Earlier, there was no sound. No screams, no leviathans, only the soft groans of the hull as it echoed in utter ambience like a held breath.
Kamil leaned against the railing, fiddling with his frog charm hanging from his neck.
Kaya sat on the floor beneath him with her knees hugged to her chest. Amaya sipped her coffee in the warm glow of the ceiling lights.
Nobody spoke for what felt like an hour. Not because there wasn't anything to speak of, but because it would only feel like rubbing salt on an old wound.
He finally broke the silence. "Kaya . . . do you really want to know what happened with Malik?"
Her jumped jumped up, "Huh? Yeah. I-I'd be willing to hear it."
"Now Kaya, I can't explain his mind, "
Kaya stares into Kamil's eyes.
"I promise."
"He had an old crew just like us folks. They raised him from birth." Kamil resisted slightly.
"Captain was reading a bedtime story to him. The rest of the crew were having dinner on top of the ship, laughing it off. There were five boys, and three girls . . . "
Kamil sighed, he strained saying every word, but now it was too late.
". . . And fate struck."
Kaya's eyes widened.
"Fate was a leviathan. Captain called it that. And then the ship shook." Kamil said in a low voice.
". . . It took them."
Silence. Even the waves were quiet. They know.
"They had no reason to die." Kamil sheds a tear, wipes it off. "They were young and happy, so why?"
Kamil looked up in melancholy.
"They were good crew. They raised Malik into who he is. Yet . . . it was all torn away from him." He paused.
" . . . After that, Captain Cyrus never spoke of it since I met him."
Kamil exhaled.
Kaya had her mouth agape. "Oh . . . oh dear." A tear escaped her eye, but she quickly wiped it off.
Amaya swallowed, "Kamil . . . why didn't you tell us this?!"
He sighed in misery, it hurt to speak of.
"There was never a chance. Not with Malik listening, or the captain watching."
He paused, both women staring at him with a daring glance.
"I've met them before I joined the crew, and I wonder what was the purpose of taking such kind people?"
". . . Why were they the unlucky ones?"
"Everyday I wake up, and I think, what if I had joined earlier, and had been with them on that day? What would've they said?" Kamil frowned.
The three looked down, embracing the silence.
The silence hugged them, tighter and tighter the longer they didn't speak.
"I can only imagine the burden Captain goes through."
"He acts as if everything is okay. He looked it in the eye, yet still has the courage to be out here."
"Yet one time, he spoke of it as if the creature were already killed."
. . .
Kamil exhaled.
"Not by weapon . . . Not by fleet . . . or anything made my man for that matter."
"Something small. Unassuming."
He met their eyes.
"He called it 'the Bayonet.'"
Amaya blinked multiple times.
"What? . . . "
Kamil sighed.
Kaya stared with awe.
"I'm just as confused as you."
Kamil shook his head.
His breathing quickened.
He looked to the floor.
"Only 'The Bayonet'. But Cyrus meant it. In my career, he only used that word one other time . . ."
The room stilled. The air chilled. The lights dimmed.
"It was during a sparring match. Right there," he pointed toward the main hall staircase behind him.
"Malik was sparring with me. Pretty casual. Captain was leaning on the railing above. Just watching, silent."
"Then I heard him utter so faint I barely rendered it: Almost ready to use a 'Bayonet' again, aye son!"
Kamil glanced around again, voice dropping lower.
"Right after that, he left to seclude himself in his room for the day."
"Captain kept quiet after he said that."
He exhaled shakily, shivering at his own words.
"At the time it slipped past me. Now . . . now I can't stop thinking about it."
Kamil paused staring at the wooden floorboarding between his leather boots.
Kaya gasped. No word escaped her mouth.
Oh . . . It's too much. I only met him today, yet I've never felt like this before. Please Malik . . .
"Kamil.." Kaya whispered.
"Yeah?"
"Don't . . . don't tell me that . . ."
Kamil looked away with his eyes narrowing.
"I don't know, Kaya . . ."
Kaya nodded whilst frowning; her voice was hollow.
What do I do? I cant just not tell him.
"Kamil . . . I don't know what to say . . . Its between us now." Amaya intervened.
Boom!
. . .
Knocking the three off balance, they were immediately alarmed, "What was that?!" Amaya exclaimed.
Kamil quickly got up, adjusting his frog charm.
They went past the extra room, took a sharp right, then went up the oakwood stairs shielded by the tough metal doorway. It was screaming like a spoiled child now that nobody was looking at it. It kept calling, but it only heard footsteps fading away getting quieter.
Captain Cyrus and Lieutenant Samir were already on the top of the ship observing the matter at hand.
"What happened?" Kaya asked anxiously.
Captain Cyrus watched from a distance, eyes sunken, as if the truth had finally taken form in flesh before him.
"That." Captain Cyrus pointed his finger at the headless corpse of the leviathan that was taller than the skies.
Malik arises from hell with his true brothers; near lifeless, he coughs weakly whilst covered in bruises and a bleeding cut on his cheek by accident from the dagger he held.
Staring, they stare deeply at him in awe. Not in fear; a shock that keeps their eyes peeled.
"MALIK! Are you okay!?"
Kaya gave a bloodcurdling scream as she rushed towards him, laying his head on her lap.
". . ."
Silence.
She looks at her surroundings, clueless as to what happened until it clicked. She saw the blood-coated dagger he was gripping onto.
Malik . . . Don't tell me . . .
Kaya slowly began tearing up, sniffling as she caresses Malik's dark-brown, nearly black wavy hair.
What draws me to you Malik? Is it your fragile, ghostly, grey eyes? The way you take what life throws at you and give it back twice as hard? I can't read what you, but I know you mean well . . . I just know.
What am I thinking? I only just met him . . . so why do I feel this way?
Noticing Malik has knocked out cold, Kaya decides to try to pick him up to the medical center, like the captain stated whilst in her thought.
He's light. Like someone who carries more burden than body.
She follows Amaya and Kamil as they drag Zayne and Lias's unconscious bodies to the beds.
Bright; the room is blinding anyone who enters it. Through the light, Kaya laid Malik on the third bed near to the right of the window. Zayne and Lias were placed on the first two, but on the empty fourth one facing him, Kaya sits there, staring at him.
On the right of the room, the window takes the most attention. Shielding nobody's eyes from the illuminating day. The beds are covered in thin-sheet paper. On the side of each bed, a vital monitor is awaiting to be activated.
"Aye Kaya quit being a creep, you're watching the boy sleep." Kamil laughs endearingly as he checks their pulses.
She blushes, staring into the huge framed window, covering Malik's innocent yet perplexing expression.
Nevertheless she still locks her eyes on him.
Even if you did it, I wouldn't mind . . .
"Alright! Alright! If you don't know how to put on some Band-Aids then get on out of here, flirt bird." Amaya chuckled as she prepared bandages for Malik.
Wrapping gauze around his arm, Kaya observed carefully with precision.
"Careful Kaya, More you look, the harder it'll be to look away."
She smiled; however, hey eyes didn't.
Kaya watched the bandages coil around his arm, until her eye caught a smaller, darker mark etched into his wrist.
Is that what I thought it was?
The bandage veils it, but a faint outline remains; barely visible. Just enough.
Maybe if I use my Kolxayne looking at it, maybe something will happen.
Don't . . . don't fall . . . stars . . .
Her concentration shifted, "Malik? Did you say something?"
Ambience, only the 'beep' of the vital monitor.
Leaning in instinctively, she examines his well-crafted face.
No, no there's nothing . . . I'm imagining things.
She looks down and notices it.
The faint outline from the mark on his wrist. A symbol. It pulses once.
Kaya stands up suddenly from the bed, "I'm being weird."
Leaving the room with a hurried pace, she crosses Cyrus—about to enter.
His bulky military frame narrowly fits in the doorway, he notices Kaya in distress, as he rubs his arm like something aches.
"Don't worry Kaya." he says watching him from a distance with his keen dark azure gaze. "Even while unconscious, that boy's louder than most men alive."
She exits the room that asks more questions, while Cyrus embraces it.
He rests on the bed where Kaya sat, and talks to him in his sleep.
"Its been years since I've seen you like this my son." He mumbles with his grizzled undertone.
Clearing his throat, he states clearly as his brothers behind him drift in slumber. But he knows Malik can hear him. He just knows.
"You sleep like you've earned peace my son. Its such a shame that the world won't let you keep it."
"Malik . . . I'm sorry for ever saying that."
"That is my mistake that must be erased. No matter the cost."
"Soon . . . but not today, my son. The world isn't ready. Neither are you."
"You'll know . . . "
One day.
In hush behind his shielding eyelids, something inside him stirred.