Dan wasn’t one for stargazing, at least, not before being stranded on the open ocean. Truthfully, watching the stars was the only pastime he marveled in as of late. There was something so wrong with the sky, something that pulled his attention nearly every waking moment. There were only three stars, and the sun never seemed to rise.

At first Dan thought he and the others had slept through the day, having been exhausted from their horrible experience. But as the lifeboat’s mechanical clock made two full rotations, they all made the connection. Something was very, very wrong, just like the events on the rig.

George had it the worst. He wasn’t all the way there. He ate the flameless heated rations and drank purified water robotically. Most of the time he stared into the flooring or slept. The others also didn’t miss the dried streaks of drool across the man’s lip and chin.

Something was wrong with the government worker, just Dan and Bob didn’t know what.

Bob, the military man, had opened up to the others, really just Dan, after about twenty four hours at sea. The man was obviously fake, which was less than endearing, but he shared some real, or Dan assumed what was real, information about himself.

Bob was some sort of special forces operative. He wouldn’t say what organization, but from his non-answers and quick wit responses to avoid troubling questions, Dan could put together that the man had clearance unique to the situation. Why Bob was called out to the rig was as simple as it was familiar, he was the closest and on call.

It wasn’t until the second day that Bob began to worry. Something about not having a sunrise bothered the man more than horrors on the rig. He muttered about anomalies, that he was as good as dead, and general world-ending talk that Dan just didn’t appreciate.

It was around this time that Dan really looked at his dinghy mates. George looked like he had just exited a lobotomy surgery and Bob acted like a child who had seen a horror movie about doomsday. Together, their odd mental states put Dan in charge of pretty much everything – not that he had any idea what he was doing.

Checking the compass and shifting the lone rudder was something he did every few hours, but as time went on, the compass started acting strange. At first Dan hardly noticed it, but towards the end of the third day, it continuously spun.

It was things like that that kept Dan looking to the stars. Odd things kept happening to their little lifeboat, things that would have been considered coincidental under normal conditions.

More than a few times Dan found the rudder reset to the same off-center position. He knew, for a fact, that neither George nor Bob were the cause. He chalked it up to the lifeboat being in rough condition from Lambert’s attack. He also found that the currents were nearly nonexistent. In fact, the ocean was dead, completely.

But the thought of Lambert removed Dan’s mind from investigating more. He considered the memories, seeing and feeling the power the blood beast had emanated. Bob, before falling into himself, had explained what the monsters on the rig were.

Blood beasts, as he called them, were a parasite class monster. Not an animal but a monster. It took hours of prodding, but Dan was eventually able to get some more information. Bob explained that the powers of Earth, specifically combined governments, knew of monsters and paranormal things.

Blood beasts were something Bob’s organization had seen before, but he himself had never experienced. Based on Bob’s explanation, Dan got the feeling that the monsters on the rig were not the same blood beasts that were already known. Bob’s emphasis on how strong and powerful Lambert had become indicated that something was very amiss.

It wasn’t long after that conversation that Bob started muttering.

Dan put together a dirty hypothesis on the fourth day. His thoughts were just an inkling of a full idea, but the coincidences and his own experiences on the rig replayed in the back of his mind. Something had tried to invade his mind, putting him in a near comatose state just like George was currently in. He had won, but the madness was still around, Bob proved as much.

On the fifth day Dan’s idea solidified and he began to ask himself questions to probe his hypothesis. However, he kept going back to why he seemed to be unaffected at this point.

As he lay on his back, looking up at the three lone stars in the eternal night sky, he came up with plenty of ideas. Time distortion, army experiment, other worldly invasion, alien overlord… He knew thinking about such things would get him nowhere, but there wasn’t much to do but think.

Lambert kept coming to mind, along with a sick feeling of madness. Dan tried not to think about his ex-manager or the blood beast, but rather the sharpened blood that seemingly could rip apart metal. Dan was drawn to the filtering and reformation of the blood. He rewatched his memory of the claw growing in size and deadliness. He couldn’t explain it and didn’t have the luxury to figure it out.

He had bigger problems. They were out of food.

Normally these models of lifeboat carried enough food for an entire shift crew for much longer he than what they had spent on the water. However, food kept disappearing. Again, just like the rudder, Dan couldn’t find a cause. George and Bob both stayed well away from the supply, even going so far as to just not eat if something wasn’t shoved into their hands.

They had a single case of MREs left and a few boxes of hardtack crackers at this point. Dan set the food up beside him and kept a hand on everything. He stayed like that, watching the stars in the meanwhile, for hours, days maybe. He had long lost the ability to tell time, the clock having disappeared at some point.

There was a splash, like a bowling ball had been dropped into the water. Dan quickly got up, finding the watchful eye of Bob in the process. The military man had a gleam about himself, one that Dan couldn’t think about right now. He found the source of the noise, George.

The man had jumped overboard.

Dan called for him and was about to take his socks off when a hand stopped him. Bob shook his head slowly, and pointed back to the food. It was gone.

“We are being stalked,” Bob said. “More like we are being sieged. Food first, then water...”

Dan was dumbfounded at the statement and turned back to the water. He hadn’t fully processed what the military man said, nor that he actually said discernable words, by the time George resurfaced.

George was screaming and splashing in the calm waters with unbridled fury. He spun himself three times in a haphazard tread before finding the lifeboat. It was a short distance away, but the man’s horrified mentality forced his body to move at great speeds. Helpful hands from Dan and Bob hoisted him into the cabin.

“What! What! Ugh!” George clutched his head, his nose gushing blood.

Bob smiled and pat the man on the back. “Let it all out, you broke the hold. Take it slow, you are weak.”

Dan saw Bob was bleeding from his own nose and motioned to it when they locked eyes. The military man rubbed the back of his hand against his upper lip and smirked at the blood smear.

“That took longer than I was trained for,” he muttered.

“Trained? For what? Doing nothing for five days?” Dan said, almost beside himself.

“Five days?”

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“Five days, yes.”

Bob recoiled and really looked around. “I could have sworn it had only been a few hours…”

Without any warning, he jumped up and pushed Dan to the floor, easily pinning him. Bob stared into the electrician’s eyes, searching for something. Minutes passed as George continued to groan, but eventually Bob let Dan go.

“It’s still in you, but you seem to have rid yourself of most of it,” Bob stated, like his audience understood what was going on.

“What?”

The man grumbled something before explaining, “The blood beasts on the rig did something to us. An undocumented mutation. Maybe even a variation. I don’t know, only that the blood beasts on the rig were not what I was led to expect.”

“But what did they do to us, and why did you say we were under siege?” Dan asked, his tone less than patient.

“I don’t know, some kind of petrifying madness. And what is this about a siege? Who said that?”

“You did, after George jumped overboard and you woke up.” Dan wasn’t sure what the game was, but when he pointed to the lack of food supply, Bob’s eyes went wide.

“I said that? Are you sure? No, no. That makes sense… It must be an evolution, a powerful one at that-“ He stopped. “Under siege from what?”

George took the moment to speak his first coherent sentence in a while, “Underwater… there were faces.”

Both Dan and Bob paused, slowly turning to the man with terrified expressions. “What?” they both asked.

“We are being stalked,” George said.

Dan didn’t miss his phrasing, nor the identical sentence from Bob moments earlier. A pang of pain shot through his head. The coincidences and odd occurrences meshed with his newfound love of the stars, each of the three balls of burning light acting as a beacon within himself.

Lambert, the blood claw, the hallways through the rig. George falling apart when the blood beast attacked. Bob kicking the monster away, the lifeboat falling from a broken housing. Dan forced himself to remember what happened right after. His memories of Bob passing out, George falling asleep were wrong. But what about them was wrong?

Dan coughed up blood, he caught it in his hand and could feel its warmth. He thought about the stars, and the resetting rudder, then the food disappearing. His nose bled, along with the formation of a migraine.

George and Bob were… were…

The memory of Bob came back first. He didn’t pass out, but rather talked with Dan as they harmlessly drifted away from the rig. Dan now remembered that Bob had cursed about the rudder being broken before deciding he needed to rest.

Then… then… he fell asleep himself, the three stars overhead.

But what about George, why was George so much more difficult to remember? The blood beast’s blood claw came back to Dan, why couldn’t he stop thinking about the claw. It was scary, of course he’d remember almost being beheaded by a single swipe.

Oh.

A dam broke in Dan’s mind, memories flooded back in untold ways. Lambert slashed and he dodged away. Bob came flying, knocking the monster to a lower floor. The lifeboat dropped and… that was when they found George. His head was in ribbons, his face like a jigsaw puzzle. His blood was leaking over the food supply, which Bob had decided was contaminated and threw out.

Reality shifted in Dan’s eyes, the memories of the week came back. The world was still eternally dark, there were only three stars in the sky, the waters were ungodly calm.

But they were on a beach.

Their boat had marooned itself, somehow ending up on the shore despite the lack of current or winds. Dan didn’t think about that for long, realizing the shredded body of George was laying under a blanket a few short steps away. He turned and puked, nothing but bile came up.

Dan let out an exhausted sigh and basked in the real reality. He didn’t know how he knew, but he understood that he had been out of his own mind, now no longer trapped in the madness. Something still existed in the back of his mind, but he felt no hostility. It felt like it had always been there, but through splintering his mind so many times, he could now feel it.

It was bizarre, Dan wanted to touch it. He couldn’t be certain why he wanted to, only that it called to him desperately. It wanted to help, it wanted him to live.

As he caressed it, he felt the same sincerity he did while following the three stars. As minutes ticked by, Dan smiled, holding himself. He was cold, very cold, and the orb, he decided to call it, was warm. So warm, in fact, that Dan struggled to remove himself from it. Through the splinters of his mind, words and values came into existence, all originating from the orb.

They were amalgamated and broken, but he still tried to put them back together. He wanted to, oddly enough. He knew he was in a deadly situation, he knew he was starving, but he felt that staring into the orb was the most important thing right now. As he grew closer and closer to the truth of the orb, his head pounded harder and harder.

But his mind was already broken, what was once more? Dan laughed to himself, clutching the orb with greed in his heart. A sudden shiver erupted through his body and along the lifeboat. He took a chance and opened his eyes just a crack.

Dozens of eyes stared back at him, each originating from scaled beings with thickset gills. He screamed, mimicking the song the orb radiated. The monsters reacted to this, moving their long figures from the shadows of the shore. They rose up, finding purchase along their eclipsing sickly legs. They roared back.

Spittle and popping eardrums battled against Dan and his orb. For a mere heartbeat, a string of words appeared in the fractured state of his mind. The word radiated power, enough that Dan was able to bluff. Something shook in him, the powerword crossing the threshold into reality.

Light: Salvation 0

The orb burst into existence, forming from his open palm. A single pulse of light echoed from the construct before fizzling into nothingness. But it was enough. The monsters screeched in response, falling over themselves to get away. Dan would never forget the sounds of their gruesome legs splashing into the shallows of the ocean.

Dan clutched his spinning head. He grimaced in pain, but a smile never left his lips. He didn’t understand an ounce of what just transpired, but he knew he did something akin to a miracle. The orb inside his chest was smaller now, almost nonexistent. The longer continued to cradle it, the larger it grew, albeit much smaller than before.

He knew it would return in full soon enough, maybe even with interest.

Dan smirked to himself when he heard panicked squelches along the nearby wet sand. A thud broke the silent night as something slammed into the side of the lifeboat. Dan clambered back, trying to hide himself in the shadows. He knew he couldn’t produce the orb again, he would die if-

“Dan!?” Bob yelled, climbing over the side of the boat.

Dan’s shoulders slumped in relief, a tightness dissipating. He wasn’t going to die, he didn’t have to fight for his life.

“Hey…” he said, trailing off.

“Where’s the monster? I heard it’s scream!”

Dan waved a weak hand. “I fought them off. Where are we?”

“Y-you fought them off?” Bob’s tone was more than accusatory. “Dan you were asleep for a week! Then you wake up and fight off monsters?”

Clarity overcame Dan, and he finally understood. He was the one petrified, not George and Bob. Well, George was dead, but in his dreams he wasn’t. What Bob said next confirmed things.

“I saw it in your eyes, something had a hold on you.”

He remembered, in his madness dream, being pinned down and examined. “How were you not afflicted?”

Bob stood a bit straighter at the question. “I’ve had training in mind-loss. It still took me five days to wake up.”

“Huh,” Dan said. When he saw the other man’s expression, he continued, “In my dream, you said something very similar… How do I know this reality isn’t another dream?”

“That’s a tough one. It took us many years to cultivate the ability.” Bob looked thoughtful, but shook it off after a moment. “One way is that you are still alive. Those monsters would have eaten you if you were still asleep. Sirens, or at least I think they are sirens.”

“Why’d they wait so long? I mean, if I was dreaming for a week, and you for five days, why not eat us during the down time?” Dan asked.

“Because, and I’m spit balling here, they had to swim from the depths… and it took five days.”

Dan stared at the military man. “But the rig only drills about six-thousand feet down.”

Bob pursed his lips. “We are not on Earth anymore.”

And there it was, Dan’s mind found the last piece of the puzzle and stitched the memories of leaving the rig fully together. After finding George’s body, and before Bob fell asleep, the lifeboat drifted through rough seas and into the purple haze, depositing them into perfectly calm waters.

“Oh, yeah,” Dan muttered.

Bob shook his head. “Forget about that, what you need right now is to find your core.”

“Core?”

“It is the best known practice for breaking mind-loss. Your core is only felt in the original reality. All you have to do is center yourself and search your inner chest for a small presence. It shouldn’t be any larger than a bead.”

Dan did as instructed and found his core rather easily. It was what he had already deemed his orb, but core seemed more fitting. It was larger than a bead, however. Closer to the size of a grape, maybe a thumbtack.

Bob continued, “It will probably take you a while to find it. It took me three months with the best instructors we had to offer.”

Dan paused. “This core… does it do anything other than tell you if you are being mind-controlled?”

“Not really, at least nothing that will help,” he smirked. “Unless you want to poison yourself. Your core helps with expelling toxins.”

Not having an explanation of internal words and orbs of golden light made Dan think something was wrong. He might not be dreaming, but his instincts told him to keep things hidden. Through the shadows in his core, he felt out for Light: Salvation, finding it deep within. His core was still too small to make another light orb, but he smiled knowing it was real.

A deep boom sounded from up shore. A flash of light came next. Dan looked past the lifeboat and found the start of a forest. A forest covered in black clouds and deep rains. Through the dense foliage and gloomy atmosphere, more light flared.

“What is that?” Dan asked.

“I don’t know, but I’m going to find out,” Bob said. “Come on, you’ve slept enough and I’m hungry.”

Together, leaving George’s mangled corpse, the two ventured towards the rain-locked forest.