Through the crying night sky, the rowed boats planked to the Mad Treasure. The men climbed to the enormous ship, each of them helped one another to reach the deck. Glee all over their faces, smiles that wouldn't leave. Despite what had happened back in the estate, they could not stop their joy upon seeing the glasslike jewel of a compass.
The news of their return hit the galley, the remaining crew passed through the rain, soaking them in quick pace. The faces of those who came back shone through the dark sky, the unsaid victory rushed to everyone rapidly.
Out of those glorious faces, the gun master loudly boosted his cheers. The heavy armories were lifted back to the ship, successfully taking the mayor's ammunition. It was indeed victorious, the shining jewel in the hands of the captain that stood in the waist of the ship.
The compass.
They all blithely celebrated, fighting the noise of the weather with their sound. They felt the triumph of their start, their beginning. Some even hugged each other, almost lip locking one another through the joy and adrenaline of adventure that ran in their veins.
The navigator rushed to the captain, his eyes shining with the glimpse of the compass. Hands trembling as it reached unto it, the captain, although quiet ever since he walked with the combatant from the estate, flashed him a smirk.
An assurance sealed in their eyes, understanding by both minds. The feeling in their boy's heart jumped at the realization of their journey finally coming to a step. After all the years they tried, countless failures that had almost met their demise.
Finally a concrete beginning.
Hakim pushed himself to the two, embracing them both. The announcement of his vice—captain achievements, as he decided to take half of the credit to the victory. Calling the navigator out for his worries and doubts, praising his captain as he did.
"I told you mate, our captain will get us through." Hakim stated.
"As if you did not just tell him you will take mutiny."
Felix smirked, calling the man off his statement.
"I said if there were another ambush that would harm the crew, I would."
He rebutted, challenging the blue haired navigator.
The captain chuckled on his own despite the feelings of uncertainty and confusion that had grown inside him. The mayor did ambush them. Well, he was ambushed with his words that never left his mind, the horror in those riddles shook him. The unknown identity of someone begged his curiosity and abundant determination. He could not shake it off, it was all he could ever think of.
Every word crumbled his world, never finding peace with his thoughts.
"What shutting your boisterous mouth, Pirate King."
Felix wondered when the usual reaction of this man was to laugh loudly and scream his accolades. Hakim heard the question, taking a look at Axel himself to see the navigator's statements. Despite how hard Axel tried to hide it away, the two caught on quickly.
The events in the Mayor's estate were visible in the look of his emerald eyes.
His words stayed in his mind, not giving him a break as those fragments of interpretations dominated his whole comprehension. Meaning, the words were uttered left valid confusions that separate his demeanor to everything and everyone. Axel's mind wandered, towards the mayor, the compass, the curse, to her.
Who is she?
"Captain?" Hakim reached out to him, his dissociating appearance worrying the two.
"Captain, are you alright?" Felix asked.
" What if..."
Gerlad''s voice echoed in his head, eerily taking all his focus and swallowing his orientation.
"What if..." he whispered amidst the loud noise of his celebrating crew and the rain.
"What if there were no curse..."
Was there a possibility that Mayor Gerald was telling the truth?
That there was no curse in the beginning, and she was a hoax?
The two men looked at each other when they heard the man, looking ahead absentmindedly. He looked like he was nowhere with them but somewhere else instead. The chaos around them had seemed to be ineffective to him. The words that seemed to be a prophecy lingered in his mind.
Who is she?
[ The mayor seemed to know her, but how and why. ]
If only he could choke those answers out of his mouth, he wouldn't be standing in front of his celebrating crew like he just lost something.
" No cur...se?" Felix uncertainty repeated his statement, unsure of what he meant.
If there was no curse, then why did he set sail in the first place? With nothing but rage and vengeance, why did he set sail?
Because of her.
Axel, at the young age of eighteen, embarked the sea for the first time as the captain. With fire in his eyes, and darkness in his mind and heart, a broken soul. Sailed set with comrades he picked along the way, cursed all with him. Seven years later, the voyage continued on with no hope of taking their grasp away from the curse, Axel could only hope for a way to take his crew and ran away.
If there was no curse at all?
Then will all be in vain?
His crew's sacrifices, trust, work, his pain, his vengeance.
Was that all in vain?
"Just forget about it." He dismissed quickly, making the two men look at him confused.
"What was that all about?" Felix dumbfoundedly asked Hakim.
Hakim has no answer but a complete blank stare he gave to his captain.
"Mate, taming a certain demon must be dangerous to one's mind." He shrugged, pointing to the fact that Calev had lost it again and Axel used the taming spell.
"Captain probably lost it."
Felix eyes widened upon the information, frantically searching the crowd and hoping to see the combatant. He was nowhere on the deck, thankfully because this noise would only trigger him.
"Is he at least sane now?" He asked, tugging the gun master's arms.
Hakim eyed him with judgment in his eyes while he took his arms out of Felix's grasps.
"Scared ass." He spat, laughing lightly before following his captain steps towards the hatches.
"I ain't scared of anything else, might I remind you I am stronger than you."
He exclaimed, wanting to erase those judgments in those winter gray eyes.
"I am the sharp shooter motherfucker." The gun master laughed, in which Felix had no way of denying.
Although he still had another retort for the silver haired man, he was left alone in the deck alongside the crew.
"Alright motherfuckers!" Felix called all their attention.
"The demon is amongst us, I don't know if he was tamed or nah! But I bet the captain had hold against his neck, just don't trigger him."
He informed the once happy and celebrating crew, now their eyes widened upon the news.
Some of those who witnessed the event in the island whispered the further details.
"Aye!"
The crew rushed to the hatches and through the galley for celebration, careful not to bump into the combatant. An order of booze from the noisy men punctuate towards the sickbay and through the deck. Zeki, who was busy on his own, decided to attend and see the famous compass for himself. Yet his eyes lingered to a lonesome combatant who sat on his own in the corner. His eyes immediately met Axel, as if they could hear their own words Zeki quickly understood.
His aura was different but no way unfamiliar. The crew of course had noticed this upon arriving at the galley, the demon was upon them. The tales of what happened lingered through whispers and prayers as he just sat far amongst them.
With the assurance of the navigator, they continued to drink away hoping that no one would trigger him as he tried to calm down.
"Go to the sickbay, now." Zeki commanded softly.
The doctor opted him to rest in the sickbay where he can rest with the aromas of his burned herbs. The man sternly sat down, hands and jaw clenched, his eyes still burning aflame as his mind circled with blood and murder.
He hadn't calmed down yet, not even slightly.
But the command from the voice of his captain rendered him stuck on his feet. He was conscious of course, his breathing coming back to normal as Zeki spoke his way unto the combatant mind. He had taken care of this situation for so long that he knew exactly how to slowly revert the demon into being Calev once again while in the state of calming down.
"Lay down your rage." The doctor easily does his job, being the best at taking care of the slaughter tendencies of the man.
However this time, he failed for the first time.
"Calev?"
Normally he would calm down with the voice of Zeki speaking to him about nothing in particular. Sort of like a magic that hypnotizes the man into going back and hiding his monster.
He would just focus on his angelic voice, it could be minutes or hours but he would successfully calm down. That focus however was disrupted as his anger rushed into his veins in a speed light.
It's all because of one thing.
Her screams.
...
Writhing in what seemed to be agony, had the woman recklessly shake in her sleep. Sweats bundled in in her forehead to her neck, tears slowly escaped in a downpour with no signs of stopping. Cries and groans withered in her lips, getting louder and louder as the moment passed on.
Threaded with constant utterance of begs, the room filled with her sound and the calling for her consciousness by the frantic quartermaster.
Despite the effort of the man to wake her from a nightmare, she could not hear anything or anyone. As if her hearing had been evoked and any possibility of coming to her senses has rendered undone. In her mind, abuse and traumas of unrecognized events had tied her to the nightmare.
The scenes of familiarity to her body but the mind failed to recall. She continued to cry in horror, fighting no one in her sleep. Trying to escape the scenes that haunted her.
In her dreams was a woman in a torn dress on a dirty floor. She appeared to be conscious but unmoving, the setting around her reeked of filth and danger. Contrasted to her body with vulnerability, her mouth fell out with curses never fitting a woman with elegant dress and pretty face.
A woman of what seemed to be nobility, the traces of aristocracy contradicting-ly spewed out words of sailors in her pretty lips under her weakened state. Her eyes red with hot tears and anger, both dropping as she felt the flood of black magic in her veins forcing her to sleep.
She heard the laughter of the men that surrounded her, a muscular man coming close to the woman's proximity, pouring another bottle of potion that paralyzed her.
There she watched the nightmare unfold in front of her, the woman groaned silently as she was getting dragged by a man. Her body gushed as the hard floor stumbled on her skin. Grazes and cuts silently greeting her, even the clothed areas failed to protect themselves from the harshness of the ground she was being dragged on.
A wince of pain erupted in the lips of the unmoving lady, where in the brig she was thrown into she continued to curse and threaten them. But no words ever left her mouth or had enough energy to open it.
Suddenly she saw the man; the one that she had seen in the busy pub. The man that triggered any kind of fear in her body. The menacing smile on his chapped lips, his seething and devil eyes, forcing himself towards her. He locked the brig in the most horrific moment. In her surprise as she watched the scene all together, everything shifted like water in a pail. Falling out effortlessly with a single tap and kicking on it.
Next thing she saw was her, exactly at the position of the woman she saw.
Suddenly she was her.
In the brig with only fear in her company, her immobility in both limbs caused her to panic. As she tried to push the man with difficulty, right in front of her vision was the man at her sight. Too close for her liking, her body shrunken on his touches.
The assault of his mouth burned the skin of her neck, the grip from his hands in her wrist, pinning her against her will. Cynical laughter was heard, her cries grew louder, finding nothing but begs. His actions stopped, his eyes bored into her like a monster wanting to devour her. In a span of a second his face disappears, and in front of him was a new man that he could never know the identity of.
It speaks with groundless words that she couldn't understand. The repetition of his voice produces more of her tears, the air in her lungs no longer breathable.
The words stabbed her heart multiple times yet she has no identification of why.
'You have to live, you who is ordained by her. Live and come back to where you truly are.'
'To her.'
His eerie voice shouted through her tears, the cries of battle in his actions almost getting her attention. Only until his appearance was once again shifted to the same man she saw, corrupting her, traumatizing her to no end.
She screamed for help, she begged for help but it seemed like no one was allowed to hear her. His hands traveled to her delicate neck, her sweat gliding unto it with heat that burned her being. The warmth allowed her to gasp for air, only to be sucked right in when the grip tightened.
Then the faces in front of her continued to shift, showing her countless faces that added to her fears.
There in her eyes, a fearsome combatant choked her to death. His eyes were dark with fury and rage, the cynical laughter never stopping. She closed her eyes tightly as she tried to breathe only to wish for death when she saw who it was that strangles her continuously.
The eyes of the quartermaster that she feared the most held her in the most amusing way she could ever see.
The eyes of a serial killer that slaughters many for entertainment. The eyes that she never wanted to see from in the form of the quartermaster herself. She cries a prayer in her unmovable lips, the grip tightened around her neck.
The weak hands on her sides slowly move, stretching the hands of the man that tried to kill him. Through her tears, the vision turned blurry. The figure of the man slowly ceased itself, but the strong hold on her neck had never loosen for one single bit.
Her eyes widened in horror, feeling her lungs contracted as she stayed eye to eye with a new pair of eyes that would forever haunt her.
Her own reflection above her, the eyes of Lucifer coming across her hazel ones.
Her own eyes glaring at her with murder on its glint, yet the sweet smile on her lips made her scream. She screamed too loud that her throat tore. She felt every tissue and linen scratching itself before giving up.
The hoarse voice echoing the whole brig and to the drums of her ear where the horror of its sound strayed on her brain. She felt herself drifting as she could no longer gasp for air, her eyes giving up the light and through it she saw herself turned into another man.
This time, the eyes of the pirate king killed her.
She screamed.