It felt like they'd been at sea for years, though they'd only been off course for a few days. The captain had seen something on the horizon and ordered everyone below deck - everyone but him and the quartermaster who promised that this wouldn't last. He said they'd be at the closest port as soon as humanly possible.
That was three weeks ago. Someone said they hadn't seen the stars change position even though they'd been sailing long enough to have almost reached the next hemisphere. They went missing the next day, like dozens of other passengers who weren't in their cabins come morning.
Nobody had the energy to look for them or even move more than a few feet from their cabins. Vast as the ship was, all the locked doors and bolted windows made the temperature gradually rise until they all felt like they were slowly cooking alive with every exhale.
The crew were nowhere to be seen and nobody had seen them for little over a week. People started wondering if they'd found a way to escape, to reach the lifeboats on the upper deck and sail for land. Maybe they went and got help and they'd be saved any day. That thought kept the air feeling lighter for a good couple of days.
Then another week passed, more went missing and something foul began filtering through the air. Something fetid was waiting for them on the lower decks and they all knew that if they went down there, they wouldn't be coming back. Just like all the others and all the while the captain carried on chasing that thing on the horizon.
Before long he'd be sailing nothing more than a morgue, if him and the quartermaster still lived.
All the while, the stars never changed their place in the heavens.
All the while, the horizon seemed to rise to meet them in an embrace full of teeth.
No comments:
Post a Comment