Legendary Vampire in the Apocalypse
Chapter 24: Before the Killing ~ 3

Chapter 24: Before the Killing ~ 3

His eyes wide, the brown of them shimmering with the dying flecks of the wonderful dewiness they had held and now shimmering with fear, seared the image of the dark, bruised sky above them. The sight of furnishings, belongings, and other people stained it, streaking past, then he was swallowed by the cold sea.

Dion was lucky, so terribly lucky, that he had learnt how to swim. After all, the acquaintance with the person that had taught him was someone that he had sought out himself, a few years ago.

Swimming lessons weren’t available in his school, and anywhere else with a pool needed money for him to get in. And it had instead been his wilfulness a few years ago that had allowed him to survive.

Perhaps there had been a wave that had hit right above him moments after he had submerged, accidentally coughing out the air in his lungs once submerged, but he hadn’t been able to drag himself back up immediately.

Although thankfully, because of the sharp cold, he had regained enough presence of mind to stop himself from trying to breathe back in after he had coughed.

His shoulder struck something behind himself—an item from someone that had fallen in along with him—and by the time he forced himself upwards, his lungs were burning.

Even if he had managed to close his mouth without inhaling much water, there had still been some that had slipped in from the initial cough.

Thus, he broke through the surface choking. Through hazy, blurry vision, he grabbed for air and saw people were scattered throughout the sea while pieces of luggage and the ship’s furnishings drifted between them. The vessel was still swaying wildly in the water, though it could not move any further.

"Mum!"

His shout was abruptly drowned by a wave hitting against the back of him, drawing him underwater once more. Another wave buried his voice.

"Dad!" Dion had hollered immediately as he had gotten back up.

Something brushed his arm then, and he had only briefly glanced when he saw that it was a broken panel off the top of a suitcase, floating. Dion had turned to grab it, and he had begun to somewhat, though only a little, lift himself up out of the water.

Then, he caught sight of a child’s head disappearing under water ahead of him.

His eyes were pried wide, and he, without pausing to think, threw himself back underwater. At some point, he managed to catch the child beneath the arms and nearly sank when small hands clawed around his throat as they broke through the surface of the water.

"Stop moving!"

Dion forced himself behind the younger boy and pushed him toward an overturned emergency boat, the people clinging to it pulling the child away.

At the same time, someone from above, desperately holding onto the harshly rocking ship, threw a life ring. It passed over Dion’s shoulder, landing right beside him and fell short of the woman it had been meant for.

"Give it to her!"

Both of them, Dion and the woman, had caught it at the same time; however, within moments, she had released a scream and was yanked beneath the water by something.

By this point, he didn’t have any time to think; he had only been reacting to what was happening before him, and thus, he had thrown his head underwater that moment to see a rope that had been attached to and tangled around a torn railing.

Not only had she been pulled under by it, but another man had been caught within it while the waves dragged him under. Dion hadn’t seen him amongst the others, not that he could see much in the first place, but that didn’t matter.

By whatever slight grace, the man had been freeing himself. Dion thus swam deeper to help claw at the tangle in the woman’s ankle. Around the moments that he had freed the woman, the man had freed himself, and the woman had swum up high without him.

Both the man and woman swam towards the ring, while someone else had come to float on it while they had been submerged.

Dion, swimming up with the illumination of light barely making the sight of it clear enough for him, understood that the ring wouldn’t be able to hold all four of them.

So, he immediately changed his direction, his eyes pinched as the thundering of his heart resounded against his eardrums, his lungs burning for air as he reached for the emergency boat.

However, abruptly, with his attention distracted, there had been someone else falling from the deck of the ship.

Their body crashed down into the water, and he had reacted at that impact, suddenly turning his body towards it. Dion had to brace as the man’s back it against him, forcing them both deeper. The veins in his neck bulged, and with his much harder he had to kick, throwing all of his desperation into strength; a sharp snap of pain shot through his ankle.

With the cushioning that he had granted him, the man was able to regain his bearing soon enough. He began to swim back to the surface, and Dion, clenching his teeth through the pain, began pulling himself back up as well

However, it was too hard for him to do quickly enough when he was already running low on oxygen. His movements slowed and his attention teetered between darkness and barely being able to see anything.

Then, a hand grabbed him by the shirt, and he was dragged over the overturned boat and collapsed against its wet surface, coughing water until his chest felt split apart.

"Enough! You’ll die if you go back!" He couldn’t tell who had spoken, but it hadn’t been the person that had pulled him up, at least that much he could tell from the proximity of the voice.

Dion shook so violently that his teeth struck together, his ears clogged and his brain feeling so tight and painful, his thoughts foggy.

"My parents..." he muttered to himself beneath the gulps of air that he had been taking.

There were still the commotions of waves crashing, people screaming, and the surface of the sea being broken through by things falling into it or people breaking out. However, Dion didn’t hear any of it by this point.

His head had risen, and he caught a side of a head of hair; it was a woman dressed in green, her arm reaching through the sea as she flailed in the water.

His arms had wobbled to help him rise and he was lowering himself back into the water as fast as he could go; however, a hand had gripped his shoulder. Dion had glanced over briefly to see it was the man that had just fallen over him.

"Don’t go, I won’t be there to pull you out again!"

Dion had only glanced at him briefly before his attention snapped back to the woman. Her other hand began to flail as she was gradually sinking

"My parents can’t swim!"

Dion yanked himself free, and the sea swallowed him once more. He reached her when the wreckage had almost sunk, forced her arms over a floating seat, and pushed it toward the others. Hands reached for her. Dion tried to follow. He had really, really tried, and even with his ankle, he had braved through to help both of them make it.

But as he had finally broken through the surface of the water to push her towards the others on the overturned boat, a wave crashed over them all.

Dion’s lungs had been exhausted, his body had been drained of everything in search of them, and having taken the impact of a wave head-on, water had forced itself into him.

He sank into darkness, unable to swim himself up anymore, suffering the drain of oxygen, his vision pulsing between blackness and the dwindling light. He did not know when he had lost his senses, but eventually, everything was simply consumed by the sea.

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