Mermaid Reef

1959, North Atlantic.

There was a gleam of orange-red light in the sky, and soon a round of sun rose, as if jumping out from the depths of the sea.

The "Elizabeth" ship was driving among the waves, and the hull was slightly bumped.

The sun's rays shone on the cabin glass, and many passengers woke up.

It's not that the shading effect of the curtains is too bad, but that I can't sleep well.

Even in the second-class cabin on the ship, the room is a bit small. If two suitcases are stuffed in, a slightly fatter passenger needs to turn his body sideways to avoid falling on the bed when opening the wardrobe.

They have sailed at sea for more than 20 days. Unless they are severely seasick, others have adapted to such turbulence, and some problems have also emerged.

The first is the dampness of the bedding. It is said that the fourth-class cabin at the bottom is covered with mildew, and some people have seen mice in the room.

There are cats on board, which is a habit inherited from the age of great voyages, to deal with these rats that may carry germs.

I don't know if the hunting skills of Elizabeth's cats have deteriorated, or the rats are particularly cunning. The rat problem has been raging for three days.

On one occasion, even in full view, the mouse emerged from under a dining room table, jumped up a chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and landed heavily on a lady's dress.

"...I thought this was something that would have happened 30 years ago."

Cindy's grandmother said sarcastically.

She babbled about the scene in the restaurant last night.

Cindy is 22 years old, a pretty young English girl who lives with her grandmother on the second-class floor of the ship.

There are more than 300 passengers on the Elizabeth, and it is not fully loaded. This ship is a bit old, and the ticket price is considered medium on this route.Really rich people would not take this kind of ship. Correspondingly, the facilities on the Elizabeth were difficult to satisfy passengers.

"Grandma, this is the boat from 30 years ago."

"What? Did I say boats? I meant those people!"

Cindy's grandmother said unhappily, "That woman can only scream, and the man next to her can only scream? How did such a person survive the war?"

"Many people are afraid of rats, they can cause many diseases to people." Cindy explained patiently.

She hastily made the bed, opened the door, and was about to help her grandmother go to the deck to get some air.

Coincidentally, the door on the left also opened.

A man greeted her in a flirtatious tone:

"Miss Finer, Mrs. Finer, the weather is really nice today, isn't it?"

Cindy's face sank. This is Smith, an American who lives in the cabin next to her. Ever since she got on the ship, she has been trying her best to strike up a conversation with her.

Cindy knows that there are many people who like to meet love on an ocean-going ship and relieve loneliness.

But she was traveling with her grandmother, and a wise man should know that she had no leisure or interest in such love games, and yet this Mr. Smith was still pestering like a mangy dog.

Cindy slammed the door shut.

Through the door, the English girl could still hear Smith's conversation with another passenger.

"Good morning, Mr. Smith, failed again today?"

"This is also the charm of Miss Finer, isn't it?"

"Ha ha!"

The laughter is full of tacit understanding between men.

Pursuing a girl with a pretty face is the best pastime on a dreary journey, but if the girl is easy to pick up, they will find it boring and insufficient.

Cindy said to her grandmother with a dark face: "You are right, these people should be thrown back to the war era."

Mrs. Fenier sat on the bed and took a nap. She was old and could easily fall asleep in the middle of a conversation, and her memory was not very good.

Now he woke up suddenly, and asked vaguely: "Have we arrived? Should we get off the boat?"

"No, grandmother, we're still at sea."

"That's far enough," muttered Mrs. Finier.

At this time, the hull suddenly tilted.

There was screaming in the corridors and cabin floors, and there was the sound of falling objects.

Mrs. Fenier was stunned at first, her eyes were confused, then she suddenly jumped up, grabbed Cindy's hand and was about to crawl under the bed.

"Grandma, it's all right, we're on board, no German bombers."

Cindy was worried that Mrs. Fenier's waist had been flashed too hard, so she quickly helped her and explained patiently.

Mrs. Fenier's reaction came on their third day on board.

At that time, there was a storm, and it was night, and the boat was pitched very badly. Mrs. Fenier woke up in her sleep, thinking that she was in the basement, and a bomb would drop at any moment.

"Look, there is no ash falling from the walls and ceiling, and no air raid sirens are sounding outside."

Cindy hugged her grandmother, trying to keep her tone as light as possible.

She leaned her head on Mrs. Fenier's shoulder: "I've grown up too, I can hug you now!"

Mrs. Fenier slowly came back to her senses. She touched her granddaughter's face and woke up from her chaotic memory: "Shall we go to have breakfast?"

Cindy nodded.

She didn't take the turbulence just now to heart. It is normal for a sudden wave to rise in the sea.

"I'd better call the waiter to deliver the food!" Cindy was worried that her grandmother would be left alone in the room, and worried that the ship would be bumped again.

"No, it's just a short distance!"

Mrs. Fenier began to complain that the waiters in the ship restaurant asked for too much tips, the service was not good enough, and there was a strange smell on her body that turned her off.Just like a normal old English lady, only pickier.

Cindy walked to the window, ready to see the situation outside.

At this time, she found that the sky outside was darkening at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Dark clouds covered the sun.

"Let's call the waiter, it might be raining." Cindy turned around and said.

The ship shook and bumped a few more times.

Cindy opened the door and saw two people in crew clothes chatting at the end of the corridor. Just as she was about to say hello, she heard their conversation.

"Why... it's not too early or too late... it happens to be near here..."

The crew members were whispering, with a strange anxiety in their voices.

Cindy frowned slightly. Her hearing was very good, and this ability would not cause her much trouble. Usually, she would ignore those sounds like ignoring the birds singing in the branches, and when needed, as long as she If you listen carefully, you can hear a very small sound.

Including the dialogue between the two crew members now.

"The chief mate didn't say anything, but an hour ago, there was something wrong with our instrument."

"The captain is looking for someone to repair the equipment at the stern..."

"The radio is down, too."

"Look at the sky outside, is this normal? I remember the radio broadcast I received yesterday. Today should be a fine and sunny day."

Having said that, the two crew members noticed Cindy and quickly forced a smile.

Cindy asked, "Gentlemen, the speed of the boat seems to have slowed down. Is it a storm?"

"Ah, yes... no, no problem, miss, you are safe in the room."

After the crew finished speaking vaguely, they turned around and ran away.

Cindy watched them leave, and returned to the room to find the sky darkening outside.

Drops of water appeared on the glass window.

Is it raining?

Cindy looked out again, but what she saw was not dark clouds, but white thick fog.

The Elizabeth ship seemed to have crashed into a thick fog, and the drops of water on the glass were the condensation of the fog when it condensed.

Cindy's ears moved slightly, and she seemed to hear some strange sounds.

At this time, on the deck of the ship, some passengers looked at the changing scene around them in amazement, some were screaming, and some took out binoculars to look around.

"God, this is really exciting, just like the plot of the movie." Smith said excitedly, smoking a cigar, "The island is isolated from the world, surrounded by fog, unless a ship enters by mistake, it is difficult to find... ...are we going to discover Skull Island?" (Note)

"Skull Island?"

"Yeah, there could be islands with prehistoric creatures, believe me, if that's the case, we'll all be famous!"

Some passengers looked at Smith suspiciously, while others who had seen the film agreed with Smith's statement and chatted happily with him.

"Gentlemen and ladies, please leave the deck and return to the cabin. The fog is getting thicker and thicker. We need to be responsible for your safety."

The first officer held a loudspeaker in his hand and shouted to the passengers on the deck.

In such a short period of time, the fog was so thick that people standing on the deck could not see the chief officer standing in front of the glass window of the second-floor cabin.

Some people became uneasy, and some talked and laughed loudly: "It's okay, the climate on the sea is changeable, I have taken this route at least a dozen times, and I have never heard of any weird places here. There are no dinosaurs, no Skull Island, believe it I, even if I should be in a sea area where humans rarely go, otherwise the secret will not be kept!"

Although the speaker was arrogant, everyone wanted to hear such comfort right now.

Immediately, several passengers took the initiative to invite this gentleman to the restaurant to talk about how he did business between Europe and America.

The regular route of the Elizabeth steamer is from the United Kingdom to Nova Scotia in southern Canada.

Nova Scotia means "New Scotland" in Latin. You can tell from the name that it is the same way as New London and New Orleans in the United States. It is the landing point of the Age of Discovery and the city established by the colonists.The passenger was right, it was indeed a very busy air route.

The ship pitched a little more.

This time, no one cared about it, and only regarded it as a bigger storm.

In addition to the crew who knew the inside story, there was also Cindy.

"grandmother!"

Cindy woke up her grandmother who was dozing off again, and said solemnly, "I heard something bad."

Mrs. Fenier yawned first, then looked at her granddaughter in confusion.

"It's the sound of death...far away, but they're talking..."

Mrs. Finier woke up instantly.

When Germany bombed London, Cindy was only three or four years old, and Mrs. Finier almost survived by holding her between the ruins and the shelter.When Cindy was able to speak, she showed something different. She seemed to be able to hear unusual voices.

The most serious one was in 1952, when 15-year-old Cindy ran back from school and told her that she heard death talking all over the city.

At that time, Mrs. Fenier was still in good health, and her memory had not begun to decline. She immediately asked for leave for her granddaughter and ran to the countryside overnight.

What happened later made Mrs. Fenier's heart palpitate.

In the neighborhood where they lived, many people died. The government said that there was an outbreak of toxic smog, but in the following years, people died continuously.

London is huge, and it's hard to see how large the ensuing death toll is if one doesn't pay attention.

But Cindy always told Mrs. Fenier the voice she heard, and finally they decided to leave England and go to Mrs. Fenier's youngest son, Cindy's uncle.

"We shouldn't be on this boat." Cindy pinched her fingers anxiously.

To her, the ship was slowly approaching death, and something terrible was about to happen soon.

But Cindy didn't know what that would be.

"Take your wooden barn."

Mrs. Fenier directly ordered her granddaughter to open the suitcase.

"I don't care if it's pirates, poisonous fog, or some monster..."

Before Mrs. Fenier finished speaking, the ship suddenly tilted, as if being dragged by something.

Cindy even heard some crew members yelling in horror outside: "Impossible! We are still far away from the island of death, at least a dozen nautical miles away, how could we be affected by the magnetic force here?"

"Shut up, did you forget that the island moves?"

"Do not--"

"There's something wrong with this, it's definitely not normal!"

At the same time, the suddenly amplified sound of death pierced Cindy's ears like a knife.

Cindy covered her ears in pain, looking terrified.

She had never heard such a shrill sound of death.

"Cindy!" Mrs. Fenier hugged her granddaughter and shouted loudly.

Cindy's consciousness slowly sank into darkness, and she seemed to "see" a long and narrow crescent island floating on the sea.

No, it's a crescent moon, I'm a little sorry for the crescent moon, it's just a long, slender and curved spaghetti.

There is also a thick ring of salad dressing around the pasta, oh no, that is grit.

It is like a strange island suspended above the quicksand, and the screams of death come from the quicksand around and below the island.

Layers upon layers of sunken ships were engulfed in quicksand.

Due to the influence of ocean currents on this piece of yellow sand, these sunken ships can still "flow" around the island.

In a trance, Cindy thought that she saw a weird picture in the book, like an aborigine with a shrunk human head and strung it into a necklace...

The remains of these ships uttered the whisper of death without stopping.

Suddenly moving to a halt, Qi Qi stared at the Elizabeth that was getting closer.