Milford woke up to the sun in the middle of the sky. He wondered how he'd slept so long without having to eat or anything. Speaking of food, he was hungry.
He stood up not even five seconds after waking up and ran to Ajax, who, surprisingly, was still steering. Max was sitting in a chair behind him.
"Where are we?" Milford asked.
Ajax slowly looked at him, obviously tired. "About halfway across the Atlantic," he replied.
"What's there to eat?"
Ajax paused. "I..."
"You don't know, do you?" Max questioned.
Ajax, in fury, suddenly stopped the boat, stomped his way to two fishing poles that were conveniently placed to the right of Max, took hold of them, and ordered them to "go fishin'." "Jesus, he's been angry lately," Milford thought.
Milford and Max stared at each other in unison, then proceeded to take the fishing poles out of Ajax's hands.
They then heard a flush and out Pablo walked, bags under his eyes from not enough sleep. "What'd I miss?" They asked stupidly.
Both of them ran to the port with worms that Pablo gave them a moment before. It took about twenty minutes, but Milford finally felt a tug at his pole. He didn't hesitate to start tugging back.
But, suddenly, he felt a burning sensation inside his brain. "Oh, damn," he thought with the little strength he had left to even think. "It's happening again." He hadn't had one of these in a while. Milford let go of the pole in sudden weakness and sank to the floor. The last thing he saw that he knew was real was Max shouting, although it sounded very faint, and felt stomping towards him, most likely Ajax.
The vision started almost instantly after. It was a spinning image, going up, disappearing, then coming back, only from the bottom this time. It was almost like looking at it while spinning inside of a wheel. The image itself was extremely blurry, as if you looked at it without glasses on. As the still image kept spinning, it gradually got closer and closer, making it easier and easier to see. It was just a few blobs for about a minute with no sound.
Then, it became clearer. They were Milford's parents. Both of them were smiling, as happy as ever. But, there was a catch. The background, although a beach with waves, had a distant mushroom cloud in the background. The vision ended with a deafening sound of a nuclear bomb in his ears.
Milford's eyes snapped open. He felt exactly like he did in his cabin not even a week and a half ago. Max was panting, Ajax was just staring at him, Pablo looked concerned, and all of them were kneeling over him.
Then the questions came up.
"What did you see?" Ajax asked.
"It must've been psychadelic or something like that, right?" Pablo wondered.
"Why did Horomir even bring me?" Max was still persistent.
Milford signalled to all of them that he didn't want to talk about it at the moment, so Ajax, Max, and Pablo all nodded to each other and left him to lay there.
Milford, who noticed before that the sun was in the middle of the sky, decided to look back at the firmament and realized it must have been thirty minutes since he'd had the dream.
He didn't have anything to do, so he got up and started to walk around. He didn't take ten steps before he heard Max shout, "Lunch is ready!"
Milford turned to his left to see Pablo with a grill, behind the steering wheel, setting a half-cut salmon onto a plate. Milford's stomach growled in pain as he ran over to the folding table where Max was about to sit.
About halfway through eating, Milford supposed it was time to tell Max about his dream. Ajax would overhear from steering the boat.
"Max, I had a...a vision of a nuke in the distance, close to my parents. Al-almost like a precognition."
"Where did the nuke explode?" Ajax asked, not even taking his eyes off the sea.
"It was near a beach," Milford told him.
Ajax abruptly threw his hand on the table. "Which beach?" they yelled.
Milford, in shock, uttered, "I-I don't know."
Max looked angry, almost furious at them. "Ajax, damn it, let him think!"
Silence passed.
All three of them heard Pablo shout nearby, "Why do you guys argue so much? Like, calm down a bit, would you?"
Ajax realized his mistake, not even acting mad at Max like they usually did, and slowly returned to the wheel. Max sighed and shifted to his right, now facing Milford. "You should think for a while about what beach it could've been," he told them.
Milford, responding to them, thought deeply at some possible background details in the picture. He couldn't really remember since he'd only had ten seconds or so to clearly see the picture correctly before. "Was there really anything else but sand?" He thought to himself.
Three hours passed. In-between eating what salmon he had left, Milford thought and thought. Nobody spoke to him or tried to help because they all knew what he had to do.
Then, Ajax sighed loudly. "I... I have vision that can see the future. Or I should say had, because the last time I tried it there was this whole fiasco with Horomir and how I shouldn't ever use it again whether it was an emergency or not. I don't wanna go in too much detail, bu-"
"You asshole."
Ajax stopped.
"Do you want me to use it or not?" they asked.
"Well, will it let me see out of one of my parents eyes or what?"
"Yeah. I just touch your eyes when they're closed while you're thinking of the person of whom you wanna see out of. It's gonna go fast, so if you see one glimpse of that beach, tell me to stop," Ajax explained.
Milford nodded rapidly. Ajax stopped the boat and kneeled down to get level with Milford, sitting down in the chair. "Are you ready?" he asked. Milford nodded again, getting mildly annoyed.
He closed his eyes as he felt two of Ajax's meaty fingers touch him. It immediately felt like going on a rollercoaster. Milford knew he wasn't moving but it really felt like he was. He suddenly remembered the objective and thought of his father. It was almost like taking a bullet for them, doing this.
Almost instantly, through his eyes, he saw little tiny glimpses of the future, kind of like how you'd fast forward a video or DVD. There was only five seconds to know what day it was before five more seconds passed with nothing but black to see, which Milford assumed was sleeping. This repeated for a little more than fifteen seconds before he saw a car ride that lasted about a split second, then a beach view. Milford knew what to do.
"STOP, STOP, STOP!" Milford screamed at the top of his lungs at Ajax.
The vision slowed down to normal speed as Milford finally heard sounds for the first time in fifteen seconds. Their dad was walking along a boardwalk along with their mother, who was to the right of them. His dad looked over to his mom, who looked worried and upset. Milford knew it was because he himself had been taken away by Horomir. Although, he could still sense some happiness in his father for some reason. Had they come to the beach to just forget everything and have some fun?
Milford saw his dad put their arm over his mother. They sighed before saying, "You knew this day would come. You knew that he'd have to know about your past with those-"
"Don't start, please. I-I'm just so worried about him, that's all. D-do you think he's okay?" she asked.
"He's got your genes, hon," his father said with confidence.
"That kind of thing isn't genetic," his mother pointed out.
Milford's father realized his mistake and tried to change the subject. "Hm, why don't we go in here and get somethin' to eat?" he asked her.
His mother thought for a moment. "Y-yeah... Okay." Milford saw through his father's eyes the name of the restaurant.
Long Beach Island
Bar and Grill
"Long Beach Island," Milford muttered in utter shock. "Ajax, it's Long Beach Island!" He yelled in amazement.
Milford felt the future vision fade away as he fell back into reality. Ajax was in front of him with a hint of a smile on his face. It faded away quickly, however. "So you're sure it's Long Beach Island?" They asked Milford.
"Yes! I saw it with my own two eyes. Well, actually my dad's eyes, or his future eyes. Anyways, yeah!"
"Alright. I'll send a message to 'em. What's their address?" Ajax asked.
"Wait, you're gonna mail it to them?" Milford questioned.
"Well, not exactly. I'm gonna throw a message in a bottle to their house. Sometimes it lands in their attic, sometimes in their cars, but I've watched these 'news reports' and it usually lands in people's windows," Ajax clarified.
Milford suddenly had a multitude of more questions.
"So you can throw that far, huh?"
"Yeah. When I threw you guys onto this speedboat, it was like you humans tossing something to a friend when he asks for. Like, a phone or something."
"And you can sense where people live and stuff like that? Without a map?"
"Yep. We Mondollions usually have that kind of power inside of us."
Milford was honestly stunned. "Okay. Let me just write everything down so they won't call the cops or anything when they find it."
Milford spent about an hour and a half writing down everything he wanted to say to his parents after being away from them for so long. Details about his journey so far were implemented into the composition such as the visions, riding the dragon and how it was the last bit of fun he'd had before everything went downhill, the bonds with people like Pablo and Max and Horomir. Milford told them especially about Horomir.
He finally ended it with a complementary "I love you," and looked out to the sea to realize it was sunset yet again. He decided to look out until Ajax noticed he was finished.
While thinking, he suddenly realized that all the other Mondollions were gone. Milford had been so caught up in doing everything that he didn't pay attention to any of the other passengers of the ship.
He got up and stood next to Ajax, who ignored him by keeping his mind on the sea. For two minutes, they just stood where they were, one steering and the other waiting for Ajax to ask what he wanted. Finally, he couldn't take it and asked, "Where are the-"
"Kicked 'em off," Ajax interrupted, not even making eye contact with Milford.
Silence followed.
"Why?"
"We didn't need 'em, did we?" Ajax asked.
More silence.
"Y-you can't just do that! They could've helped us and you just left them like the ones you did before we even got on this stupid ship," Milford berated.
"Hey, I heard that!" Pablo yelled back from their lawn chair.
Ignoring Pablo, Ajax responded with, "Just know it can be you next."
Milford felt the redness on his face. "Horomir wouldn't be allowing this."
"Well, he isn't here, now is he?"
Milford's mouth fell open slightly and his face tilted down in shock. In complete anger, he took his letter and threw it at Ajax. The wind caught ahold of it, making it impossible to even touch them. The letter sank to the ground as Milford felt salty tears stream down his face quietly.
Then, he heard something, although it was very faint. Just a tiny little laugh, a chuckle, almost, that came straight out of Ajax's mouth. It was as if to say, "You can't win, it's over. Just don't try."
Then, there was a scream. Milford immediately shot his head towards the noise and looked at Max, running at almost superhuman speed out of the blue from the right. They had their sword in their grip.
"Max, no!" Milford shrieked. He ran but was too late.
Max attempted to jab Ajax at their side, but they lifted their foot, kicking Max into the sea. During this whole ordeal, the boat was moving.
"Oh my God," Milford muttered as he sprinted towards the key to turn the boat off. Pablo ran towards the scene, headphones on. "What the hell are you guys doing to my boat!?" They asked in panic.
Milford ignored them completely as he sprinted towards the direction where Max plundered and jumped in to get them.
After he splashed and came back up, he yelled, "Don't start the boat without Max and I!"
He swam ahead wondering how Max and Ajax would ever speak to one another after this.
