved toward it.

She was tired.

And the rhythmic rocking of the boat was a powerful lullaby. While the boat swayed, skipping over wave after wave again in a ceaseless pattern, Nia's eyes dimmed, her head wobbled, and she crumbled flat against the floor of the boat. Before her awareness went, the last thing she heard was a loud snore. She smiled. It was hers.