Bavel (2
“I don’t know if I’ve said this, ever enough, but I HATE YOU SO MUCH.”
“I think I have realized that, yes.”
“And you are an absolute IMBECILE—“
“Yes.”
“And we are going TO DIE!”
“That depends on whether you decide it’s a smart idea NOT to draw attention to ourselves,” my twin snaps back, climbing up stair after stair as the rumbling crescendoes in the hallway behind us. He flails a hand. “SHHHHUH.”
We both freeze and immediately lower our brightnesses to a near black. Below us, in the metal hallway adjacent to the narrow staircase, unholy screeches of acidic death roar past us in a rolling, thunderous wave; all of the disgusting pale bulbs smash up against each other in a blind rampage to the entrance of the boat, making the structure groan and shake. As quickly as distant thunder, they’re gone, and I turn my head back to the top of the stairs.
“We could lift each other to the top,” my twin suggests.
“I’m not helping you— HEY WHAT NO—“ He lifts a hand, ignoring my flailing as he hurls me over him. I smack into the wall out of sight and thump to the ground, immediately checking myself for any damage. My head appears over the top stair to scowl.
“Stop being a baby,” he comments, gesturing to himself. “Now lift me.”
“No.” I turn away and inspect the landing, two ways to head. “And I’m fifteen, technically.”
“Yes. Technically,” my twin replies, grunting as he makes his way up.
“What are we doing?” I ask again, making for the left end.
“Going to the captain’s deck. To the right,” he corrects, hefting his chubby arms onto the last step.
“You’re planning to get this junk running? HA! Those giant— things—”
“Parasites,” he says, dragging the rest of himself up.
“—Have probably eaten through the entire boat. Not to mention this whole thing would fall apart from rust alone.”
“We’re not starting this boat.” He stands, catching up to me.
“Then what are we doing?”
We reach the captain’s door, and he crouches low before leaping to reach the handle. He grabs the rusted metal, but it doesn’t give, and he hangs there for a minute, blinking.
“This usually worked.”
I roll my eyes and lift both hands toward him. Yanking down, I tear my twin to the floor and wrench the handle from place. He yelps, holding the places where his arms enter the sides of his cupboard, and his face twists in pain as he stumbles back against the wall.
“Oh, don’t be such a baby,” I mock half-heartedly, pushing against the door to get it to move.
“You nearly tore my arms off!” He snaps.
I stop and step up to him, glowering. “I’ve had much worse,” I hiss, whipping back to the door. “Now, what,” I squeeze through the small gap into the enormous, hollow room. “Are we here for?” He follows me, clutching his arms and staring at my back in thought.

Lia exhales heavily through the fabric wound around her face. She wipes the sweat from her eyes for what must be the hundredth time, and glances down at her water flask for what must be the thousandth. She wishes she could just strip into a two-piece and plunge headfirst into the ocean, just meters away; but the similarly clad, stoic Loakan plow ahead without a second glance, seemingly unbothered by the heat. Seemingly.
At the back of the line, she notices ahead that the group of camels and struggling horses gradually pick up into a canter, disturbed by plumes of sand that are close to the docks now less than half a mile away. What she doesn’t see is the front of the line, where the Loakan’s leader is frantically scrambling up onto his camel— sitting just ahead of Khalil— and whipping the animal into motion, wrenching the rein to the far left as they speed into a gallop. He screams something down the line, and in no less than twenty seconds the entire squad of Loakan begin to peel away in sporadic scattering.
“What’s happening?” Lia moves next to the Loakan ahead of her, who pants through her own thick clothing and rasps:
“Parasites!” And her camel takes off in an angle diagonal from the dock.
“Wait—“ Lia’s head snaps to attention at the growing mass of sand swallowing whole a dozen of people too slow to run. She swears under her breath, and kicks her own camel into a gallop, heading instead directly toward it; she tightens her fists on the reins, narrowing her eyes. “Bavel,” she whispers, almost warningly.

The man clutches the reins close to his body, gritting his teeth behind his mask. Parasites. Of course those two little demonic creatures knew— somehow! It must be Ayize’s behind this. He might have been a pig, but he was wicked smart; of course his Bavel would be his spitting image.
The Loakan leader compulsively slams a fist into the camel’s back, startling it but not getting it to go any faster than its gallop. He glances back at the dock, and the dozens of his people struggling to keep up. There is only a handful by his side now, and at least half of his crew are being overtaken by the cloud of sand hiding the Parasites.
“This is your fault, boy!” He snaps instinctively, twisting to look at empty space behind him. “Wh—“ He wrenches the reins toward him, forcing his camel to skid to a stop. He turns around, frantically searching the beach for Khalil, and spots him untying himself on the ground a few hundred yards away. The boy manages to tug off the rope on his ankles, and doesn’t hesitate to jump to his feet and bolt toward the dock.
“No,” the man breathes, baring his teeth. “NO!” He whips the camel, but it spits, taking steps back. He slaps it, but it shakes its head and turns away. “GO. You STUPID—“ The man shouts in anger and swings off of it, snatching his electric gun and hitting the sand at a run.

We both stop when we see the corpses littering the room. They’re hardly new, but they certainly didn’t die of starvation, or from the acidic monsters; one of the windows is broken, and there are animalistic slashes, tears, and bites in the flesh of the victims. From some wolf-sized creature, or creatures. But whatever they were certainly didn’t finish the job. One of the half-eaten bodies has its hand clung around the wheel of the boat.
My twin doesn’t stare, and strides to the nearest and lowest window we can look through. I make my way slowly to him, but it takes me longer to look away.
“There.” He points across the line of other half-eaten boats to a small speedboat that looks suspiciously well-kept. There is an old sand-colored tarp haphazardly tossed to its side.
“How did you know—“

“National service,” he reminds me. “And closest emergency escape. Ayize—“ His mouth twitches— “Ayize made sure to have it made without metal. No one comes down to this port anymore, so he thought it’d be smart.”
“I find it hard to agree.”
“He never ended up using it. So the battery in it is probably old. One of us—“ He looks at me— “Will have to use our battery to power it.”
“How thoughtful,” I pat a hand on his face. “Thank you for your sacrifice.” His gaze flattens.
“Don’t think I don’t find it a little suspicious how a Bavel has been able to extend its battery #life by fifteen years without a replacement.”
“A miracle.” I give him an innocent smile.
“Like coming back from the dead.”
“Exactly! You understand.” I draw my hand back and stare at the distance between us and the boat. “Now, how are we getting….”
I turn my head slowly and leer at my twin, who looks suspiciously satisfied with himself.
“You can’t power the boat and drive at the same time,” he says delightfully.
“I hate you so much,” I grumble tiredly, walking to the shattered window. He turns slowly, watching me go, still rubbing at his arms.
“Why do you?” The question is so sudden I almost graze my hand against a piece of glass still stuck to the frame. My mouth pulls to one side and I stare back at him, still leering.
“Again, with the stupid questions.”
“You come from out of nowhere,” he explains as he walks toward me, counting off fingers. “Not even Ayize admitted to recognizing you— and he recognizes every Bavel he’s made— you have an insane lust for murder—“
“And arson,” I add.
“And you have this obsession with a kid who probably didn’t do anything to you. Was he your owner?” He asks plainly.
“You’re really that interested in knowing little old me?” I laugh. “That’s cute.”
“I’m interested, yes.” He tilts his head and smirks slightly. “You’ve stopped smiling.”
“I’m not interested in giving answers,” I simmer.
“Is the boy your owner?”
“NO,” I snap, ears flattening. His raise, piqued.
“Fifteen years old…” He taps the knob to one of his drawers. I can see the data running faintly through his screen. “That might be why he wouldn’t’ve remembered you.”
“Oh joy— why?”
“The massacre,” he says. “Ayize whipped out Bavels left and right just to level the threat.”
“Massacre?” Definitely not my crusade of death.
“Let’s not get off topic,” he says, smiling in a way where, for a second, it feels like a mirror. “Why are you attached to the boy?”
“I just want to kill him!” I shout, spreading my arms.
“And you’re that determined to have come all the way from the west to hunt him down?”
“That’s not why—“ I flinch. “I didn’t tell you where I was from.”
“You didn’t have to.” He taps his head. “The boy comes from the west, so assumedly you would too.” He pauses. “Did it take you fifteen years to travel all the way here?”
“There were a few years of… relaxation,” I reply vaguely, standing behind him.
He snorts, and then laughs, walking to the edge of the deck. “‘Relaxation?’ Contemplating widespread genocide?” My fingers twitch, and he rocks forward for a second, but he steps back fast enough to keep from falling. He whips to look at me, and his smile fades; I’m frozen to the spot, and though I can see him, all he can see is a blank, static screen.
“‘Recording wretch,’” a voice comes from me, startling my twin. The voice is familiar for us both— more for me, than for him.
“That’s—“ He whispers, mind racing. An image glitches on his screen, a memory of a beautiful yellow house, but it flickers away. He straightens with sudden terror. “You’re—“ The boat under us groans.
Somewhere far off, something like a loud cracking bell snaps, and the entire boat suddenly pitches to one side. We both slip, rocketing off the edge; my twin falls first, but without thinking he twists and grabs me with that invisible force, flinging me into the air fast enough and far enough to slam onto the deck of the next boat just yards away. I meet his eyes for a second before he drops out of sight, but I have hardly enough time to process before the side of the boat smashes into the one I’m on, and the floor starts to tip again. I stumble, but scramble to my feet, sprinting to the side that’s tipping down; I don’t know what I’m doing, but just as the side crashes into the next, I leap onto it, scraping my arms in a roll and scuffing my cabinet. The screaming of bending metal blots out anything else, and I have to push myself forward across the wide deck just to barely make it to the next boat before it begins to crash in on itself, eaten from the inside and supported by nothing but wet sand. I lock my eyes on the speedboat, tripping over a tumbling dead body and collapsing into the gravity of the leaning floor. I try grating my hands into the metal to stop myself, but the body falls on top of me, propelling me forward to the edge rail and into the open air, over open water.