1 Deathmarch

Vinncent woke up with a start and looked over at the digital alarm clock on his bedside nightstand whose red numbers pierced the darkness of his bedroom. It was 5:30am and with a disconcerned grunt said "Great, another day on the infinate deathmarch to hell." Pulling himself out of bed he then walked to the bathroom and started about his morning routine. He showered, brushed his teeth, applied deoderant, combed his hair, and dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt walked out the door of his apartment grabbing his work bag and three granola bars along the way before closing the door behind him at around 5:50am.

He passed few people in the hallways down to the parking garage only passing the occasional housekeeper or attendant until reaching his car. Opening the door to his small two door smart car, tossing his bag inside before sitting down and starting the engine.

The parking garage was rather empty due to it being Monday so there was little problem in backing out paying the toll keeper and leaving the garage. While driving to work Vinnvent opened his bag and pulled out a granola bar and began indulging in his breakfast. After around fifteen minutes of driving though the busy streets of Los Angeles he reached the port where he worked.

The Second generation Pre-Suezmax that the company had been working on for the past month still sat in port while its repairs and maintenance were underway. He then parked his car in the company lot, deposited his bag in his locker supplied by the company and went to his post in the underwater repairs department.

The Cargo liner lovingly named "The Lithe Lady" by its captain and crew, was in for repairs on the port side bow and beam after the captain drove it over a jagged reef hidden just below the sea line outside of the commercial port only three miles away.

The crew was lucky that the incident happened just off shore or else they and the cargo liner would be several fathoms under the ocean. The damage was minimal in most spots except for the long dent that ran along the port side of the ship from the Reef while making several breaches in the hull along the way. How they managed to stay a float was beyond comprehension, but some how they managed to tell the tale with the boat still above water.

It had been an arguous process stripping the damaged segments from the port side and replacing them with the new ones. The ship had just been placed back into the water after the segments were placed and secured. It was Vinncents job to inspect the area where the sections were welded together and make sure that there were no flaws in the junction point. After around three hours of time submerged in the water and inspecting the welds and checking their integrity. Vinncent decided that the segments were in no jepordy of comming undone.

While surfacing he realised that a man stood just above the ladder to the wharfs. Squinting to dicern who it was against the mid day sun Vinncent soon came to realise it was his supervisor Dave. Vinncent was never quite fond of Dave and the oposite can be said as well.

They had clashed many times during company meetings when discussing how to best handle repair and salvage operations that they were contracted to do which often led to shouting matches and, on occasion a physical alterication. They never got along due to their conflicting veiws, Dave had been at the company for twenty years by the time Vinncent joined.

Vinncent always wanted to go about solving problems by using his own knowledge and experience that he had learned in his time on other jobs. While Dave always insisted in doing things "By the book" even if the book didn't cover the smallest inkling of a similar situation that was currently in progress. Although Vinnvent suspected that what really boiled that mans blood was how after one year, Vinncent managed to obtain Daves old position as the Dive supervisor that took him fifteen to earn, while also getting twice the pay. There was a shit eating smile on Daves face as he stood over the ladder and Vinncent knew somthing was up.

After a second of silence Dave called out "Hey Vinncent hows the water today! I hope its not too cold as the lads on the interior of the second Port Beam module said that they saw water leaking in so I was wondering if you could go check it out." after proccessing this information and realizing it was probably just Dave trying to screw with him, he sighed and replied with a quick "Sure, did they tell you on what level the found the leak?" only to be told "no they just said there was one in that segment, but I know with your skills that you can find it." as he walked away.

Mumbling to himself Vinncent once again submerged in to the water. Two hours after scouring over the entire segment there was still no sign of a hole in the seams, no currents no visable or feelable holes, not even a un flush surface. determining this to be just another one of Daves anoyances Vinncent began rising to the surface suddenly a light flashed across his eye.

"The hell was that, it's not bright enough for me to catch the sun like that, not to mension these dive gogles should cover up the light."

While looking around the strange light once again caught his eye while looking down on the ocean floor Vinncent saw a bizzare blue glow eminating from the silt. After swimming down to the source he realised that what ever it was, was covered in about an inch of silt and began to gently brush it away slowly reveiling a jawless human skull with a glowing blue eye in the middle of the forehead.

As Vinncent was pondering over the skull a crane that had been used to lower the segments into place fell off of the harbor wall after sucumming to its old age and mal use. Suddenly there was a strong downward pressure on Vinncent looking up he saw the crane quickly sinking toward him. Two seconds later he was being dragged to the ocean floor by the three ton crane with the skull in hand, pinning him and causing him to head but the skull in the process.

As his vision went dark Vinncent couldn't help smile to himself and think "After working my ass of for eleven years this is how I go out, I wouldv'e prefered dying from a heart attack during a three-some with two brunettes."