Seraphiel and Hiro walk on the creaking floorboards and walk down the stairs deeper into the cabin. The place is littered with people strew about, looking nervous. The woman in the red coat appears behind them. She identifies herself as Mev.
“Sit down here and don’t come out until you’re told to, got it?”
”How long will it take to get Lyeer?” Hiro spits out. Mev looks at him wide-eyed, then grabs him by the ear and pulls him close. “Madam, you are not to expose the Kingdom in which our leader resides.” She lets go before turning around and walking out. She slams the door behind her and locks it.
Seraphiel is the first to turn around and look about. The crowded cabin was trite in its decor, but the Cairnreach nobility all looked timid; eyes lingered on him and Hiro. Hiro takes a seat at the closest chair, and Seraphiel follows. He feels nervous now for the first time in a while. He feels his stomach bubbling and a nauseating feeling rising from his chest to his throat. His head feels light, and the boat on the strangely turmoiling sea seems even lighter. He looks to his right and sees a man staring at him. This man was tall, freakishly so, his arms long and thin, his complexion especially pale, and his head spattered with hair in no discernible pattern. He looks, eyes lazy but forced wide, mouth agape, tongue fluttering by his tonsils, breathing heavily; now he looks to Hiro, who is picking his nose.
Is this what it’s like being a woman? This mouth breather is making even me uncomfortable.
For seemingly no reason, he jitters and begins laughing to himself quietly; he puts his hand out as if shooing someone off and covers his face with the other. “No, no, no, no, I was serious, not yet.” He mumbles to himself. He tenses and strains and brings both hands to his face and wheezes before erupting in loud laughter.
Those around him lean into each other to avoid him.
“Is he, y’know?” Hiro nudges Seraphiel, gesturing with his eye towards the man.
“Hopefully.”
Seraphiel feels dizzy as the laughter persists, and he falls into a trance, blacking out. He succumbs to sleep.
He dreams.
In this dream, he has no body, no form, he is a spectator. He drifts through the land with no fauna or flora. There is nothing but the cracked land, steaming and slowly vibrating. He looks upwards; an eye is looking down at him, like a human looking into a snow globe. The pupil is so large that he mistook the darkness for the night sky. The eye keeps staring at him.
"Arh". Seraphiel shoots up and falls off his chair. He quickly scrambles to his feet. Hiro is hunched over, snoring, and the strange man is sitting straight up with a fixed posture. Every few seconds, he lets out a yelp, like a soldier responding to his officer. Everyone else is still huddled together away from the man.
"Miss, are you alright?" A woman whispers to Seraphiel.
"Yes, I am fine, thank you" He brushes himself off. Once the man left his field of vision, he felt someone breathing on the back of his neck, and he turned to see the same sight.
"What's your name?"
"Im-" Seraphiel panics; he doesn't know the name of this alias.
Mev opens the door. "Miss Looney" She looks at Seraphiel, "can you and", she looks at Hiro who is snoozing, "Lucy come up here for a moment."
Looney and Lucy? Why Looney?
Seraphiel smacks the back of Hiro's head, stirring him awake. Hiro jolts up and strikes back. "Come on, Lucy."
Seraphiel and Hiro walk out of the cabin. Mev walks in front. They look up and notice they are underwater.
Seraphiel starts to gasp even though he was fully capable of breathing. He grasps his throat. "Calm down, there is a barrier over this place you can breathe". She carries on walking and hops off the boat; they follow. "This place is 1000 metres below Lyeer, deep under the sea". They walk past stone pillars and statues, walking a long way down under purple trees until they reach a wooden lodge. Upon swinging open the door, the sight of two single beds placed opposite each other at the west and east walls of the room. There was an iron furnace with stoked flames in the corner, burning wood, and a rugged carpet was placed in the centre.
"Thank you for your patronage." Mev slams the door. She shouts from behind the door. "I'm going to fetch the others now!" She locks the door with Seraphiel and Hiro inside and walks away. "She locked us in? Creeeepyy." Hiro adds reverb to his voice in order to unsettle Seraphiel. Seraphiel was not concerned; he could easily destroy this whole lodge in an instant if he wanted to, but there was still something unnerving about this whole ordeal. "I'm drained, man", Seraphiel stretches. "I'm gonna head to bed, " he collapses onto the bed and falls into a deep sleep once more. Hiro sits atop his bed, deathly bored. He walks to the door, trying to pull it open. He tries picking the lock, but it won't budge. He smashes his fist against the window, but it is made of some sort of plastic, which bounces back. He kissed his teeth. He sat about for an hour, warming himself at the furnace and doing as many push-ups as he could.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
Someone was tapping on the door. Hiro walks to the door and shouts, "Can you let us out now, please?" He hammers on the door with his fist as a response. Silence.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
"Hello, can you let us out? This is pissing me off now."
This ushered forth a response. Muffled laughter, and a barely intelligible and equally inaudible whisper "??? ??? ?????".
"What? I can't hear you." More unintelligible whispers paired with giggling follow. A finger nail glides across the door, three sharp lines.
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"W???????."
"Window?"
"W???????."
"Alright?" Hiro walked to the window. He didn't have a means to open it, so he didn't see the point of it, but he acquiesced and went along. He walked with his back to the door as he could see a long fingernail sticking through the gap of the door, as the bottom was trying to poke something. He looks to the window.
The same horribly tall, pale man from the ship. His head is hunched forward, and he stands back so his lengthy neck can allow him to peek through the window. His eyes are squinted as if he is thinking. He opens his mouth wide and breathes on the glass, leaving a condensation mark.
"Alright, man, what the fuck." Hiro grabs Seraphiel's foot, shaking him; he won't wake up. "OI OI OI OI, " he shouted so loud the floor shook. The man at the window followed. He laughed quietly and whispered "oi oi oi".
Seraphiel was dead.
His body was cold.
It was paler than usual.
His eye was dry, his lips were cracked, and his foot was rigid.
Hiro lets out a whine. "Oi man, get up, there's something wrong with this guy." He runs to Seraphiel's face and throws 2 hammer fists on his nose. All that came from it was a dull thud and his head moving like a rag doll.
The man at the window started blinking rapidly, then stopped blinking altogether, his eyes left the sockets slightly, protruding abnormally. Hiro was strong, stronger than most men. But the fear he felt in this moment was unmistakable; he knew it was not unfounded. His body started to heat up, and sweat pooled in his shirt and socks. His eyes became watery and his body itchy.
"????? ???? ????? ??????? "
The man at the window's eyes are bulging out of his head, the veins are red, and the iris seems to be detached. It moves with a delay.
He covers his mouth with his hand as he whispers into it, looking around the room. He looks down at the windowsill, and he looks to the door. He looks at Hiro. He doesn't seem to care for Seraphiel. His attention is solely on Hiro. He walks backwards, straightening his head, and he turns around and runs off. Hiro breathes heavily. He pulls out the card Sol gave him, looks at the symbol, and begins to tear it. He can't. He feels as if he has lost all strength in his body. In his mind, he is tensing and straining his neck, but his hands won't grip. His fingers slip as he holds the card, trying to tear it. He puts it in his mouth and tries to chew the card. The muscles in his mouth feel weak now, and he can't move them. He walks to the fire and tries setting the card on fire. His hand freezes again, and his muscles feel weak. He drops the card to the floor as he can't take the pain in his muscles now. A fingernail from under the door stabs the card and drags it back through. Hiro's body feels so heavy he is compelled to walk to his bed and sleep despite the situation
He falls into a deep sleep.
Seraphiel and Hiro wake up at the same time.
Both of their beds are soaked with sweat. Hiro notices pain in his nose as if broken.
"I had a strange dream" Seraphiel says weakly, he walks around the room.
”Me too.”
Click.
The door is opened and Mev stands in the doorway. "It's time for breakfast". She walks in and grabs Seraphiel and Hiro by the hands, she walks them far away to a picnic area. Everyone from the ship is present. They are all siting at benches made of wet wood. The man from the window is sitting alone on the floor, he has a slight smirk on his face and his eyes look towards the floor as if it was from modesty.
Hiro and Seraphiel languidly sit at the bench. Food is placed in front of them on a sickly yellow plastic tray along with plastic spoons.
Potatoes and sludge.
No, sludge would be misrepresentative, it was a paste of rubbery pink solid which melted continuously. It reeked of spoiled milk. It had lumps and waited to move when no one was looking.
“Madam Looney was it.” Seraphiel slowly turns to the woman on the boat who addressed his fall.
“i am Gwyn”, she put out her hand, it was frail but svelte and her eyes were large and round.
Seraphiel shakes her hand and simply nods with a smile. Only now did he notice that she too was drenched in sweat and had an uncanny look to her . She put her head with a towel when noticed Seraphiel looking at the moisture and said, “I heard of your assistance to the leader, it's frankly amazing but may i ask what sparked such generosity?”
Hiro gobbles down the potatoes but turns to throw up after smelling the paste.
Seraphiel ponders for a brief moment, he say’s quickly, “The King of Cairnreach needs his supporters and we decided to take that role?”
”King of Cairnreach?”
Mev rushes to him lifting him up from under the arm. She whispers. “Say that again. If you would like to donate something special to the next meal”.
She drops Seraphiel back to the bench and runs off as if nothing just took place. Gwyn’s face is riddled with confusion. She leans closer to his ear.
“You know?”.
What do you mean you know? Your all from Cairnreach why else would you be here?
He is clearly profoundly irritated but he replies with a, “of course, how do you know?” Acting as if he knew what the secrecy was all about.
“I am here. I am here because of that”, she gestures towards the man with the malformed… everything. He is still grinning looking down.
“okay…what does that have to do with the question?”
“What i mean is”. She stops herself thinking it easier to shut up. She turns and eats as if her attempt at talking was overridden. She turns slouched over herself, her quilt white, she leans away from Seraphiel and the others as she dispenses eyedrops into her eyes. “Ugh” her nose started to leak spontaneously. Only when she turned away had Seraphiel noticed she was missing an ear similar to his missing eye.
Can she even see my eye? Is that part of the alibi? He thinks to himself.
The man stands up now, he starts to wail, before stopping instantly and smiling widely as if waiting for a reaction. “Madam. Maaaadaaaaamuuh” he starts to sing or, attempts to sing. Everyone carries on ignoring him while Mev walks up to him slapping him on the top of his balding head.
Hiro breaks his boredom by quickly turning to Seraphiel and Gwyn. “Alright, lets play a game two lies and one truth.”
“Sounds fun” Gwyn replies. “You go first il go last.”
Hiro thinks. “I am a woman, I am a man, I am a hero.” He sniggers and nudges Seraphiel’s knee who is profoundly unamused.
Seraphiel yawns, “The truth is you are a woman!”
“Stupid.” Gwyn says mockingly.
“Yeah that was stupid and easy il go.” Seraphiel replied blankly.
“No no” Gwyn wipes her lips and leans closer she points the fork at them.
”to be honest I'm surprised you could get a game with such a simple premise all wrong.”
She locks eyes with Hiro and then shifts to Seraphiel.
”That was two truths and a lie”.
She smiles
“I can see you.”
