The girl who invited a grim fate

(The Great Siege – 5:36 PM)

The destroyer looms at the face of the Oasis Cruise—its steel mouth gaping like a leviathan surfacing to devour the helpless vessel.

The warning comes.

The captain halts the voyage. Engines cut. The sky darkens, though the hour still clings to daylight.

Then, shadows descend.

Figures in black flood the decks like a storm. Muzzles flare. Crew members drop their tools—some lift their hands, others never get the chance.

Freedom, in an instant, ceases to exist.

Their demand echoes over the intercom, across blood-slick walls and trembling mouths:

Neva Evara Noe.

Just a name.

But who the hell is she, to warrant this reckoning?

The supervisors plead. Deck officers crumble to their knees, voices cracking as they beg for mercy—for lives they cannot protect.

But mercy is not on the manifest today.

This isn't a hijacking.

It's a purge.

The invaders show no hesitation. No conscience. Only protocol: eliminate, dominate, search, repeat.

Tonight, while the world counts down to midnight, they intend to celebrate soaked in red—drunk not on champagne, but on the blood of strangers.

Their resolution: to welcome the new year on a ship baptized in screams.

And the officers—if they knew this Neva had boarded among them, would they hand her over to save themselves?

They might.

The lamb is always small before the altar.

But the invaders have made a grave error:

They do not know her face.

"We told you!" the captain cries, trembling hands raised, knees bruised on steel. "There's no one here by that name!"

A silence.

Then—an eruption.

Automatic fire bursts overhead. Muzzles flash like lightning. Shells rain like hail.

The deck becomes a slaughterhouse.

Bodies crumple mid-prayer. A teenager gasps as her mother slumps onto her shoulder, lifeless.

Blood pools between sandals and suitcases. A child's balloon floats upward, untethered.

In the span of seconds, hundreds lie motionless.

The captain staggers back.

Four thousand passengers had gathered moments ago. Now, many stare blankly into the sky, never to blink again.

On the upper decks, more than a thousand are trapped—penned in rooms, held at gunpoint. They can only listen.

They whisper one question again and again:

Who is Neva Evara Noe?

And why are they dying for her?

The middle-aged man leading the slaughter steps forward.

His name is Huston.

His face is carved from cruelty.

"Every five seconds," he says, voice like gravel and venom, "someone else dies. Until she is ours."

He lifts a revolver and forces it beneath the captain's chin.

"Look harder," he growls.

He has spent eighty-three minutes scanning faces. No match. No clue. Just trembling humans, waiting for judgment.

The captain weeps. "I told you. We don't have her."

"They're mad," someone whispers from behind a hand. "This is madness."

Huston turns. "Begin again."

More shots tear through the crowd.

A girl in a yellow dress slumps against the rail, blood trailing down her collar.

A man trying to shield his wife collapses, eyes wide in disbelief.

The air is now thicker than sea fog. It reeks of salt, oil, and human ruin.

John—second-in-command, predator by birth—paces across the carnage.

His gaze lands on a small boy sobbing amid the chaos, curled in his mother's lap.

"Stop crying," she whispers, clutching him. "Please, baby, don't cry."

But he can't hear her. His world has shattered.

He saw it shatter.

John steps forward.

His boots squish in the blood.

"Leave him alone!" the captain cries. "He's just a child!"

John smirks, raises his pistol—

and pulls the trigger.

The mother's skull jerks. Her arms fall limp.

She tips over, lifeless. Her eyes stare up at a sky that refuses to weep.

The boy touches her face.

"Mommy…?" he whispers.

Then he screams—a sound so raw it slices the air open.

John crouches beside him. His breath is rancid with power.

"She died because of you."

The scream climbs into something inhuman. The boy shakes her, sobbing so violently it rattles the silence.

John stands, levels the pistol at the child's forehead.

One finger twitches on the trigger.

A crack splits the air.

John stumbles.

Then crumples.

A hole blooms in his temple.

Gasps sweep the deck like wind over dry grass. The attackers freeze. Their second-in-command lies dead at the boy's feet.

From the fourth deck—Rhett emerges.

No name. No warning.

Just fury incarnate.

He raises a weapon.

Clenches his jaw. Eyes darkened.

The machine gun sings.

A rhythmic roar sweeps over the deck.

Flesh splits. Skulls burst. The invaders drop like puppets with cut strings.

Their formation breaks.

Some scream.

Some crawl.

Some fire blindly, hitting only air.

Rhett moves with precision—one man in a storm, carving down chaos. Bullets streak the air, biting through armor and bone.

He reloads.

A new wave rushes the stairwell.

Too late.

Rhett vanishes behind a wall.

The door bursts open. Boots scramble in. He's waiting.

Another deadly volley erupts.

The room fills with bodies and smoke.

They underestimated him.

They thought they could hunt him.

They didn't realize they were the prey.

Rhett steps over the dead. His breath calm. His gaze razor sharp and grim.

He doesn't speak. And he doesn't taunt.

Another round of fire rattles in the cruise.

Bullets are nailed on the steel walls.

Shards of wood and concrete scatter.

And one by one, they fall.

Some try to run.

Some try to beg.

None survive.

They wanted blood to mark the new year.

They came as theives to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.

Now they fall, drowning in an ocean of blood—like a herd of swines possessed by demons, driven to slaughter, blind and shrieking.

And the lion stands amidst them.

A vessel of God.

---

The survivors huddle together, listening to the screams of the dying fade into silence.

Above them, behind the glass—Agent Czar disappears again, melting into the ship like a ghost of vengeance.

The war has begun.

And fate, once theirs to wield, now lies bleeding at his feet.