Chapter 29 Shipwrecked
Xiaoyu
I have basically been efficiently “removed” from his presence.
Have you ever been so heart-broken, so angry, and so fucking done at the same time?
Yeah, that’s me. Whatever the hell this fever dream is, I just want to wake up.
I just want the reassurance that this had all been a figment of my imagination instead of real life.
Because if this is real, I don’t know how to recover.
Sniffling, I still manage to pull on some protective gloves and take several flower spikes of foxgloves. I hate how it reminds me of him. God, how am I going to move on when my life and career centers around things like these?
No matter. I’ll make myself feel better soon.
Alani runs up to me, a question in her eyes.
“We’re killing the captain tonight.”
Her jaw drops. “Who will man the ship?”
I love that she doesn’t even care we’re committing murder.
“We will woman the ship, lady!” I think I found joy in my stupid joke so I cackle.
“You’re upset and not thinking straight.” She says softly as she attempts to take the spikes from me. I know she’s just trying to help, but there’s no reasoning with me.
I will do whatever the fuck I want.
“Stop making me feel like I’m insane!”
Some of the crewmates walk up, and I see Ingar with all his glorious culty tattoos. He is one of them, too. I should have known.
“Professor,” he holds his hands out to take the flowers. “Hand those over to me.”
“Oh, for sure!” With that, I hit him with the bundle of spikes over his head, again and again until I began losing my breath.
He’s a champ, though. He takes hit after hit, not seeing the danger of the flowers.
“You motherfucker! You dragged me into this mess!” I hiss as more people surround us.
“This is the trip home I promised you.” He says calmly. “Let’s get you home, yeah?”
“Did you take me here because I’m unwell, Ingar? That I’m very prone to self-harm? And when I say shit like I met plant people, they’ll just think I’ve completely lost the plot?”
Alani gasps, and that’s all I need. Her shock, her horror and abrupt comprehension is all I need to confirm the truth that Moriarty had been bringing troubled women here to be food. No one is going to miss them. I bet most of them don’t have family who care enough to look for them.
Once again, I feel like the problem because I’m the one crying. I’m the one heart-broken. One day, I will not shed a tear over things beyond my control. One day, I will not care so much for people who don’t have the decency to respect me. One day.
But today, Captain Moriarty must die.
Ingar doesn’t respond to me at all because he knows I’m right. I hand over the flowers to Alani.
“Here, keep those. Don’t get them close to your mouth.”
These fuckers just thought foxgloves were flowers. I’d never been so triumphant at humanity’s stupidity. Ingar walks me into the ship, silent and menacing. My hand finds the knife in my pocket. I have the irresistible urge to stab someone, but too much excitement can ruin the plan.
Alani bows her head and steps away. I turn to follow but Ingar redirects me to the mess room. I’ve never wanted to hit someone so bad.
“Listen to me, Lin.”
“Hell, no, I’m not listening to a word you say.”
“You may want to listen to this one. I’m doing you a favor.” His grip around my arms is firm when he shakes me. “When the ship arrives on the first dock to Whiterock, they will send you straight to a facility for mental evaluation.”
Appalled, I wiggle away from his grasp. “They’re gonna make me think I’m insane!”
He purses his lips at me. “At this point, you may be a little bit insane, right?”
“Hell, no! Say that again and I’ll—” I snarl at him, and realize I’m just proving him right.
“It’s not just you. It is everyone. You go a little insane when you’re always hungry, right? And it’s the fumes, too. Heightens every damn thing imaginable. Brings out their truest self.”
“So…I was hallucinating?”
“No, that’s why humans want what they have so bad. Everyone back there is fucking blunted. The island makes you feel to a degree that you become a caricature of who you truly are.”
“So I really am a psycho killer?”
He ruffles my hair like I’m a kid. “Probably.”
“What about you? You don’t seem too different.”
“That’s because I know who I truly am before getting here.”
“Alright, Mr. Self-Actualized.” I politely remove his hand away from my head and step away.
“Remember that everything in Esoterra—”
“Stays in Esoterra, got it. I signed a fucking NDA, but given the events that have occurred, it should nullify everything. But okay, I can pretend not to know what happened.”
“No. Everything in Esoterra is real. Don’t let them make you believe you’re crazy. Goodbye, Professor Lin. Thank you for your sacrifice. I wish you well.”
“Wait, where are you going?” I yell as he turns his back from me.
He walks backward and spreads his arms wide. For the first time, Ingar smiles at me. “I’m staying. This is where I belong. With Teva.”
This man has gone insane, too. He just doesn’t know it.
For all intents and purposes, the weather forecast doesn’t exist with Captain Moriarty.
We brave the tides even when there is zero visibility, and now the ship is groaning, the metal fighting against the massive waves.
Thank fuck that we aren’t on a wooden pirate ship like before, or we would be gone by now.
“Don’t worry, it’s just Dreigg. He’s mad at us for not warning him ahead we are passing by.”
Alani’s eyes meet mine. We are basically locked inside the wheelhouse with him and the navigator—surprisingly—is Alani. I never thought of her as a crewmate. I thought all the women here were just captives, given how horrible they had treated her.
I’m dying to give the captain an aneurysm, so I ask not-so-innocently, “Why don’t you have another man as the navigator, Cap?”
“Women follow instructions better.” He mutters as he clicks something that wipes the windows. “Plus, I’m not gay.”
Alani and I shoot each other bewildered looks.
“What does this have to do with having a female navigator?” It’s Alani who asks sharply. “When you use me, you always have the men to look at.”
I want to hide or the world to swallow me whole. This had not been what I expected to bring up. It’s sad how Captain Moriarty cannot accept that he is, indeed, inclined sexually to the same sex.
“Listen, wife, one of the reasons why I came to this mission was to restore my manhood. I, your husband, can actually say I did it for you.”
“You don’t get to call me wife. A wife deserves better. You do not deserve the title of a husband. You aren’t even fit to be a captain. From now on, this ship is mine.”
That took an abrupt turn.
As if on cue, Captain Moriarty coughs, spewing saliva all over the deck. His skin turns blue as he chokes. He isn’t poisoned though, something was growing inside him, blooming out of his mouth. He gurgles, dropping to the floor as he claws at his throat.
Alani and I just watch him slowly, painfully die.
I guess the foxgloves here aren't just poison. They also grow inside you.
“So…Captain Alani, any instructions?” I squeak.
“We will wait for Dreigg. He will come. We will give Troy’s body as a sacrifice.”
“Dreigg is the Kraken?” The one who stole Laura?
“I don’t think he’s a Kraken. More like a giant sea snake with tentacles.”
“A giant sea centipede?” I feel like throwing up.
“Oh, I don’t know, I haven’t seen him. I just see his tentacles.”
The ship groans loud, but something feels different. Amidst the slamming rain, we hear the crew outside yell. Alani and I watch beyond the windscreen, and the waves are knocking everything on the deck. One crewmate gets swept off, the ocean taking him.
But it’s not just the man that’s possibly dead. It’s all of us.
“This is your new captain, Captain Alani, navigating the vessel Moriarty main ship 62-Z. Dreigg’s passage with twenty-seven crew members, valuable cargo. I see twenty-foot waves approximately ten seconds away from us.” Alani’s voice is calm through the intercom.
I can’t believe she’s taking this so smoothly.
My heart is in my throat as I clutch at her arm. “Are we dying today?”
She gives me a pat on the hand. “No one is dying on my ship unless it’s by my hands.”
My heart’s racing as I wrap my arms around her. “It’s alright, it’s just Dreigg. Hold on to something that isn’t me!”
Hopefully he just doesn’t pluck the first person he sees, and takes the dead captain. When the waves plow into the ship, my vice-like grip on her and the table isn’t enough to keep me stable. My ribs slam onto the dashboard, and I topple to the ground.
Breath knocked out of me, I watch as Alani hold on to the handles of a drawer. Papers scatter all over us, but at least there isn’t water leaking into the wheelhouse.
“You good?” I shout.
“Fine! Just hold until the ship stabilizes again.”
Our center of gravity changes once more, and I’m back on the floor, my knees, arms scraped and bloody.
“Holy shit!” The new captain screams.
My eyes find what she’s looking at, and I have to do a double-take.
“Is that Laura?”
The woman on the deck waves at us, smiling with a bioluminescent creature beside her.
I guess Laura found her monster, too.