“Here come the men faces hidden from the light768Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLYNM97b8MW
All through the shadows they come and they go768Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzU39gFq17t
With only one thing in common768Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡabhM9b8UXN
They got the fire down below.”
~“Fire Down Below”
Bob Seger
The moon caught on fire that night.
The sky was ominous, the sea was awoken with a metal beast churning through the choppy current, and a volcano was grumbling, waiting beneath the world to ignite the ocean into flames. The Crescent moon hung low above the horizon chasing the beast between clouds as it steamed away. The moon gave off an eerie light like a flashing neon sign with gradually dimming bulbs.
Within the beast two men sweated profusely as they stared straight ahead into the black vast expanse before them, older brother peering determinately over the shoulder of the younger. No words exchanged between them, silence surrounded them, solitude was their only ally. Shallow breaths and silent prayers could be seen in the dim red light provided by the lone illuminated switch taped to the overhead. The air was rapidly getting thinner, the last of the four standby oxygen bottles were expelled moments ago. A bitter smell like rubber cement replacing the ever-draining presence of breathable air.
The abyss engulfed them like a runaway flare from the hottest reaches of Hell.
The journey had taken longer than was planned. Longer than the contingency even. These last hours had been cramped, nauseating, silent… and proud for the two brothers. They had been waiting their whole intellectual lives for the moment that was about to arrive.
The younger brother turned and locked eyes with his mentor. He started to speak, his older brother immediately lifted his head and moved it port to starboard ever so slightly. The younger brother cut off his own sound before he could utter a single syllable. He heard his older brother in his head, wavelengths shared by a common father: “Minimalist effort, maximum rewards.” The same words his patriarch and uncles said before they each had died. Before they became martyrs.
They were just a molecule in the sea, plowing through a blazing ocean of streaming magma.
His eyes were still frozen on his superior, unable to wrench away. The mentor saw his panic, that look of desperation in his baby brother's eyes. The same brother that he helped raise, that he protected, that he taught to fight. The look was getting more strained, it was now a look of defeat.
A loud, muffled horn could be heard from above. The younger brother jerked his gaze up to follow the sound and gulped in a fleeting gasp, the last breath of air he would ever inhale. There was a burning hot clamp around his throat. In disbelief he lowered his sable-brown irises to his older brother’s. The younger saw the elder's eyes say, not “I'm sorry,” but “this is necessary, for Allah; Minimalist effort, maximum rewards.” The younger of the two found peace in that despite the inferno squeezing the final drops of life from his lungs. With the last of his energy, he grabbed his older brother’s forearm, not in resistance, in acceptance that he has become his brother's motivation.
The mission must go on, it must not fail, and each brother now knew their exact part they would play. The younger brother’s pupils dilated, he convulsed slightly, his feet stamping on the loose floor boards partially covering the Semtex-laden bulkheads, then he slumped his head backward resting peacefully on his brother's chest.
The older brother stared ahead out the leaking starboard porthole at the wake forming on the water’s surface above, his hand softly rustling the younger's hair. His lungs were burning and his throat was petitioning him for air. By the time turbulence was felt in the small submersible attached to the undercarriage of the HMAS Prestige, the older brother knew he was drawing his last few breaths. He held his breath as long as possible between gulps. His neck straining to find an untapped air bubble at the top of the submarine as if he were drowning in a fast rising torrent.
He struggled to reach his hand skyward to the only light illuminating the inside of their steel cage during the last eighteen and a half hour piggyback tour of the twilight lit Arabian Sea. He steadied himself with his thumb and forefinger on the thin center beam running the course of the tiny submersible and flipped open the glowing safety cover to the trigger fastened to the overhead with the finger that was once reserved to playfully extend a bird to his little brother. He gulped for invisible oxygen, but that which for his whole life he relied on to breath but could never see; Now, he could see the breath in front of him floating in the cold hull, but it was not the oxygen that he had previously taken for granted his short sixteen years of life.
He felt his lungs start to decompress and internally crush the last remaining life out him. He tried to fixate his eyes down at the hollow host sitting limp before him against his legs with drunken results. He wanted to look into the eyes of his brother again and soothe his fourteen year old soul. He would have been fifteen next week. He would have yelled 'PRAISE ALLAH!' to help his brother's spirit to heaven, but no words could be spoken at this point, not even a whimper. In slow motion the older brother's hands started to drift freely in the air away from their target. He opened his mouth and his face uncontrollably contorted wide, eyes burying themselves into the top of the skull. He reached with all the ounces of strength he had left for the switch pulling the taped wires to the deck with him and with his last sliver of his soul....
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