The Dye of Carmine

She; who perceives the air colder and the moment elapsing slower. The eyes those held so much warmth glistening in them remains cruelly gloomed—reflecting the calamitous of the humankind.

She walks lower and lower down the stairs.

Her hands holding onto the railing for aid, a frail frame trembling, shivering.

Was it the freezing air of the last december night?

Or was it the devastating sight her eyes soaks in.

She gazes down at her feet, the carmine blood drenching her footwear. Her heavy chest heaves up and falls.

The shoes being black changed to no different colour. Although, the little splattering of red on the white laces and the white soles being dyed red could be easily discerned under the luminescence provided by the cruise.

The brightness of the warm day sleeps, the darkness of the frozen night deepens.

Her eyes reddened, short metres away a man addressed as the captain being held back by two men, dressed in a formal crew uniform.

He holds a submachine gun, firing again and again at an intruder—his mind abscend.

He doesn't realise the gun has emptied of bullets. She peers around, countless of passengers and intruders lay, stretched on the floor. Layering identical to bloody butchered pigs. Some breathe heavy, they groan in pain, mulish flesh prevents them peace and depart the soul.

She wishes to awake soon. She prays someone would stir her away out this abyss of nightmare.

Hundreds of heavy and muted footsteps storms. Her eyes lifts as her vision unveils of men with armed weapons flooding the cruise.

Firing echoes around the ocean, they kill every people on sight, and they fall on the ground numbed.

The scarlet eyes travels to the captain. The men who had their arms wrapped around the captain had been shot.

The captain's eyes wide in lament for the man who cared, bleeding out to their grave.

He seizes a firearm from the hands of a dead armed man.

He runs towards them.

Screaming—thundering bullets.

They breath off when the doom hits.

But then, hundreds of bullets rumbles at him. The captain bleeds out from every of him.

The captain's form jerks, shoulder drawing back, leaning along the pressure of the pain from the holes.

The weapon in his hands slides out, he drops down to his knees, his lifeless eyes lowered and body laying on the ground.

There lay the captain; martyed.

Roars firing of bullets from behind her.

Her feet still below the stairs, unaccompanies not even a twitch of muscles.

A hand wraps around her wrist, shoving her behind, shielding her behind his broad back.

Neva blinks halfway, she glances up, the familiar back masking the horror filled scene from her eyes.

They miss their bullets at them, Rhett had concealed the both of them behind the stairs, by the cut stringer. And she didn't even realise when.

"Cease-fire!! Cease-fire!!" A man screams as the thugs attention diverts. Huston breathes heavily, he leans on the railing of the parallel stairs. He screams for he knows the woman behind the conceal.

He had been looking for her alone, through every crook and corner. For he had send the men guarding him to aid the comrades. They had been appallingly overthrowned by a threat of a killer. He doomed them, frantically appearing ripping their flesh off.

He thanks his stars, for he had been blessed. She was there in the corridor, panicked and astray.

There was a reason this cruise was chosen: the secret room behind the closet of the captain's room.

Only the captain knew of it, but he chose not to hide away.

Rhett had enough time to obscure Neva inside the room, and no one knew of it.

She could hear the mayhem of the atmosphere, but the people outside wouldn't be able to.

She had run away, the explosion of noise—the assailants shooting without mercy, tragic screams echoing. Her blurry mind had driven her out from the safe concealed place. Noah's father had took him away, she felt a sudden intuition that she had to find him.

Huston refused to kill her, but wanted to seize her. A gun aimed at her, he warned her to surrender. But she; she ran faster.

Hysterical citizens crowded the air, and suddenly, he was conscious of her dissapearance.

"Stop firing at her!! She needs to be alive!!"

Huston yells at the top of his lungs.

The thugs finally does as he commands.

"Surround them!!"

Their weapons in the same position, their body in the same posture, alarmed they closen Neva and Rhett.

The running of boots reverbs from numerous directions—nearing them around.

Rhett groans in anger. He had almost run out of bullets. A brief distant away, there lay machine guns carried by the rotting savages.

"Stay here and don't ever come out." He asks of Neva.

He slides out, stark before all, pointing the gun at them.

He nears the assailants, they closen the grave. Hands over his head, he throws away the gun in his hands.

Ghey don't shoot him. For they aim a more painful death for him who ruptured their new year's celebration.

She gazes away to him: he kneels down,

Huston sighs out, the killer man at end had to bow down to death.

His head tilted down, Rhett was hoverimg over the machine guns—and the foolish thugs' abandoned corpses.

He smirks, and hoisting up a dead savage by the grip on the back of his shirt.

Booms the noise of the gun firing in the air, the savages dropped down foolishly on the floor.

Rhett shields himself with the savage, and changing corpses every now and then—he rains bullets on them with the bare other hand.

Their fight and bullets useless, they are just ripping off their doomed comrades.

They all at at alarming rate drop to the ground.

Huston is screaming, commanding that they could hit Neva. Petrified if the fires burn Neva.

For he wanted her to be alive.

His warnings goes to deaf ears, for their lives has come to risk, and they know it matters greater than the howlings of his nonsense.

Rhett would pick the guns on the ground with no owners, destroying them with both two arms holding a machine gun.

Their aim shaking with the guards falling.

He needed no useless protection from the rotting fleshes.

And the twits were just recklessly firing.

And lasts only the wounded men and the scaredy rat Huston hidden behind the walls.

Then suddenly a foreign storm of bullets comes against the remainng men of enemies.

It was from one of the passengers, an ex msrine soldier. He hid behind the shadows, and Rhett knew him.

For he had assisted before in killing the thugs who almost assaulted the women.

Ceasing a chance Rhett throws off the finished gun, and swoops up a motionless Neva in his arms.

They course up the stairs, the more assailants storming on the cruise unending.

---

They reach the third deck. The floor to their cabin. Inside the room he lets down Neva on the floor.

"Why the fuck were you out there?!" A raged Rhett raises his voice.

She stays unmoving, gazing at nowhere.

"Neva! Gather yourself!" Rhett grips her shoulders, shaking her stiff form.

She flinches, tangling their eyes.

"He said he wants me. All of them are dead because of me." Her lips trembles, her eyes burning with tears surging in them.

Rhett says nothing, instantly pulling her in a tight embrace.

"Stay with me." He wipes the tears away from her cheeks.

She grabs his hands. "Noah, he was with his father." Her shivering voice barely comes out a whisper.

"I'll go look for him." He steps away from her—nearing the bed. He uncovers the firearms hidden behind the quilt.

A machine gun in his hand. He hangs a bag with his prepared spare magazines, with the laptop and cash inside.

A vigilant Rhett makes a gap between the closed door and peeks out through it.

There swarms the men, half of them in the hallway, while some checks the rooms behind those closed doors.

He brings Neva beside him, having her back lean on the wall.

He agapes and from the doorway, he fires without giving them a chance to secrete.

They horde out from all directions. Machine guns for both of his hold, he dares reveal out the room.

Rumbles Rhett storm of bullets as he strides to them, sparing them none.

He exhales deeply, kicking one away on his way.

He rushes towards their cabin for her.

"Let's go." He grabs Neva's hand, leading her out. "Noah?" She mumbles.

"We'll get him." Rhett affirms.

Neva gasps in horror, the door lock had been hit by bullets. The broken door slightly open.

Rhett grips the weapon firmer, his steady steps with the positioned gun walking in, covering her with awareness he gets inside.

His eyes lands on a corpse.

Neva covers her mouth. Noah's father lay on his back on the cold ground. His white shirt dyed in carmine.

He was shot in the chest.

Rhett steps away towards the bathroom.

He grips the knob and without the need of twisting it, scanning alert he slowly slides open the door.

His heart numbs at the sight. Beside the bathtub Noah drowns in his own blood.

He perceives his little chest rising up and down brutally weak.

Rushing to him, he throws the gun aside, he was hit at the stomach. His father had hid him there, but to no avail.

Noah breathes, he had fought very bravely, his eyes open vaguely.

He hurriedly grabs a towel nearby.

"Hang on Noah. Stay awake." Rhett tries to keep the blood from flowing, he applies pressure with the towel on the wound.

He glances at the door, Neva stands there with tears streaming down her face.

"He's alive Neva. We need to get out of here." Rhett grabs another towel, binding it around Noah's stomach.

"I–I'll carry him." Neva voices out nearing them.

He needs to carry weapons and fight off the evil outside awaiting them.

Rhett nods, helping Noah into her arms.