The ship, calm and lonely sways ever so slightly from side to side, in unison with the nod on the pit of his stomach, every footstep felt heavier than the last as he replayed in his head the conversation he had had with Alpo a few moments before he left.

“What the hell are you saying?! We won! No one died! We’re all fine, you’re just drunk” he almost shouted to him, just seemingly managing to hold back the endless tirade of insults he wanted to unleash upon him for deserting but the width of a thread.

He was fuming with anger and hoped Alpo would hang for insubordination and robbery; his mind was set. He was going to go upstairs to have a talk with the captain.

“I know you all managed to hold back the mermen, but that only made things worse in the end, I felt it… the sea is angry like never before… it felt the same, just the same as when the waves took my ship away, it’s the same, that sense of doom,”

He saw Alpo’s eyes wandering and didn’t even bother to answer. The old guy was looking at something unbearably far away and the young sailor wondered if it was the drink speaking for him or if it had any truth to it. It was then when he noticed something poking out of Alpo’s ears, something black and cloth-like popping just at the sides of his head firmly lodge inside his ears. He instinctively reached for it, but the old guy slapped his hand away.

“What are you doing, you fool! You want to kill me?”

He can’t hear me. This skeleton-looking asshole put something inside his ears.

“Are you reading my lips?” he asked him.

“Uh? Yes, I am, I won’t let them take me”

“Who’s going to take you?”

“The merrows young one, they are angry, something must’ve happened. This has never occurred before, they’ve never behaved like this, the sea has never felt quite this wrong,”

Merrows, he could scarcely believe his ears. But he knew something was wrong. He too could feel it, the tension in the air waiting for the perfect moment to snap.

I need to speak to the captain

“Kid, there’s no point. They are all dead” Alpo matter-of-factly said that to him, the cold, detached tone he said it with as if it was death itself speaking to him with otherworldly knowledge.

“There’s no way that’s true” he waved him off and reached for the door handle.

“Why do you think he sent you here?” He stopped and pondered for a second.

There’s no way that old fart did it on purpose. He just wanted to fuck with me.

“I won’t stop you if you want to kill yourself, but if you manage to come back, try to knock four times first. "

The ship had grown awfully silent, to the point he could hear the wood creaking beneath his feet as he walked through the pitch-dark hallway, the lights had all gone out and the ominous feeling he felt before now permeated everything around him, he climbed up the ladder at the end of the hall as the bad feeling grew and grew in intensity, he felt like a prisoner walking through the death corridor.

He reached for the hatch; his hand was trembling despite him convincing himself that everything was fine.

Damn Alpo, messing with my head

He pushed it.

Uh?

He couldn’t open it; something was pressing it from the other side.