[Part One](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/ui7dm3/something_snuck_aboard_my_cruise_ship/)
[Part Two](https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/uiz5bl/something_snuck_aboard_my_cruise_ship_part_two/)
I slightly opened the dryer door and aimed the flashlight towards the staircase. All I had to do was walk towards the staircase and pray that the coast was clear upstairs. They already killed and fed on Laura and Elizabeth.
Maybe they got their full and left.
Hopefully.
I took a deep breath and slowly climbed out of the dryer, making sure the door didn’t open too fast. The smell of copper in the air was pretty heavy and there was also a faint smell of feces.
I slowly walked towards the staircase trying to avoid the torn up remains of what had once been a pudgy stressed-out woman. I crouched once I got there, shining the light up the stairs and into the darkness of the kitchen. Either the lamplight that was upstairs had died out or they had broken it during the chaos.
Before I went up, I had to gather some supplies. I knew that the last of the flares and the map route were stored in the room adjacent to mine. I went into the room and tried to open it, but it was locked.
Either they locked it and took the keys with them, or someone had locked it and kept them for safekeeping. I figured it was the latter because I knew that Jason wouldn’t lock it in case of an event like this. So, it was probably the same person who locked me out when those things broke through.
Laura.
I shone my flashlight onto her corpse and honestly it was so torn that I had trouble finding where her legs were. The top half of her body was located inside of her room, and I felt so nauseous going through her jacket pockets.
I nearly hurled but somehow, I kept it all together. The keys weren’t there but I just knew she probably kept them inside her jeans pocket.
I just had to locate her legs.
Sure enough, I found her bottom half a couple feet away from the room and inside her right pocket was the set of keys. I had to make sure they didn’t move too much because I remembered that keys attracted things.
It was how I used to call my dog back home.
My grandfather taught me that by shaking my keys, Tina, our Maltipoo would come rushing by my side. It made me slightly sad at the thought of Tina thinking that we all abandoned her, but I had to bottle it all down. I couldn’t think of anything besides my next moves if I wanted to survive.
I walked back at the door and slowly unlocked it. The room was dark and small and more of a closet, but I closed the door and lit the lamplight on the shelf. I pulled a map off the wall on the right and searched it for the engine room.
With just my luck, it was located further down in the bowels of the ship. It was around the bottom two decks. The ship was 9 decks high, and I was on the 8th deck. That meant I had 6 more decks to go. I folded up the map and stuck it in my back pocket.
There was a radio set on the second shelf and the bag was lying on the third. I opened the bag to see the contents and my heart sank.
Fuck.
There were only 2 flares left. I only had 2 flares available in my quest to search for Jason and Akio in a 1,000 feet cruise ship full of monsters.
That should be pretty easy.
I walked back up the stairs and shined the light beam around the kitchen, making sure that there was nothing hiding between the steel tables. Both aisles were clear aside from the blood trail that led outside the broken deck of doors.
I grabbed a kitchen knife that was in the sink and held it in front of me as some sort of defense. I quickly crouched on the floor next to one of the tables and shined the flashlight on the entrance. I could see the chairs that were stacked had been thrown around reducing our barricades into nothing but debris.
That was actually kind of perfect.
It meant that I wouldn’t have to climb over them and risk making noise or stabbing myself over a chair leg.
The hallway itself went straight down but there were so many open doors and hallways that extended from it from both sides, that I was kind of scared to go down. Something could have easily tackled me from one of the sides.
Nonetheless, I pushed on forward moving on to the nearest flight of stairs. I tried so hard to fight the urge to peek into one of the rooms but in doing so, I knew that it would lead to my death. If I saw another body or one of those things, I would run off without caring about the consequences.
If I could scream, I would have.
Somehow, I made it through to one of the staircases. Only problem was, there was a thick trail of fresh blood that had been dragged from one of the rooms directly to the staircase door.
I stood there for about a minute debating on whether or not I should open it and be prepared to fight, run away and look for another staircase, or hide in one of the rooms until help arrived.
I decided to look for an alternate route. The other staircase wasn’t that far from here, it was only around the corner on other side of the hallway.
I continued my trek across the creepy empty hallway. What had once been full of life and light now lay bare full of darkness and corpses. Eventually I reached the new staircase, but one thing caught my eye.
There was an old flare laying on the ground in front of the staircase door.
Jason and Akio must have gone through here.
Something must have happened here.
I looked around to see if any of the bodies matched theirs, but thankfully none did. I slowly pushed the door open and began my slow descent into the darkness. I walked for about 20 minutes before reaching deck 5. From there on, it led to a dead end, and I had to push open the door and walk through a large open space full of retail and dining areas.
It was one of the most populated parts of the ship which meant triple the bodies and probably the monsters too.
I peeked around the corner, and I saw that the glass doors that were once there were shattered. I shone my flashlight, and I could see that there was blood and tissue all over the hallway. I crouched and crept towards it, going through one of the holes of the door.
The entire place was covered in debris, glass, and blood. It was even worse than the upper decks because here there was nowhere to hide. The fountain the middle was completely covered in dark blood making it appear like it contained oil instead of the beautiful crystal water it once sprouted .
I couldn’t have imagined being stuck in here once the lights had gone off. It must have been literal hell. I shone my flashlight onto one of the signs on the right that said Starlight Buffet. That’s where the rest of my family must have been when the attack had occurred.
I froze again, contemplating on whether I wanted to check to see what had happened with my family or pushing on to look for Jason and Akio. I snapped back to reality when I saw movement in the corner of where my flashlight beam was aimed at.
Fuck.
I think one of those things was still here.
I quickly turned it off and got down on the floor. I began crawling towards one of the bathrooms near the entrance of some bar. Eventually I reached it and gently opened the door and closed it behind me.
I turned my flashlight back on and hoped that it was just me and the corpse laying in front of one of the stalls. After I checked all the stalls, I relieved myself in one of them and hide in other one.
Now I’m sitting here, writing on this journal waiting for some sort of sign.
Should I look for Jason and Akio, or find out what happened to my family? Part of me wishes that I never woke up to this nightmare. I don’t know if I could do this anymore.
If you find this notebook in the stall of the Poseidon’s Mojito bar, it means I have given up and joined the rest of my family.
But if you find this near the lower decks then I continued on.
Wish me luck.
-Miranda Alcalde