With a frown on their faces the girls followed closely behind Sophia and the boys still to explore the other chambers of the ship. There the next chamber they explored was what seemed to have once been a young woman's room. "wow, lovely!" exclaimed Melody as the room was neat and very feminine. "Oh what is this... a diary?" said Sophia upon stumbling across an old diary on the dresser that dated 1670. "Hey put that back where you found it, it is an invasion of privacy to read others' diaries even if they are dead." exclaimed Kristina. "Halt, we may find some clues in it, read it aloud sister, what does it say?" said Yusha determined to find more and more clues as indeed that ship was not only mysterious but suspicious as well. Sophia nodded and began to read.
"Monday 17th December 1670...
I am Maylene de Champagne, daughter of viscount Rosario de Champagne and was sent onto this ship to marry the prince of the Plough Kingdom. I did not want to go, I will now be very far from my mother and sisters, why am I the only one marrying outside Leiden? My father is selling me off to that pale skinned scrawny prince. I heard he had really pale skin, crimson eyes and raven black hair, tall and handsome but he is very mysterious. Anyhow, this ship I boarded is even weirder. It was sent by Plough Kingdom apparently. The crew members are really nice to me too but ever since yesterday I was locked in my room as I was told a severe storm was coming. But I feel the ship is not moving at all.
I am very curious about what is happening outside. And what is weirder I've been smelling something queer lately. A rusty smell, smell of rotten meat. And I hear less and less of the crew members merry songs, as if they have been possessed or are vanishing one by one. All that since yesterday. They are late in bringing me lunch as well and this morning a little girl of about ten on a white tiger appeared in my room and asked if I wanted to play with her, and as I was bored I said yes, then she laughed and vanished in thin air. Was it a ghost?
Tuesday 18th D. 1670
I am starving, I have to get out of this room or I will end up insane, I am very hungry, Have not yet eaten since yesterday morning. I am breaking this door...
Thursday 20th D 1670
I killed them...
As I broke down my room's door and got up to the main deck, to my horror I found that the sails have been torn, it was raining heavily, corpses lied on the floor, corpses of crew members, some were still breathing, but I had to butcher them in order to satisfy my hunger as there was nothing left in the kitchen. As if some beast ate everything. Was it the girl and the white tiger ghosts? Later I found that our ship entered a different dimension from reality. It was a still world, keeps raining and I keep seeing weird things floating in air, hearing children's laughter. I sat there in the rain and stared at the sky for long hours as I could not believe what was happening...Am I going into madness?
I do not know the day or date, but I do know it is 1787.
I have not written in here for a very long time until today I received a newspaper from the outside world that covered the latest ladies fashion of 1787. An eagle dropped in here on the ship with the newspaper. a hundred and seventeen years has passed but I still look the same, still a young twenty three year old lady. I wonder how time flows in this dimension. Thursday 20th December of 1670 felt like a week ago as I didn't write in here for a week or so but you cannot tell when it is day or when it is night time here. It is always dark and humid, cold, the skies are amethyst purple and the clouds are black. But who knows exactly when was the real Thursday 20th December of 1670...
During the past week I roamed around the ship as I was alone and idle, I was looking for the girl on the white tiger but couldn't find them and instead I discovered this ship had a torture room. Why is that? Unfortunately there is not one soul who can answer my questions. Now that a hundred and seventeen years has passed in the mortal realm, I wonder how my family and my fiancé took the news of our ship's disappearance... Was this a planned thing? The route taken was also slightly different from the new one as there was always problems with this route. I heard about a few ships that completely vanished on this route before but that was back when I was twelve or thirteen, since then no ships disappeared so never did I think that this would happen to me.
So I navigated this ship myself across this vast sea of reddish pink water in quest of the other ships that had disappeared and if like me there were survivors but all I could find were debris of old broken ships floating around. However I saw tons of barrels floating on a raft. They were moldy and creepy. I quickly got the barrels on the ship and carried them one by one to the wine cellar. Then opened them in hope of finding some good old wine however what I saw was far from that.
They were filled with butchered human limbs, they looked like they just started to rot, yet again time flows differently here. Then in one barrel, what I found was gold, a lot of gold coins, and jewelry and stones and a treasure map, as well as a diary. When I read the diary, I discovered it belonged to a clergyman of plough's kingdom's king, that is my betrothed's father. It said he was going into madness and met all the other survivors here, on each ship there was only one survivor, that made a total of fifty people but one day when their food supplies ran out, one man went into madness and started bombing the ships, they started killing each other until one man stood and that was the owner of this diary.
He collected the corpses and looted the ships before they sunk and only debris were left afloat. he met constantly with a girl of ten on a white tiger, told her stories, ate the corpses' meat but left the limbs as they were too thin. He developed a strong bond with the girl until he's found out she was an evil spirit who fed on the desperation, anger, fear and other negative human emotions. She took a liking to him and offered to turn him into an a grim reaper too in exchange for his head. He went into madness and tried to chase the girl away daily, tried to find ways to exorcise her, this dimension is one she created. The diary says he left a way to exorcise the girl in a book in hieroglyphs for the next person who comes to this dimension and later drowned himself to his death in this deep reddish-pink sea.
Another day of I do not know which year... Will a falcon drop here this time?
I found the book in another barrel that was floating on another raft. That barrel was sealed with metal shackles but the keys hanging on one of various debris of a ship that seems to have sunk vertically. I opened it and read the book. I wrote the hieroglyphs broken on several parts of this ship in case the ship still stands when someone else enter this dimension. I tried this sorcery or whatever it was to exorcise the girl's spirit for good, but somehow before I could be successful I was going into madness, still am, the girl wants my head in exchange for me to be a grim reaper where I will stop suffering from human needs like hunger, excretion etc... I cannot refuse this offer, living for so long without anything or any hope to look forward to, still having human needs that became unbearable...I have had enough. I am going to behead myself under the guillotine in the torture room!
Whatever day it is now of the year 1870 something...
I am writing now as a headless ghost in a white robe carrying a wind chime... A cute silver haired little brave boy and some men came onto this ship, I heard two of those men died because of staring at me for more than three seconds. Indeed no one shall stare or they will die. The girl on the white tiger killed them.. It is her curse and she got stronger. My ship now always appear back in the mortal realm once every ten years on a stormy day close to a lone ship navigating the rough seas. The girl is still injured from last time's conjure that is why this ship goes into the mortal realm each ten years...
Oh my god... I am out in the mortal realm again...Has ten years already passed? I see a ship with a sunflower emblem... I have to warn them and scare them off so the girl cannot eat them or fool them to grow stronger, her appetite got bigger lately. she has been feeding on sea monster's souls. I have to walk around with my wind chime again, hopefully they will ignore me, not like the silver haired boy with his family.
A while later... Oh no, they got onto this ship, are they that eager to die, they seem so young, Oh my, it is the silver haired little boy, how he grew into a very handsome reliable young man, an eye candy I would say. I have to warn them. If in case you find this diary, please read everything. The way to prevent any more victims is to destroy us. Refer to the hieroglyphs, put the pieces of the puzzle together and perform the exorcism, It shall work, one should stab me in the heart with closed eyes using a crossbow. With me gone, her power will decrease and that is when to perform the conjure as per what is said in the hieroglyphs. I trust you silver haired boy to destroy that ghost for good as well as her dimension. I am leaving this hour glass near the diary, your time has started to tick, once all sand fell to the bottom, your time will be up and if you stay aboard the ship, you will be sucked into the other dimension. Good luck!"
"Oh My God!" exclaimed everyone in unison. "What should we do? It looks like there is only two hours left."