Twenty Minutes to Hell

102.

Not even the lapping of water on the hull, there was no sound, only music. The lilting off carnival music was everywhere. Even though Gilbert and Clarissa had ear plugs in the sound was in their heads. Carl wasn't around or if he was Gilbert couldn't find him. The ship itself seemed to be unable to move. They were sitting dead in the fog waiting for something, or nothing Gilbert couldn't tell. Clarissa's vomiting at least had stopped so that was a plus.

Gilbert didn't know what the entity of the forest wanted though. It had tricked/trapped them on the water in its vessel for some purpose, but it wasn't getting to it. Gilbert had not so much invaded its space this time, he'd been invited in, and that scared him he hadn't caught it until it was too late. Clarissa was more worried, she'd been the one to hurt the entity last time, and now it had her trapped on a ship where it could do whatever it wanted.

"Puppets." The skies parted and a large sea creature emerged. Both Gilbert and Clarissa knew this creature was not an actual thing. It was still very large and imposing, basically the forest showing how much it over powered them just in form. The music was at least gone, that was nice.

"What do you want?"

"You're death isn't that obvious." The sea monster was gone, the carnival barker back, though he looked worse for wear, as if burning down the forest had hurt it.

"So then kill us." Gilbert didn't like playing games, Clarissa wished he was a little less "asking for death."

"I want to go on the record of wanting to live, I have some laundry I want to do."

"The ant demands its death, as if the master cares about its wishes."

"Oh fuck off with all of that." Gilbert pulled a flare from his belt and tossed it toward the carnival barker. The creature recoiled as if stung and the fog seemed weakened for a moment, as if the flare was actually piercing it. The music returned, but standing near the flare helped.

"What's in the flare and tell me we have more of them."

"We don't, and it was kind of my in case of emergencies use item, I uhh don't have anything left, when it burns out that thing will be back for us."

"So how much time do we have until it burns out."

"Like twenty minutes."

"Well then I hope we can get the ship moving in twenty minutes Gilbert!"