Day 367

The sea gives and takes just as much as the land does, only the sea is subtler.
It does more than landslide tsunami wreckage.
Who knows how many people it takes, how many slip away with no note left.
It doesn't leave a trace, the fish take care of that.

The sea takes around 200 people per year on cruise ships alone.
They are assumed to have fallen off into the sea or stayed behind.
Few people know that the key to successful voyage is to appease the waters.
It is assumed that one person per ship is lost but the truth goes far deeper.

Our sources say they take one per port for luck.
Depending on the journey it could be anywhere from 3 to over 20.
Not everyone follows this though, more modern captains prefer alternative methods.
The waters are so temperamental its near impossible to tell if they work.

Instead of a living person drowned alive exactly sixteen miles from port they use blood.
Exactly sixteen pints from any poor creature and exactly sixteen miles out at sea.
Nobody has been able to say why sixteen is such a vital number for these rituals.
So few of our sources returned from their investigative trips.

We can only hope that they pleased the oceans enough.
Too many vessels have been lost to its ravenous hunger and wrath.
What proof do we have aside from the few reports that survived?
We can at least assure you that the practice of sea-pleasing is very much alive.