Doomsday: Trapped with the Ice Queen CEO on a Ghost Ship of Mimics

The overwhelming stench of blood inside this cramped, three-square-meter cabin was almost enough to drown me.

Outside the door, the spine-chilling sounds of mastication and the agonizing shrieks of a woman had just died down. Suffocating darkness pressed down on us with a physical weight. The only source of light was the flashing red emergency beacon that occasionally threw a harsh, bloody glare through the crack beneath the door before the backup power failed.

"Stop trembling," I ordered, keeping my voice low. It sounded as rough as sandpaper grinding against rust.

The woman I had pinned against the corner was Elena.

Just two days ago, she was the untouchable, elite corporate CEO aboard this top-tier luxury cruise. She wore Italian haute couture and accepted the fawning praises of the world’s elite with a champagne flute in hand.

And I? I was just a bottom-tier, peripheral bodyguard paid to do the dirty work, someone not even deemed worthy of entering the inner cabins.

But now, the barriers of social class had been utterly shredded by those monsters outside.

The ship’s deck had been reduced to a literal purgatory.

Yesterday, a group of armed pirates hijacked the ship. Whether by accident or by design, a bizarre biochemical virus was unleashed into the ventilation system. Waiters who were casually carrying trays suddenly had their heads split wide open down the middle, revealing barbed tentacles that violently ripped out the passengers' throats.

All laws of human civilization evaporated into the thin air over international waters. All that remained was the primal law of absolute slaughter.

In the darkness, the cruise ship violently lurched with the ocean waves.

Elena had lost her high heels long ago. Losing her balance, she let out a sharp gasp and pitched forward.

Instinctively, I stepped up to act as her human cushion.

Thud.

Her flawless, statuesque body slammed directly onto my tense chest.

The silky, custom-tailored fabric did little to block the transfer of body heat. Under the extreme claustrophobia and the razor's edge of death, every sense was infinitely magnified. I could distinctly smell the expensive iris perfume wafting from her hair, now mixed with cold sweat. I could feel the frantic hammering of her heart and the soft curves pressing tightly against my thigh.

The Ice Queen—who usually only allowed me to bow my head and call her "Boss"—was now clinging to me like a frightened fawn. Her chest heaved heavily against mine with rapid, panicked breaths, creating an unavoidable, intense friction.

It was an ultimate, intoxicating intimacy laced with a heavy sense of the forbidden.

But I didn’t have the luxury of savoring the heat rocketing through my veins, because footsteps echoed in the corridor outside.

They weren't human.

They were wet, sticky, and accompanied by a sickening slither—like a giant mollusk dragging itself across the carpet.

It stopped right outside our iron door.

Sniff. Heavily labored snorts seeped through the crack.

The sharp olfactory senses of the Mimic had caught the scent of the living.

BANG!

A violent impact hammered the iron door.

The entire frame shuddered violently, and the rusted hinges shrieked in protest.

Elena stiffened instantly. She bit her lip so hard she nearly drew blood, holding her breath entirely.

"It found us..." she whispered, her voice as faint as a mosquito's, drowned in utter despair.

"Find a weapon," I said, skipping the bullshit. I forced her half an inch away from my chest. "Behind you, on the bottom shelf. Feel for it."

Trembling, Elena turned around and bent over.

Her movements were severely restricted in the tiny space. As she fumbled blindly in the dark, the hem of her tight pencil skirt continuously brushed against my abdomen and hips.

The astonishing elasticity and warmth felt like pouring gasoline on a fire.

But I gritted my teeth. Relying on the absolute, cold rationality I’d forged through years of underground boxing, I kept my eyes entirely locked on the iron door that threatened to buckle at any second.

BANG! Another devastating blow. A horrifying dent bulged visibly in the center of the door.

"Ah!"

Elena suddenly touched some cold metal object. The rough edge sliced her finger, and she recoiled in fright.

On pure instinct, I shot my arms out and pulled her securely into a rear embrace.

"Don't make a sound," I growled into her ear.

Maintaining the hold, my right hand slid forward along her waistline and grasped the object she had dropped.

It was heavy, with a coarse handle—a fire axe.

The moment the thick handle settled into my grip, the familiar, mind-numbing instinct for violence honed in the underground fight pits flooded every fiber of my being.

CRASH!!!

On the third impact, the stressed metal lock exploded!

The iron door was violently ripped apart by immense force. Backlit by the pale, ghostly glow of the corridor, a monster standing nearly two meters tall squeezed into the storage cabin.

It still wore the uniform of the First Mate, but its head was split entirely in half like a blooming, carnivorous flower made of gore. Four or five slime-covered tentacles thrashed wildly, while acrid, yellow acid dripped from its maw.

The Mimic unleashed a guttural screech. Its tentacles snapped forward like whips, aimed straight for Elena, who was still locked in my arms!

"Ahh—!" Elena let out a scream of pure terror and squeezed her eyes shut.

In the splinter of a second before the tentacle could pierce her throat—

I let go of her without hesitation. My left foot slammed onto the steel grate floor. Drawing from the brutal torque of my waist, the muscles in my right arm surged as I swung the heavy fire axe.

There were no flashy martial arts moves here. Just the most savage, most lethal arc of slaughter.

CRUNCH!!!

A sickening sound of shattering bone echoed like a gunshot in the tiny cabin.

The heavy axe blade dug in at a vicious angle, cleaving directly into the center of the Mimic’s split head and surgically severing its central nervous system.

Thick, pitch-black blood erupted in a high-pressure fan, splattering across half of my face.

The monster froze mid-air, its tentacles convulsing weakly.

My expression was deadpan. I raised my combat boot, slammed it into the monster's chest, and viciously yanked backward with both hands.

Squelch. Thud.

With a nauseating sound of flesh tearing, the lifeless carcass slumped to the floor, pooling foul-smelling dark blood.

Dead silence.

The only sounds left in the cabin were my own heavy pants and the rhythmic drip-drip of blood sliding off the blade of my axe.

Elena slumped in the corner, staring up at me, dazed.

Her gown—worth millions—was torn in several places, and her pristine skin was streaked with dirt and grime.

The residual light from the corridor fell onto the side of my face, which was coated in wet, black gore.

She watched as I practiced violently flicking the chunks of meat off my axe. In that single, visually arresting display of raw violence, every ounce of her former aloofness, arrogance, and superiority was utterly obliterated.

Taking its place was an unprecedented shock, and a woman's most primal, physiological reverence for absolute, dominating strength.

She suddenly realized that in this blood-soaked purgatory where laws did not exist, her money, her status, and her corporate empire were less than worthless. The only thing that could keep her breathing was the man standing before her like a god of death.

Her chest heaving, Elena gritted her teeth, as if making a point-of-no-return decision.

With trembling hands, entirely disregarding the fact she was exposing herself, she roughly tore open a hidden pocket on the inside of her gown. She pulled out a sleek, titanium protective vial from against her skin.

Click. She pressed the switch, and the casing unfolded.

A glass vial filled with a deep blue liquid was exposed to the air. The liquid emitted a hypnotic, dangerous luminescence, illuminating our tiny space.

"What is that?" I narrowed my eyes, keeping the fire axe raised.

"The Abyssal Purified Serum..." Elena tilted her head up. Her eyes were red rimmed, and her voice carried the vulnerability and resolve of someone surrendering everything. "Those armed pirates weren't here for a ransom... their real target was this serum I'm holding."

"This serum is the key to stopping those monsters. It can prevent the apocalypse!"

Holding the glowing blue vial with both hands, she offered it to me with the solemnity of a ritual sacrifice, pressing it firmly into the center of my palm.

The cold glass container still carried the scalding warmth of her skin.

"Arthur, I'm giving this to you." Elena stared right into my eyes. The dictatorial tone of the CEO was completely gone, replaced by begging and absolute surrender. "Take me to the blast-proof bunker on the lowest deck... and everything I have can be yours."

I wrapped my fingers around the vial. The blue light reflected in my pupils. I didn't say a word.

But we both knew. From the moment she handed over her only trump card, the master-servant dynamic between us had been definitively reversed.

I stashed the serum securely into an inner pocket of my tactical vest, hefted the dripping fire axe, and threw a cold glare into the corridor.

The faint blue glow of the serum only made the black blood on the floor look that much more jarring.

The overpowering stench of the Mimic was rapidly spreading through the maze of hallways.

Just as Elena braced herself to stand, I suddenly froze.

"What's wrong?" Astutely picking up on the sudden rigidness of my muscles, she instinctively grabbed the hem of my shirt.

I didn't answer.

Because from the depths of the darkened corridor, originating from the lowest stairwell, there came a sound.

Slap... Slap... Slap...

It wasn't just one.

It was a dense, suffocating wave of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of squelching footsteps. Accompanied by those gut-wrenching roars, drawn by the scent of fresh blood, they were flooding toward our deck like an unstoppable tidal wave.

The Mimic swarm was here.

This storage cabin, now stripped of its door, was a complete death trap.

And to reach the blast-proof bunker on the lower level, we would have to tear straight through a hallway that was about to be entirely clogged with monsters.