Nightmare Shuttle

It was the second day of the cruise. And on this day, the sun was glaring hot. Seawater has become the only barrier and the boundary between life and death.

On the outside of the ship, in a place where no one could see. There were obvious striations on the solid steel hull, as well as horrible mottled traces as if long, sharp barbs had smashed into the ship repeatedly before giving up when they couldn't climb on board.

A small fluttering piece of brown paper drifted in the wind and landed slowly at the feet of a crew member. The yellowed and sunken eyes glanced down at the paper before walking over it carelessly, the water on his boots blurred the already draining ink, destroying its original appearance.

A heated wind blew and the paper was lifted again into the air. A small paragraph of words was briefly visible in the wind. "A large number of dead fish appeared on the island strait a few days ago, and there are tens of thousands of dead bodies washed up on the beach by the waves. Scientists have analyzed that the temperature of the sea may be too high, causing a large number of deaths of marine life....." The paper fluttered and disappeared over the ship's deck, sinking into the sea and disappearing in the mysterious depths.

Chu Yi woke up from the heat, after the banquet hall the night before, he had promptly retired to his room and found a packet of instant noodles to satiate his hunger. Droplets of sweat crystallized on his forehead, and the temperature was wrong.

Yesterday, although the sun was hot it was still in bearable range but he didn't know what happened but to cause such a drastic change in the span of a day, but now it felt as if they were slowly being cooked in a boiler.

Something cold was placed against his forehead and when he lazily turned his eyes, a familiar man stood above him with one hand in his pocket and the other holding a hand to his forehead. He raised an eyebrow when he saw that he was awake and moved the hand away to pinch his red earlobes.

The heat made Chu Yi feel like a salted fish and he had no energy to raise his legs to kick him so he allowed the man to continue to fondle unscrupulously. It had nothing to do with the cold temperature of his hands that made him feel relieved. 

A group of snow-white seabirds gathered above the sea not far and followed the cruise ship for a while, which was quite wrong.

This is far from the coastline, and there were no islands nearby only a boundless sea. These seabirds should not be present, and they are exhausted and stiff, without the strength to continue to fly across the sea.

"Ha! This is a great catch, where the seabirds gather, it means there is a lot of fish on the sea!" A civilian scratched his belly and thought of the food from last night and felt a bit greedy.

Another man on the floor above with his hair slicked back sophisticatedly stood by the railing boasted to his companions:

"I bet there are tons of fish here, look, the seagulls about to start their hunting trip!"

"I wonder if we can catch a few and then have the crew cook it. That isn't breaking the rules is it?"

A green light shone in his eyes.

Before his words were finished, there was a brief call filled with a sense of despair, it turned out that a few seabirds had gathered their wings and plunged into the sea like bombshells.

Chu Yi who had finally beat the laziness and stood up and stared out the window. So far apart, he could not see clearly, the metal hull of the ship reflected the blinding rays that blurred his vision, but he could tell that the behavior of these seabirds was abnormal.

The rich man with slicked and combed hair spoke proudly, "Although these birds are not large, they are also very tenacious. They can reach four or five meters underwater, and they will float to the surface and return to the sky immediately after they grab a fish ..."

The man continued to talk with great fanfare, but everyone around him was lacking in interest. Wiping the sweat from the forehead, some couldn't bear it and walked away, muttering as they went, "Why has it become hotter and hotter." "This broken ship won't be taking us to the center of the earth now–"

"Doesn't matter, just endure it well reach the island tomorrow and..." Their conversation faded off.

Only a few persons noticed, that those seabirds that fell into the sea never surfaced again. It wasn't that they fished, the seagulls had fallen into the sea, from pure exhaustion.

Chu Yi walked out onto the deck and only then did he intuitively feel the force of the heat. There was even a faint stinging and burning sensation on his arm and the exposed skin quickly turned red. He glanced down at the calm blue sea without a ripple. From what he knew, although fish could survive in the extreme cold, they could do the same for heat.

Their inability to get sufficient oxygen from the water they live in would death by suffocation and a bunch of dead fish would float on the sea. But there was no dead fish and the heat only continued to rise. 

Out of the corner of his eyes, he caught sight of a familiar middle-aged man walking in his direction, what attracted him wasn't just his extraordinarily pale face but something else. The man's stomach that was still flat the day before was now bulging grotesquely as if was four months pregnant.

His eyes were glassy and covered with a layer of white film, inexplicable reminding him of the eyes of a dead fish. When he walked past Chu Yi, a strange rotten and fishy smell drilled into his nose. The man's mouth was still talking to others as if he, himself didn't realize his change.

The rattle of wheels rubbing against the wooden deck caught his attention. A waiter with a grey trolley slowly stopped before each guest. The lid was pulled off, and a large fish head was revealed before their eyes. It was bubbling in a thick white soup and bursting with cool air from ice crystal around it was refreshing and cool in the overbearing heat.

The waiter lifted a hand and gently poked the head with his chopsticks, the fish head that was sliced ​​into two pieces fell off into two perfect sides to reveal the fish eggs that filled its fragile skull. Each piece of the black pearl-like eggs was the size of a fingernail. 

The waiter pulled out thin glass cups and gently scooped a handful of eggs in each before handing it to the greedy guests. Like a rich cream, the eggs slid down their throat, warding off the hot temperatures.

The trolley slowly made its way to where Chu Yi was standing and the waiter bowed politely, scooped a thick spoonful of eggs, and handed it to him. Instead of leaving immediately, the waiter stood waiting by his side, pinched eyes staring polite smile at Chu Yi. He had no intention to leave until Chu Yi took a bite of the eggs. No one moved. The air was filled with tense confrontation and slowly a cold light brewed at the bottom of the waiter's eyes as if he was on the verge of attacking.

Red eyes underneath the sunglasses narrowed into sharp slits, he seemed to hesitate for a second as if he had given up, and the hand that held the glass slowly raised it to his lips and seemingly swallowed a mouthful of eggs. The cup that came down was evidently a few eggs less, the waiter watched his Adam's Apple roll and left with satisfaction to the next guest.

Chu Yi stared at his back as he left, his hands let go and the black balls in his hands fell onto the deck, slowly he crushed the eggs at his feet, a black and red residue accompanied by a strange reddish string was crushed out. A cold hand slowly grabbed his hands and a wet cloth was applied to his fingers, slowly wiping away the traces left.

"What do you think is happening, Dear?" His hands scratched his palm and a strange feeling instantly erupted from where he touched making Chu Yi unnaturally pull his hands away. Ruan Quixi laughed and lazily pulled his hand back to continue wiping away the dirty things.

Chu Yi lifted his chin, "Why are you asking me, shouldn't you know." 

The other man spoke slowly, "You seemed to have misunderstood Dear, every copy is an independent place weaved from the darkest nightmares and created from evil thoughts. Therefore I cannot know the plot of each copy, because it is always changing. Like a never-ending nightmare. Have you ever stopped to think why it's called Nightmare Shuttle?"

Chu Yi narrowed his eyes, " So what are you're saying, is that each copy is just a bunch of nightmares smashed into one?"

Ruan Quixi shook his head, "Not exactly." 

The system's warning sounded in his head. A fifth-level electric shock would be implemented as punishment if he continued to speak. In normal times, this would have been nothing but as a price to appear here in his real body, his power had been severely weakened. Unless he wanted to stage a dog-blooded play of life and death parting he could only stop here.

He carefully wiped the long fingers before looking up and throwing the wet tissue into the sea, watching as it sunk to the depths. "How long do you think it will take for a person to die after being boiled alive?"

Chu Yi threw a look down at the sea and seriously contemplated " If we calculate it by muscle density and area of skin, the average time would be around two to three minutes. "

He glanced at Ruan Quixi's side profile, the dark eyes seemed to penetrate the sea's surface and looked down into its depth. "The sea is hotter than boiling water at the moment, if someone were to fall in if they're not rescued in two minutes, how tragic would that be?" 

On the farthest and most dilapidated corner of the ship, after civilians were lying in their rooms in a weird posture, curling themselves into a ball, or half lying on the floor horizontally, the closest to the door was a strange woman, her mouth wide open, eyes bulging, blood scars on her face, and a dirty rucksack in her hand. Their abdomen was high and bulging, whether it is a man or a woman, it seems that they have been pregnant for eight months. These people were at the banquet last night.

A strong fishy smell wafted in the room.

A small knock came on the door and when no one responded, the person outside pushed open the door. It was a buff and thick crew member and the captain that held a gentle face when he boarded the rich into the ship.

At this moment, the captain's face was full of disgust, he bent down and took the civilian's ID card and stamped it with a grey mark, before shoving it to the other man. "Low grade, I don't why it mutated this time. Usually, these things would only hatch by the time we reach the island."

He went over bent down, and looked into the woman's mouth, when he saw it was filled with black eggs, he nodded. "Take this one and cut out the things inside, the others can be thrown back into the sea. This year the elders on the island are having a ceremony and only want high-quality goods."

"Remember to restock the booster and give a batch to those fools. I heard it was specially formulated by the elders, those that make it have a higher chance of being high quality than the rest." 

He stood up and looked around the room, tutting slightly, "What a waste." The buff man reached over send grabbed the woman's feet