Deep Sea Embers

After seeing the line of scrawled and sharp letters, Lawrence and the first officer beside him were stunned.

"Human beings have one and only two eyes... why is there such a sentence engraved here?" The first officer opened his eyes wide and stared at the line of words for a long time before turning his head in confusion, "Isn't this a very normal thing— —except for very few congenital deformities, who doesn't have two eyes?"

Lawrence did not speak immediately, but broke the silence after pondering for a long time: "Who do you think left this line?"

"...the aborigines on the island?" The first mate said uncertainly, "There used to be people on this island?"

"It's hard to say about this island, but there must be people on Dagger Island in the real world," Lawrence said slowly, stretching out his hand to lightly touch the scratches on the wall, the rough but real touch felt from his fingertips It was heard, as if conveying the strong emotions and ideas when this sentence was engraved, "Human beings have and only have two eyes. Someone specially engraved this sentence on the wall, which may explain one thing... "

"Explains one thing?"

"On this island, there used to be human-like things that did not 'have and only have two eyes'," Lawrence slowly raised his head, looking at the surrounding thick fog and the vague distant scenery in the fog, " And they are mixed among humans, but they cannot be easily detected."

The first mate took a deep breath and said hesitantly, "Then... where is the person who left those words?"

"I don't know," Lawrence shook his head. For some reason, he remembered the black mud and the empty pier area he saw along the way, but he quickly put these irrelevant associations aside temporarily, and Put your hand on the doorknob of the port office, "Be alert."

The sound of the safety of the gun being opened came from behind. Lawrence regained his composure, pushed the door open with a slight force in his hand.

He quickly stepped aside to avoid exposing his body to anything that might be hidden in the building. The first officer on the side took half a step forward, pointing the muzzle of his rifle at the door in a half-squat position, and the sailors followed suit. The muzzle pointed at the door from all angles.

There was no movement in the building.

The first officer who was standing at the door collected himself, and carefully looked into the room with his head.

"There's no one in there," he turned his head. "It's an empty office with lights on."

Lawrence waved to the sailors, and led the team into the room with the first mate.

This is an empty office. A few desks occupy almost half of the space inside, and a few chairs are randomly placed in front of the desks, as if someone was sitting on them just a second ago. The electric lights on the roof and the lamps on the walls The gas lamps were on, making the room extraordinarily bright, and on the floor...the weird and suspicious black mud could be seen everywhere.

"This kind of disgusting thing is everywhere here too..." The first mate frowned and looked at the black substance in the room, his disgust was beyond words, he carefully avoided the mud on the floor, and came to the desks , glanced at the messy piles of documents and various office supplies above, "These things... Captain, do you want to take a look?"

"They are all the forms and reports that the port needs to deal with daily, material entry and exit, personnel transfer, facility inspection, and inspection reports of machinery and equipment..." Lawrence came to those desks, looked at the several documents on it, and frowned slowly. Frowning, "The date...was just a few days ago?"

"It seems that there were people working here not long ago," a sailor swallowed nervously, and muttered in a low voice, "then everyone evacuated in a hurry, and they didn't have time to pack up..."

"Evacuate in a hurry?" Lawrence muttered in a low voice, his eyes swept over the table, a half cup of coffee was placed on the table, with a thin layer of dust floating on it, and beside this table, a puddle of black mud had already Dry up, a little black substance remained on the seat, his expression gradually became serious, "Is it really evacuation..."

The first mate noticed the change in the old captain's tone: "Captain, what are you thinking about?"

Lawrence thought for a while, and was about to say something, when a piercing noise suddenly came from outside the room—it sounded like the direction of the port square, and it was the electrical noise when the broadcasting speakers were suddenly activated!

"Om—"

The piercing noise surprised everyone, and the sailors hurriedly cast their gazes out of the window. In the next second, an intermittent, distorted, and interfering broadcast sounded throughout the port area. It sounded like a A slightly old voice: "Announcement... We have been polluted... This island... There is no possibility of salvation... The 22nd process will be launched... It is an honor to work with you... We will see you at the gate of Bartok .”

Accompanied by a harsh noise, the broadcast from the square stopped abruptly. The first officer's eyes widened in astonishment, and he turned to look at Lawrence: "Captain, what's going on..."

Before he finished speaking, a loud noise like thunder suddenly came from a distance!

And accompanied by that burst of thunder, there were more thunders, like the sky collapsing and the earth falling, like the earth collapsing and the mountains smashing!

The successive explosions swept across the entire Dagger Island in an instant, shocking everyone's minds. Lawrence realized what happened almost instantly——

It's not thunder, it's dynamite, a self-destruct device in some facility on the island is blowing up everything!

"Get out of the building!" Lawrence suddenly shouted, raised his pistol and fired at the ceiling, "There are explosives!"

The captain's yelling was almost drowned out by the explosion, but the explosion of the pistol still awakened the surrounding sailors to some extent, and a group of people rushed towards the door immediately.

More than a dozen people rushed out of the gate, rushed down the ramp, and rushed towards the open place, while the dense explosions continued to come from all directions, as if the entire island was being torn apart in a big explosion. Fragments, but halfway through the run, Lawrence suddenly felt something was wrong.

"Stop!" he stopped suddenly, and shouted as he fired his gun into the sky, "Stop!"

The sailors stopped in a panic again, and then they also noticed something was wrong.

There were only explosions all around—but neither smoke nor flashes could be seen in the direction of the explosion, and no tremors could be felt.

Only the sound of thunder echoed throughout the island.

Immediately afterwards, after a while, the sound of the explosion gradually subsided, and the surroundings returned to the silence in the dense fog, as if the big explosion that was like the sky-shattering and earth-shattering before was just a collective hallucination of everyone.

"Only voice?" The first mate looked around in surprise and said in disbelief.

"It's a reverberation," Lawrence's heartbeat gradually calmed down, and he quickly made a judgment—although he didn't know whether his judgment was right, but as the captain, he had to give everyone a judgment now, "It should have been just this What happened on the island was repeated in our ears in the form of reverberation, not a real explosion."

"I was scared to death just now," muttered a sailor, "I thought there was a big explosion..."

"The explosion that was closest to here just now was in that direction," the first officer raised his head to confirm the direction, and finally raised his finger to the other end of the port square, "Do you want to go over there and have a look?"

"Go and see the situation," Lawrence quickly made a decision, "If something really happened here, there should still be traces left."

The exploration team immediately headed towards the thick fog. This time, they were more cautious than before.

After some time, a large collapsed building appeared in front of Lawrence.

This building is located on the inner edge of a small bay, backed by a solid rocky cliff, and judging from the damage marks of the building... it was obviously completely destroyed by a big explosion from the inside out.

The first officer stood on a high place, looking at the ruins in astonishment.

"What is this facility for...it's amazing..."

"We should be more curious about how terrible things happened here, so that such a facility would be blown up without hesitation," Lawrence said in a deep voice, and slowly took two steps forward, "If this island people..."

"Stop."

A voice suddenly came from the side, and Lawrence stopped instantly.

"Martha?!"

He suddenly looked in the direction of the sound, and called out in surprise and nervousness.

But there was only a slowly undulating fog there, and the familiar figure could not be seen at all.

"Captain?" The first mate noticed the captain's abnormal reaction, immediately jumped off the rock, and came to Lawrence nervously, "What happened?"

"... auditory hallucinations," Lawrence said immediately, with a particularly serious expression, "you didn't hear the sound, did you?"

"We didn't hear," said one of the sailors, looking at each other.

"Maybe we shouldn't go any further," Lawrence frowned, "Go back to the port first, and then..."

Martha's voice came to him again, closer this time: "Go back to the boat, now."

Lawrence froze for a moment, restraining himself from looking in the direction of the voice. He wanted to continue talking, but the next second, Martha's voice came again, this time almost touching his ear, with a tone of voice With a trace of urgency: "Go back to the White Oak, immediately—Lawrence, they are coming!"

Lawrence opened his eyes slightly, and subconsciously said, "Who? Who's here?"

The first officer on the side held Lawrence's arm worriedly: "Captain, who are you talking to?"

Lawrence didn't speak, but suddenly raised his head and looked in the direction where the White Oak was docking.

An uneasiness welled up in my heart.

And in the next second, as if to confirm the unease, a dull thunder suddenly faintly came from that direction.

It was the sound of cannons.

"Someone fired..." The first mate reacted instantly, "There are enemies!"

"Go back to the ship!" Lawrence shouted, and led the team to run towards the port. In the wind that quickly rang by his ears, Martha's voice passed by his ears like a whisper:

"The Haiyan is here..."