The Last Captain: Part Three
Miller woke early from a solid stretch of uninterrupted sleep. He was spry as he got out of bed. No hangover. Compelled by the sudden freshness, he decided to dress. He snatched the same clothes he'd been wearing and put them on. He didn't really feel the need to dip into his truck right now, or even the whole trip. I'm at sea, he thought. Who is here to kind besides the Captain? They aren't dirty to the point of changing yet. After clipping his golden galleon pin, Miller stepped out into the hallway and onto the deck. The Captain slept still.
The dawn sky was a hazy shade of light purple, as were the clouds, if not slightly more saturated in color as the sun rose. He casually patrolled the deck by foot, and the horizon by sight. Still nothing at all to be seen. It was quiet and brisk, the particular chill of morning air. No doubt being surrounded at all angles by water would cool the air after not being hit by the sun for a night. The sail didn't look to have picked up any more momentum from the wind. The ___ still cruised on leisurely. After Miller circled the deck, he took to the ladder up to the nest again. At the top he drew his telescope for a more thorough scanning of the sea and horizon. Looking around and back again, there was not yet a visible shadow or structure.
There came an unexpected squawk from the sky, brighter now. Miller aimed the telescope upward to find the source of the noise. Towards him flew a Gull, gliding through the air without flapping its wings, ominously swooping down to Miller and the nest. The Gull landed on the guard rail right before him. He found it peculiar that it would land here, right next to a man. The Gull stared straight into Miller's eyes for an immense moment. Both would not blink as eternity seemingly passed by. Their stare was locked and perhaps unbreakable. Then came a new feeling like Miller had never felt before. It was eerie, jarring even through silence. The maddening curiosity increased as Miller's gaze seemed almost to zoom in slowly on the Gull's face. Still they did not blink, for the stare was too powerful to resist. As his view of the Gull slowly grew, his mind was scrambled. The modulation reached its end when Miller and the Gull now shared a gaze like they were an inch away from each other. The Gull's eyes were dark. It had some sort of expression, it might seem ridiculous, but Miller believed so. The Gull appeared to him as a stoic and foreboding creature. The stare reached its climax as a perplexingly soft yet powerful voice slithered directly through Miller's ear and into his own mind. The voice was not something to be heard, it was an inaudible statement that sounded like it came from himself, but he know he did not think this voice. He felt ever more nervous with the strange words of another resonating from within.
"I am your messenger of doom."
_
Captain Krade jolted from a frantic sleep drenched in cold sweat. He sat up sharply, his breathing hasty and irregular. He felt around his arms and shoulder to happily find them still attached. He got out of bed quickly with no second thought about getting dressed. The Captain circled the perimeter of his quarters a frenetic mess. He looked to the walls and studied them, empty now. No carvings, no blood, no man. Instinctively, he disregarded the dream, last thing he wants is a nightmare getting the best of him. At his desk he poured a shot or two of rum into a wide mouthed glass and downed it without hesitation. He sits back down on his bed trying to calm down.
Another glass of rum.
_
"Do you know that you travel with a cursed man?" The Gull inquired to Miller's psyche.
"C-cursed? The Captain?"
"The vessel you stand upon now sails the sea, everything we know and live. You are alone on... This ship. But you are not alone here at sea. Unseen by mortal eyes, you are bound to another vessel. The Great Galleon of the sea itself. Though you would never know it, this ship is accompanied by the Great Galleon. You have experienced it though. The carvings on the walls, your drawings of unknown origin. It's already crawled into you. You travel alongside the sea and its specters." Miller didn't know how to respond, but tried his best anyway.
"But what do you mean, cursed?"
"Your captain is an ungrateful one. Atop these waves, we are all simple pawns in the sea. The sea is our lifeline and possible demise all at once. But your captain refuses the sanctuary offered by the sea." The Gull still remained silent while communicating with Miller. It had such lifeless eyes. "He's stirred up quite a bit of trouble, and all those taken by the waves aren't fond of him. You're wrapped up in it too. The captain will surely take you with him to the depths."
"I don't understand, what are you saying?"
"I thought it was simple." The Gull said. "The captain is on a downward spiral to hell, and you're right at his side. You mustn't allow that, would you say? Do you wish to live? Your captain is your enemy, Miller. What action must be taken is for you to decide, but you will die out here as long as the captain inhabits this vessel." Miller arched his brow. "In the simplest terms, it's your lives, or only his. The captain will die, that much is true. But you don't have to. You can still make it back home."
"Captain Krade is like a father to me, I couldn't do anything to... Remove him from the equation. I couldn't hurt him, let alone kill him."
"You could, Miller. Very much as he could kill you. You must make a decision."
The door leading below deck swung open like a tempest as Krade rushed to the deck.
"I... I don't know-"
"Miller!" Krade yelled. "What are you saying up there?" The startled first mate jumped at the call of his captain. He looked down, then back to the perch to see the Gull had disappeared, and back to Krade.
"I was just talking to myself sir! Scanning the sea still, no sign of anything yet."
"Well then you can come down here." Krade said. Miller obliged and carefully descended the ladder.
"How long have you been up there?” The Captain asked as Miller planted his feet on the deck.
"I got up early today, before the sun was up. Just trying to find anything out there."
"Nothing huh?" Krade said stiffly.
"Nothing." The Captain's face grew closer to a scowl, slowly abandoning his once true affability.
"Okay, well... It's a new day, go about it, Miller."
"Sure." He said, recalling the mysterious warning of the lone Gull. The bird was a surreal character, and Miller was torn between feelings of dread and contemplation. Without another word, the sailors separated themselves from each other and patrolled the deck on either side. Miller had a new thought in his mind that he didn't want. But as the Gull said, he can still survive. Pacing around, he spoke to himself quietly.
"Am I crazy? No, that Gull, how could that be? It's impossible. But on the other hand, I feel deeply compelled. The message of the Gull was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. Perhaps I'm not crazy now, not yet. It would only be logical, just a hallucination after however many days at sea, empty sea. And yet, I felt such a stern truth regarding our conversation. What might it mean for something to be too real? Passing by the general restraints of all that we can see, hear, and touch. Surely I didn't sketch those drawings on my own doing. My first sight of the wall carvings was our very first day out here. I couldn't have been crazy then, just a day at sea. I cannot fathom how long it has been already, how long since then. How far we've gone with no sight of any of the islands, or anything at all." He looked to the sail, still catching calm winds. "If I didn't know any better, I think we'd have reached a complete standstill." Miller paused at the edge of the hull to gaze at the sea and sky. "What is this curse that the Gull had warned me of? Maybe we aren't moving, maybe the bulging sail is just an illusion. An illusion held up as long as the Captain roams this ship..."
Krade found himself paused as well on the opposite end. "That boy seems, rattled." He said to himself. "I wonder... I wonder what he is thinking. It doesn't appear to me as benign. There's something wrong on the ship."
_
Later that night, the Captain rested but Miller remained on deck pacing nervously. All he could think about was the Gull and its warning.
"No," He whispered. "I can't hurt the Captain." The sky was that deep fog of purple again, filled with thick and darker clouds. "Man, he says. Man is the greatest evil to be found at sea. What would a man do after receiving such information, that he will die. He is not a superstitious man, and chances are he would continue over and over shoving it away. But what if he believed it? What might a man do in attempt to acquire any sort of salvation, even if it were unattainable?" Miller started thinking about the Captain. "If he knew that I can get away from it, he might not take too kindly. A dying man is a desperate man, or an unleashed animal... What am I saying? Of course the Captain cares for me. If he knew he didn't have a chance while I did, wouldn't he encourage me to go on?" He began growing more nervous. "He would, right?"
With his hands in his pants pockets, Miller still roamed the cool night deck. The same wind at the sail. He looked to the sky, no Gull.
"Well of course I would choose to live. Wouldn't anyone understand and support that in the same situation? It's up to me though, I cannot live while the Captain does as well... But I'm uncertain of that idea. I cannot live sharing a vessel with the Captain. Whether or not he must die is something I don't know. Damn it. Where is any of the islands? Where is anything at all? At the moment, continuing on is the only thing we can do. No, I can't kill the Captain. Can I abandon him?" Miller thought but didn't have an immediate answer as he did with regard to killing Captain Krade. "Is the curse sea bound? Can we press on living back on land? I don't know. Absolutely anything. There's nothing certain in this rigmarole of concepts. As the Gull said, I would live on after... Disposing of the Captain. That is the closest idea to certainty. Everything else is too ambiguous, would I live or die? I don't know, and the Gull had not a message for anything else. Of every option, just one was claimed and supported. The most conflicting choice I might ever have to make. Do we die together, or do I unchain myself from the curse?" Miller thought now of the spirits mentioned by the Gull. "Oh Captain, what will happen to you?"
-
Captain Krade awoke to a cold fluid dripping onto his face from the ceiling above him. He opened his eyes and squinted straight. There was a deeply red puddle staining the wood. Suddenly, the puddle dispersed from all angles and rushed to the floor. The Captain, barely awake as he was, thought he dreamed into a false awakening. But as the puddle reformed, the Man of the sea rose from the fluid, now plain to see that it was blood.
"I wonder, Captain, just how much can be taken from you before you throw it in." Krade grabbed his right arm with his left hand.
"Would you look at this! It's still here! You haven't done anything to me, you can't. It's just these damned dreams!"
"Perhaps you are all back together on your vessel, Captain. This one we are in now." The Man turned his back to the Captain. "But you're sticking with your choice aren't you? You choose not to be my disciple?"
"I don't think you can hurt me." Krade said, still holding his arm. "You're not in control anymore, you can't even touch me." The Man scoffed quietly.
"More persuasion, then? I would have hoped you had a change of heart. Well, we should pay a visit to my ship." The Man made the usual motion, and Krade returned with the sea to the Great Galleon, but it was nothing but gruesome terror that he felt. He found himself back in the circle of arms, complete with his own. The Man towered before him and studied the Captain's person. "Hurts, does it not?" Krade still could not speak here. From the darkness behind the Man appeared another robed figure, this one of red. The Man melted into the floorboards, leaving the Captain and the spirit alone. This one was not as hasty as the last. He sluggishly circled the Captain's prone and injured body before lifting him from the circle by the throat, and slamming him into the wall. Krade's skull crashed directly beside a single candle holder on the wall. The spirit pinched the burning candle in between his fingers and held the flame to the Captain's face. Try as he might, Krade cannot cry out from the excruciating pain. The spirit held it there for who knows how long, but the Captain could feel it. The spirit held the candle with an uncompromisable grasp. The hair on the Captain's face has all but burnt away, and his flesh began to bubble and char. The spirit had a hand around Krade's neck like a monstrous constrictor snake, holding him to the wall with his feet off the ground. The spirit then threw him to the ground like a worthless animal, he was crying, but silently. By the ankles the spirit dragged the Captain back the arm circle, and familiarly drew a blade from within his robe, but this was much more sadistic than the last. It was slightly rusty, definitely an old tool, but clearly sharp enough to glide through tendons with no extra force at all. The spirit was at Krade's feet. He flipped him face down in the circle and promptly drove the blade directly into the Captain's calf. The blade was long enough to slice through the skin and muscle to jut out of his shin to the floor. The Captain's blood did externally flow once again. The spirit recklessly removed the blade from it's flesh cocoon and retrieved a new candle from the wall. He knelt down and held it on it's side directly above the wound, dripping freshly melted candle wax onto the anatomy of the Captain's torn leg. The wax dripped onto the exposed and bloody bone, it hardened quickly to join all the tissues. The Captain's tears and blood continued to soak into the wood that his face rested on. The spirit paused and stood up for a moment before flipping Krade face up. With both massive hands, he gripped the knee area of the leg and began to force the lower portion of the leg to meet the upper half. The leg shattered finally, and created an absurd angle. The flesh tore at the knee while the spirit simply continued to treat Krade's leg like a stuck lever until completely detaching from the bones and ligaments that held the leg together. The Captain lie in the circle, mutilated even further, blood spewing from the knee, crying.
"Let's take it slower, eh, Captain?" Said the Sea.
_
It was late by the time Miller retired to his quarters. But in his room he continued the manic thought process with the fear of the Captain's own increasing in himself. "I can't sleep." He said, sitting outstretched on his bed against his pillows. "What if the Captain comes in here while I'm asleep? What if he's only waiting?" He sighed. "Waiting for what?" He looked to his desk and approached it. He sprawled his drawings about before him, leaving a new blank sheet as his focus. "What else is there?" He thought to himself while picking up his pencil to sketch. It began again, he was out of control of his hand, but it sailed all over the paper, not even leaving it once. It appeared to him that a man was being drawn, all the while the lines replicated themselves on the wall behind Miller, unbeknownst to himself. "Who is this?" The illustration came to a halt and he heard a moist squish behind him. He jumped in fear and turned around to see the Captain's likeness step forward from the wall. Miller hopped to his feet and anxiously recoiled in terror, gripping the wall behind him and inching away from the bloody Captain.
"You still haven't an idea how long it's been, do you?" Spoke the distorted figure of Captain Krade, which now slowly crept forward to Miller. "Of course not. Doesn't that frustrate you?" Miller was shaking and silent. "You do remember your route, don't you? It was simple, head due north. After so many miles you will reach your first port. But you haven't, you haven't even seen anything. I can tell you that the ship hasn't strayed off course even by a single degree. But where is the island?"
"You're not Captain Krade, I know it."
"Maybe I'm not, but I am your captain all the same. I am everyone's captain. The man you travel with is not fit to be a captain."
"Why do you say that? He is a legend!"
"No, he is not fit." The line of sight of them both met and locked. "You however are young and promising. I would hate to see you swept away just because you are affiliated with that man. All the time you know would slip away, forever binding you to the sea, fading into eternal obscurity. " Miller likened this to what the Gull had said before.
"And I'm supposed to erase him, aren't I?"
"That's up to you." Miller thought about his motives and now had a strict plea from two sources. Without a parting word, the bloody pseudo Captain melted into the floor.