☠︎︎ 10. Something Wicked This Way Comes☠︎︎

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— the boy in need, the boy scared, is

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— the boy in need, the boy scared, is

bloody, but he won't fall to his knees

captain's here, captain's there

oh, god, please, he has to be somewhere —


Chay put a hand on his chest, feeling how fast his heart was beating. Slowly, he calmed himself down, taking one deep breath after another. "It's okay, Chay. That guy won't hurt you anymore."

On his tiptoes, with careful slow steps, Chay approached the poor guy... or what was left of him. He unhooked one lantern from the ceiling and raised it to see the man's skull. Chay shivered, this was the closest he had ever come to a dead person. Yes, his parents were dead, and his grandfather died when Chay was little, but he never actually saw them dead. And he certainly had never seen a real skeleton.

Looking at this guy—not like Chay was an expert—but there didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary. It wasn't some kind of haunted skeleton that would wrap its bony fingers around Chay's neck and strangle him right on the spot, right?

Chay took a couple of steps away from the guy, "sorry, matey. Nothing against you, but just in case," Chay nervously chuckled.

The skeleton clothes were torn almost into pieces. The brown trousers, white shirt, and a golden medallion hanging from the neck, a couple of rings on his fingers— "a pirate?" Chay whispered. "I guess you and Kim weren't friends, huh?" Or maybe this was captain Archer's job. Obviously, a body doesn't turn into a skeleton immediately after death.

"Hmm, but why are you still here?" Chay asked the dead man. He looked around, focusing his attention on the chair standing in the middle. Simple wooden chair, but... nailed into the floor?

"So," Chay sighed, "chair nailed to the floor, traces of blood on the chair and the floor, and the scary skeleton guy in the corner." One didn't need to be Sherlock Holmes to realize, "that fucker locked me in a bloody torture chamber!"

What now? Chay looked around. He could breathe just fine so there still was enough oxygen, but could the oxygen run out? No, right? There was oxygen flowing in from under the door and through the small cracks in between the wooden planks of the ship. Yes, that made sense. Just stay calm, Chay. You can't let that bunch of drunk clowns win!

"Stupid pirates!" Chay decided—the only pirate he liked was Kim. The others... he was going to keep an eye on them.

But what now? He could only wait. But how long? When would Kim start missing him? And would that even happen? Or, Chay took out the Ruby Red and held it in the light of the lanterns, "would he only miss you?"

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