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Salvage Rights

adventure◐ Mature
5 contributors · 3 paragraphs deep

Mara drops fast toward the wreck before Vares can beat her to it. She slips through the torn gash in the hull and into the flooded cargo hold. Whatever they want down here, she will reach it first. Her light catches the edge of a steel crate, chained shut.

As Mara reaches for the crate, the hull groans and shifts above her. The whole wreck is settling deeper into the silt, and the gash she came through is bending shut. She has maybe a minute to choose: the crate, or the way out.

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Mara grabs the crate and hauls it toward the bending gash. It snags on twisted steel as the hull keeps closing. She braces both boots, heaves, and tears it free in a cloud of silt, squeezing through the gap just as the metal screeches shut behind her. She made it out, and not empty-handed.

DH
Dov Hale
7 votes · future 1 of 2