That was terrifying. I was stuck on a lifeboat. About a hundred feet away, General Lang had climbed on to another lifeboat with Ernest, Ava, and Mary. I heard Mary scream. But then, I noticed a loud bang echo across the sea. I thought Lang shot one of them.

I looked at Ernest, Mary, and Ava. They were alive. Then, I noticed movement on one of the far away debris of the ship. It was dark and the fragment had no fire enlightening it, but I could just make out a figure in a dark cloak standing. The dark figure held what seemed to be a gun in his hand and I could see smoke rising from it into the night sky. Was he the man who had killed General Lang? 

The gun he held in his hand looked like a sniper rifle. I found an emergency kit lying in a crate on the boat. I unzipped it and inside were many things. I rummaged around and eventually found a small red flashlight. I quickly grabbed it, flicked it on, and pointed it at the figure. 

He had a gas mask covering his face. It looked like the masks that plague doctors wore. He removed the mask and clipped it to his belt. He looked stern and seemed slightly familiar. It was hard to see exactly what his face looked like. I stood there staring at him. I thought of every person we had encountered in this war. Then, my arm felt a tug of pain. I remembered. Was it Franz? He had his guards twist my arm. That pain will never be forgotten. I gave him a glare. I was so mad. Then, another thought came to mind. Why would Franz kill General Lang? Just suddenly, the figure burst into the air like a flea. I looked around the sky, but didn’t see him. How had he done that? It was like the work of a superhero. So many adventures have happened in my life, almost as if I have been living in a comic book. This, though, was beyond reality. First of all, the Nazis had created zombies and giant ravens. Now, they had super soldiers. What next? a gigantic sea monster? I shouldn’t thought that.

We made it to another boat late the next night. The whole day’s food consisted of granola bars and bottled water. The lifeboats were lifted by a crane like machine onto another giant cruise ship. We were greeted by a man who we supposed was a general because of his similar uniform to Lang. 

“Yōkoso,” he called through a microphone-like device. 

“I am General Kai. We are sorry about the inconvenience, but you must sleep on the deck because our sleeping corridors are already full with more survivors,” a man beside the general said. He seemed to have no trouble speaking English but still had an accent.

The night was rough because we didn’t have any pads nor anything soft beneath us when we were sleeping. The next day my back ached immensely. We didn’t have much for breakfast. The man that spoke to us earlier said they were running low on food, because of so many people to feed. At least we only had about three more days until we reached the coast of Japan. 

Everywhere was crowded and it was hard to move around. There were a lot of commotions. However, something seemed wrong. The first day was uneventfully boring. It went by very slowly. 

The second day was much less boring. I was out watching some dolphins jumping playfully in the water. It was the first exciting thing that had happened in the past couple days. Then, all of a sudden the dolphins disappeared. I was confused and suspicious. 

A dark shape appeared deep below the surface and I thought maybe a whale was going to show off its cool tricks. Boy, was I wrong! A giant leathery tentacle burst through the cyan water holding what seemed to be what was left of one of the dolphins, a bloody shape. 

Many more gray tentacles exploded out of the water, one even gripping the side of the boat. Everyone screamed and backed up from the gargantuan limbs. 

“It’s a giant squid!” I heard a middle-aged man exclaim. 

“Those tentacles are too large, even for those of a giant squid,” an African American man with wide rimmed glasses insisted. 

Just then, the water gave way to an enormous body rising above the ocean’s surface. 

It was a horrifying sight. It had the width of the ship from the bow to the stern and the length of a football field. Its leathery skin was pale gray and it had a huge tail on the end of its long body. Its fins were sharp jagged, and sliced through the water like hot knives in butter. People screamed as the monster aggressively launched its massive jaw at the boat. 

Eric cursed a lot and grabbed his rifle and started to aim at the monster. Eric pulled the trigger. A bullet blasted from the tip of the gun and hit the “monster”. It roared and dove forward for another bite at the the giant metal ship.

“What is that?” Wyatt yelled over the monsters wailing roar.

“It doesn’t matter! Just Run!” Eric commanded us. I backed up from the the gray monster as it dove through the water. It almost knocked Ernest down with a gust of wind from his long body. 

Wyatt and I pulled Ernest out of way and watched as Eric faced the large monster. The bullets coming from Eric’s sniper rifle seemed to do no damage to the monster, but only aggravated it even more. My friends and I tried to find a cover from the creature.

We finally hid behind a bench on the deck. All of us peeked out and watched the brutal creature beat Eric up.

Eric was still having a hard time slaying the Leviathan. He got a few good shots, but the creature was invincible. 

“That dang beast won’t even buffer!” he yelled, cursing afterward.

We watched Eric fight the beast. Then the creature lashed out one of its long tentacles and wrapped it around Eric’s neck. Eric’s face went white as he was lifted off the ground. We watched as the gargantuan creature brought him into the depths of the dark water. 

Déjà vu! It was just like how the giant raven killed Rob. It was the exact same thing, but this time I didn’t run to save Eric. I just stood there, staring in disbelief. I fell to my knees and watched the water slowly go red. The waves were splashing everywhere. 

I got up and ran to the edge of the deck and then stared at the water. The beast seemed satisfied and swam away very quickly. It all happened so quickly. I didn’t have enough time to think. On the deck laid Eric’s sniper rifle. I picked it up. I looked at it with a hard stare and then cried. I threw the long gun into the deep depths of the ocean. I sat there for half an hour crying about the death of Eric. There was no way Eric could’ve lived past that encounter with the beast. He probably would have drowned by now. 

I thought of everyone who had died in this war. My friends at school, my teachers, Rob, and Eric. I couldn’t take it any longer. I looked over the railing into the shadowy depths. I didn’t see any bodies. Almost as if Eric never fell into the water. 

“Tesuri kara nigeru (Get off the rail)!” a soldier yelled. 

“Ima (Now)!” I stepped back from the railing, crying. The gun shots of the soldiers seemed far away. Nothing mattered to me. Only Eric’s death. I heard Finn trying to calm me down, but ignored him. 

“Dylan!” he yelled. Everything seemed to leave me, to go black. Everything started to fade away. 

“Dylan!” I heard him yell once more. The last thing I heard was a gunshot so faint that it seemed just like a leaf falling from the sky. Very softly.