Chương 8: Dimensional Pocket

Ethan and Scarlett walked hand in hand through one room after the other inside the ship. Scarlett, as fierce and competitive as she appeared, had a very feeble part to herself, and seeing some of the sights that they saw left her horribly startled, making her hold over Ethan's waist tighten with each passing room.

Whenever they saw a window, they immediately got rid of the light.

Even though some of the rooms had skulls, most of the rooms they found were empty, like the one they were in. Always, just before entering a new room, they would both fumble through the darkness and find the window and, taking another dark cloth, completely cover it before turning the emergency light on and checking what lay inside.

Soon enough, Ethan learned how bad of an idea such a dumb thing was.

In one of the rooms, Scarlett's upper arm was brushed by a sharp edge of wood, and a small wound appeared on her skin, which soon had squirming maggots out of nowhere. Luckily, the wound was shallow, and she just had to cut off a small part of the flesh. Thankfully, Ethan was fast even though his face appeared far more frightened and pale than when he had cut his own flesh.

They returned to the safe room for a while, and Scarlett hissed in pain as Ethan ever so gently dressed her wound, his face cringing ever so slightly at her every hiss. He then took out many nutritional dishes from his Dimensional Pocket, all seemingly freshly cooked, and fed them to her one by one. She could only comply with a wry smile.

"Ethe, your Dimensional Pocket," she slurped the spicy ramen he was feeding her, "is really convenient. I love it. Let me devour it!"

He flicked her forehead, making her pout.

"Of course, it is convenient because I spent all my money, hundreds of thousands of dollars, on food and essential items. You gotta see to believe how stacked full of all sorts of weird things it is," he fed her another serving while occasionally eating himself, feeling irritated at having done something so stupid that led to her being wounded.

"Does time not pass at all inside the Pocket?" Scarlett questioned. She felt lovely at the fact that his habit of treating her to food when feeling guilty was still the same. He was just like the old times. Her adorable guard dog, for real.

Of course, had he known that thought, he'd have bit her.

"Yeah, it is completely still inside the pocket. I have all sorts of food from all sorts of restaurants, hot and ready to be eaten inside it, and many other things frozen in time. Ask me whatever you need, and I'll have it."

Scarlett looked at the clothes she was wearing, his t-shirt and pants, and asked, a twinkle in her eyes: "What kind of clothes did you buy me? What about the sizes?"

"Don't worry; I bought thousands of clothes, cheap ones and expensive ones. You can try them on later," he replied and continued feeding her.

***

After realizing that any wounds they got here would make maggots appear on their bodies, their caution heightened. Especially, Ethan began to use his Dimensional Senses much more frequently.

He could sense physical forms using the senses. Every disturbance in space, even a dust's movement or a stationary skull, was like someone touching or resting on his skin when he spread his senses out, but it was exhausting mentally and physically to keep at it for extended periods.

So they checked around calmly and at a slower pace. They would return to the safe room once in a while and rest before going for another search. In that room, Ethan had set up a portable toilet with its own separate waste tank taken from his Dimensional Pocket, and since he had a huge supply of water and toilet paper, there were no further issues.

Scarlett released an audible sigh of relief at the sight since she really needed it.

Thus, their scouting of the ship continued. They would go out and return after a while with new sights to think and talk about, and then eat, sleep, cuddle like crazy, flirt, and kiss whenever they got an excuse. This became their new life.

The ship wasn't that scary, they understood, but Ethan never grew less cautious. But they both had deep conversations together, and that made the days much quicker. At some point, it didn't even feel like they were in a god-forsaken ship in the middle of nowhere. It was comfy.

In the darkness, both of them slowly sorted out the confusing parts of their relationship, like cutting away cancerous cells in a body, and they had deep conversations about each other while being buried in each other's embrace. They quickly came to a consensus.

Both of them wanted a solid relationship that couldn't possibly be broken by anything. Both of them could tell by now that they loved each other. There was not much to say, actually; it was mostly Ethan just apologizing for the things he had done and telling her about it, coming clean. And her just saying how she herself had been a bitch about her own feelings.

She could have just told him she loved him ages ago, right?

Such and such… days passed.

For the first time in his life, Ethan started to see Scarlett as more than just his future wife.

He now saw her as his wife. And she could see it in his actions. He was becoming gentler, spoiling her most of the time, more and more directly, instead of just being a prick, and she, as embarrassed as she felt, also tried to act somewhat like what a normal wife, in her opinion, should have. Of course, it was all a picture of awkwardness.

***

It had been two weeks since they arrived here, and now, they had a clearer picture of where they were and what they were dealing with. They were in the middle of an ocean where the sun never rises; it would always be dark. And in the sky, there was no moonlight either.

Surrounding them was a sea, and underwater were things they didn't want to fight or even see. There was something with huge tentacles, and then there were the Mermen, beings with bright tongues. With both of those things, Ethan and Scarlett had met more than quite a few times already and, honestly speaking, felt scared. Many storms had also passed the few days.

But they also learned some things. As long as they didn't use light, the Merman wouldn't bother them. They had even seen an amazing sight of these things once.

One day, in a storm, they saw a mer woman atop the deck of the ship they were in, with glittering green scales on her fish tail and shining blue skin. She looked up to the sky and sang a song. Both of them had looked at it the whole time, and as it jumped back into the water after the storm settled, both of them looked at each other, seeing the awe in both of their eyes.

What a beautiful but alien thing. A shiver went down their spines, their little world of fantasy slowly breaking. It was only then that the cold reality actually sat in. They were no longer on Earth.

And as for the tentacle that appeared? It was far from the strangely peaceful Merman. It was violent. It rocked the ship and tried to pull it underwater. That day when they first saw it was a particularly great storm, too. But somehow, the ship survived.

Hidden in their safe room, clenching a metal pole stuck to the wall, neither of them knew how the ship survived. They had felt doomsday near and were even sharing goodbye kisses like some tragic couple.

They knew for certain they didn't stand a chance against that Kraken-like creature. And without a vessel, they would sink sooner or later. Even though Ethan's Dimensional Pocket had simple lifeboats, they couldn't survive storms.

It was a dark and unfamiliar world, to the point they felt they might die at any time due to some random wind. But with each other in their embrace, it was like watching a horror film with friends in tow; somehow, it didn't feel so scary anymore.

On the thirteenth day, Ethan and Scarlett entered another room, their complexions a bit pale, but they were determined to find a way out. And the room they entered today, unlike the many other rooms filled with skeletons, had something else instead. Something that shook them to the core.

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