Burning the Submarine

POV: Malia 

The death of a monster doesn't leave a void; it leaves a mess that has to be cleaned up before the disease can spread.

Jarrah and I didn't waste time looking at Alastair's body. We didn't offer a prayer, and we didn't say a eulogy. He was just meat on a cold floor now, a small, broken man who had lived by the knife and died on a wet dock beneath the cliffs.

While Jarrah moved swiftly to the lower engine deck of the submarine, snapping the secondary safety valves and opening the main fuel lines, I walked back over to the control console. The emergency flare launcher Alastair had threatened us with was still hanging from its rusted iron bracket, its brass body reflecting the yellow light of the overhead lamps.

I pulled the launcher down, the heavy iron cold against my fingers. I cracked the barrel open, pulled out a fresh red magnesium cartridge from the side rack, and slid it into the chamber with a sharp, heavy click.

"The fuel is running free down here!" Jarrah shouted from the lower platform, his voice echoing out of the sub's open main hatch. "We have maybe three minutes before the fumes kick up to critical levels! We need to get up the tunnel!"

He climbed up the iron ladder, his dark hair damp with grease and water, his wool coat thrown over one shoulder. He looked bone-tired, but his eyes were clear, dark, and focused entirely on me.

"Are you ready?" he asked, stopping at the edge of the catwalk.

"I've been ready for ten years," I said.

I didn't hesitate. I cocked the iron hammer of the flare launcher, pointed the short barrel directly down into the deep, shimmering pool of black diesel fuel that was spilling out from under the sub's hull, and squeezed the heavy trigger.

THUMP.

The flare struck the fuel pool with a blinding flash of pink-white light. For a terrifying half-second, nothing happened except a sizzle of liquid. Then, with a roaring, deafening WHOOSH, the air in the cavern was sucked backward as a wall of orange fire erupted across the floorboards.

The flames roared upward, leaping fifteen feet into the air, devouring the diesel fuel with a terrifying hunger. The black hull of the submarine was instantly swallowed by a raging cage of white-hot fire. The heat hit my face like a physical hand, singeing the tiny hairs on my arms and turning the cold dampness of the cavern into a scorching furnace within seconds.

"Go! Go!" Jarrah yelled, catching my arm and pulling me toward the reinforced iron exit tunnel.

We sprinted up the steep concrete incline as behind us, the cavern began to scream. The heat was expanding the air inside the sub's sealed compartments, causing heavy iron pipes to burst with loud, gunshot-like reports. The old, decaying concrete of the vault ceiling, cracked by decades of salt exposure and now subjected to hundreds of degrees of direct heat, began to split.

CRACK! CRACK!

Deep subterranean groans rattled the bedrock beneath our feet, vibrating up through the soles of my leather boots. Jarrah kept his grip firm on my hand, pulling me through the narrow, twisting stone tunnel as the air behind us turned thick with choking black smoke.

We reached the heavy blast doors at the top of the cliff path, slamming our bodies against the iron bar to throw the latch open, and tumbled out into the cold night air just as the first massive explosion shook the earth.

BOOOOOOM!

The ground bucked violently under our feet, throwing us both to our knees on the wet grass of the coastal cliff overlook.

Below us, deep within the belly of the dark rock face, the submarine's main auxiliary tanks detonated in a chain reaction. A massive plume of orange fire and thick, grey smoke erupted straight out of the cavern air vents, shooting fifty feet into the stormy night sky like a volcano breaking through the soil.

Then came the structural collapse.

The entire sea cliff tons of ancient, volcanic granite began to shear away from the mainland. With a terrifying, thunderous roar that drowned out the sound of the crashing waves below, massive slabs of rock and concrete cracked apart, sliding downward in a slow-motion avalanche of dirt, stone, and burning metal.

The sub-dock, the escape vessel, the ledgers, and the body of Alastair were crushed beneath thousands of tons of rock before plummeting into the wild, white-capped waves of the ocean below.

I sat on the cold, wet grass, my hands buried in the dirt, watching the sea swallow the burning debris.

The wind off the bay was ferocious, carrying cold rain and salt spray that washed the soot from my face. High above us, heavy storm clouds churned in shades of bruised purple and charcoal, illuminated from below by the fading amber glow of the fire burning on the water.

It was over. The legacy was gone. The Kilsyth name was drowned in salt water and buried under dark stone.

Jarrah shifted beside me, kneeling in the wet mud. He didn't say anything. He just wrapped his arm around my shoulders, pulling me firmly against his side, letting his heat shield me from the biting coastal wind. I leaned my head against his shoulder, closing my eyes, feeling the steady, rhythmic beat of his heart through his wet shirt.

For the first time in my life, when I took a breath, my chest didn't feel tight. The cold air rushed deep into my lungs, clean, fresh, and unburdened by the weight of the ghosts that had haunted me since I was a child.

I looked out at the ocean, at the dark waves devouring the last glowing embers of my father's world, and for the first time, I wasn't afraid of tomorrow.