Chapter 2: Saving Life-Pod 4’s Survivor

Swimming was something that Jake had almost no experience in doing throughout his entire life due to his fear of water. So when he was forced to swim in an ocean, that was on a different planet, naked, with presumably larger creatures than on Earth, Jake was terrified.

Because he could barely float, due to the fact that he had almost no fat and was incredibly heavy, he had to use even more energy to make sure that he didn't start sinking. Using the fastest form of swimming, the Front Crawl, he swiftly made his way towards the location of life-pod 4.

While swimming, he encountered some of the many fish of Subnautica, which were quite weird looking compared to most fish he had seen on Earth. Then again, he hadn't taken a large interest in oceanic life, so he didn't know if there were weirder looking fish or not.

Looking at the Peepers, which were the most common, Jake continued swimming as fast as he could to reach life-pod 4 before the survivor onboard met their demise. It took less than three minutes to reach the side of the Aurora.

Due to his strength, how tall he was, and the swiftness of his swimming form, he was able to swim at a speed of 10 metres a second. That speed on land wouldn't be surprising since it was on land, but a speed that fast was almost five times faster than that of a regular person.

Touching the side of the Aurora, he looked below him to see an incredibly large shadow swimming less than a hundred metres away from him, and he nearly shat himself out of fright. A Reaper Leviathan was that close to him, he could practically throw a rock and hit it if he wanted to.

Frozen in horror, Jake snapped out of his stiff state a few seconds after he entered it as he had started sinking, and he swam away from the Reaper. Following alongside the Aurora, he was looking for the upturned life-pod 4, at least he expected it to be upturned.

Not too far away, he saw what he was looking for, except it wasn't upturned. Still upright and displaying the number '4' on the side, Jake swam towards it, but he stopped momentarily when he saw a tail of something large disappear under the water behind the life-pod.

Trembling, he steeled his will and swam faster, he wanted to save the survivor(s) since he actually had the chance to save them. Even though he was an underground fighter, he had only killed a single person, which was the guy that had ambushed him when the plane crashed.

Jake was actually a very warm-hearted guy and that could be seen by just how much he cared about his parents. Even if they weren't his biological parents, they were still his parents since they were the ones who adopted him, took care of him, and made him realize that he was important to someone.

Reaching the life-pod, he took hold of the ladder and climbed onto the side of it to catch his breath for a few seconds, but not for a second longer as he felt something bump into the life-pod. Climbing on top of the life-pod, Jake opened the hatch and peered down at the man inside.

The man looked to be around his mid-twenties in age, he had short black hair and a clean shaven face with average features. He wasn't ugly or handsome, he was just average. Walking around in circles in the life-pod, he measured at a height of 5'8 and weighed in at 60-70 kilograms.

Wearing the same tight suit that Ryley was wearing, he stopped his walking in circles to start recording a distress call, and then he sat down shortly after recording it. Grabbing the hatch leading into the life-pod, Jake opened it and squeezed into the life-pod.

Derek was the name of the man inside of life-pod 4. Despite sounding calm-ish in the distress signal, he was actually panicking immensely, which was only made worse when he had felt something bump into the life-pod.

After sitting down, he had planned to calm down and collect his wits, but then he heard the sound of the top hatch opening. Looking up at the hatch, he saw a monstrously large man squeezing his way into the life-pod, and the man was also naked.

Widening his mouth, Derek wondered who this man was as he had never seen them onboard the Aurora before. Suddenly, the life-pod was impacted by something, and Derek started tumbling around the interior of the life-pod while the large man was holding onto the ladder with an extremely pale face.

After the life-pod came to a stop, Jake did a quick scan looking for anything useful, but he didn't find anything, so he chose the next logical step. Without explaining his intentions, Jake grabbed the survivor of life-pod 4 and shoved him out of the hatch that he came threw.

Moving his ass as well, Jake quickly exited the top of the life-pod, and proceeded to look around the water surrounding them to see if he could spot the Reaper Leviathan. Unsuccessful in his search, he could only guess that it was somewhere deep below them.

"Who are you and how did you get here!?" In the midst of his continued searching, Jake heard a shout beside him, and he frantically turned to the man that he had found. Grabbing him and covering the man's mouth, he then glanced around to see if he could find any sign of the Reaper.

Still unable to find anything, cold sweat ran down Jake's back, and he realized that they had no chance of escaping if he couldn't see where the Reaper was. Turning his gaze away from the ocean, he looked to the man that he saved, and he decided to answer the two questions.

"My name is Jake and I swam here from life-pod 5. I don't have much time to explain as there is an incredibly large predator swimming in the waters, but I don't know where it currently is. Don't make a sound after I remove my hand, it will draw more attention to us and decrease our chance of survival."

Looking at the man in the eye, Jake slowly removed his hand and then continued to look around while ignoring the man. Catching a glimpse of something in the water beneath them, Jake turned a shade paler than he already was.

"Jump!!!" Without warning, he shouted and grasped the man's arm before jumping in the direction he knew that life-pod 5 was in. Right after jumping, a Reaper Leviathan came out from underneath the life-pod and caught in it's mandibles.

Shooting over 70 metres into the air, the Reaper Leviathan came back down with a large splash that pushed the already struggling Jake and Derek further away. While underwater, it crushed the life-pod with it's mouth and mandibles.

Trying to stay afloat, Jake struggled while carrying the man he had saved, who didn't know how to swim. Carrying the man, staying afloat, and swimming away from the Aurora was quite a difficult feat as he knew that if he didn't then he would die.

"That thing is coming back!" Derek shouted out as he was facing the Aurora and saw that the Reaper was speeding through the water in their direction. Turning around, Jake saw this scene and drew in a breath of cold air.

The Reaper would be upon them in less then five seconds. Watching the Reaper getting closer and closer, Jake had a single thought run through his mind, 'Am I going to die?', and he felt sad that he wasn't able to actually save the man from life-pod 4.

5...4...3...2. Just as Jake was silently counting down in, he saw the Reaper come up and out of the water to crash down on him and the man he was carrying, and he accepted his fate. But in the next moment, a gargantuan figure shot out a speed many times faster than the Reaper leviathan.

Everything that he was seeing then appeared to slow down to a snail's pace. Being caught in the mouth of the much larger creature, the Reaper was seen closing it's mandibles to try and catch Jake and Derek before it realized it had been attacked.

The shockwaves spreading across it's flesh from it being impacted were visible for Jake, who saw everything in extreme slow motion, and the next scene caused him to shake uncontrollably. Blood sprayed out from the Reaper as it was bitten in half like it was nothing and fell back into the ocean while struggling.

Splattering onto his face, the yellowish-green blood was like a wave crashing down, which almost drowned the duo that were still mere metres away from where the wave originated. Even after that shock, Jake couldn't have the time to be in shock due to his current physical predicament, and he had to continue swimming towards life-pod 5.

While mindlessly swimming towards life-pod 5, Jake remembered what the creature that had killed the Reaper looked like, and a shiver ran down his spine when he realized what it was. It was a Gargantuan Leviathan, and a juvenile one at that.

'Why is the Gargantuan leviathan here? Is this not the original Subnautica world? And if not, then why was the life-pod in the same spot as in game?' Thinking to himself, he got quite scared at the fact that Garg was here and could potentially kill him in an instant if it truly wanted to.

It took twice as long to actually reach life-pod 5, which was an unsatisfactory amount of time for Jake since he knew that every second counted when he only had 3 hours to save at least 10 people that were spread out across a large area.

A total of 15 minutes was used up out of his original 3 hours to save one survivor, who didn't even know how to swim, on a planet that had very few islands. That is besides the point though since the point of him saving the survivor was so that they didn't die a meaningless death.

Opening up the bottom of life-pod 5, he helped the man up and in before he squeezed inside the life-pod himself. Laying down on the floor of the life-pod, Jake breathed heavily, he was more exhausted now than he had ever been in his life, even when he had been fighting two or three times a week.

While Jake was resting momentarily, the man he had saved was staring at Ryley in surprise, he hadn't expected to see his boss alive and in the flesh. Then he remembered that he wouldn't have been able to if it wasn't for this man named Jake, who he had never seen on the Aurora before, he had never even heard of someone like that on the ship.

"Hello, I would like to formally introduce myself. My name is Derek Jenkins, I'm one of the staff under Ryley, who I hadn't expected to see ever again." Speaking so suddenly, Derek saw that the man who had saved him had flinched when he heard the sound of his voice.

"Hi, my name is Jake, just Jake." Not saying anything else as he didn't quite wish to expose himself as someone who wasn't supposed to be on that ship, Jake then remembered that he still had many other people to save, and he sat up.

Still naked as he didn't have the chance to find any clothes, he looked at Derek for a second, and then he explained what he was going to do. "I'm off to find other life-pods since I don't know how long the others can survive on this planet.

Try and wake Ryley up, he should know how to swim and can gather something that can be useful somehow. If you find that the life-pod starts drifting away, then don't panic, there are nutrient blocks and some water in the small storage box. Oh, some flares as well."

With those last words, he squeezed himself back into the ocean and started swimming towards another life-pod.

(AN. Hello there. I'm Ikizumari, this is my fanfic, and I'm sorry I haven't completed the chapter faster. I'm kinda lazy and watch too much YouTube, which is why it wasn't completed faster. I can't delete YouTube since I'm using it for research and help with the fanfic. Peace out peeps)