Long Journey || ATEEZ

WONDERLAND

A storm was amassing. Grey rumbling clouds were gathering, their aggression unmasked, and the sea was starting to become restless. Big waves began to make an appearance, sloshing salty water onto the deck as they crested. The captain and his first mate (who, thankfully, had recovered from the poisoning he had suffered the day before) made their way onto the deck at the news, and Hongjoong bit his lip as he stared out towards the horizon and wind whipped at his face, snarling and snapping angrily.

"Fold the sails," was the first thing that came out of the captain's mouth. As if in answer, the thick black clouds growled, and a flash of lightning lit up the air far from them. "If lightning hits the sails and they burn, we're done for. Until we can replace them with the spares, at least – but it'd take ages and we can't do that in the middle of a storm."

The members of the crew in charge of the sails scrambled to carry out the captain's orders, and still the seas grew more restless.

They had reached deeper waters than when the whispers had attacked them by now, but still, rock islands jutted out from the recesses of the sea, like claws, like teeth, like spires of death ready to impale them and take them down below to Arai, where the God of Death awaited.

All of a sudden these rock spires began to wriggle and writhe, like something was causing them unrest.

Wooyoung gave his crewmates an uneasy look. What was going on?

And then burst three, towering skeletons from the rocks, and a couple of the crew members screamed. They were taller than even Yunho (though by not too much), and made Hongjoong and Wooyoung look positively tiny. Swords were welded to their bony fists, and their teeth looked nothing like that of a yuzeul or of any normal Child of Magik – these teeth were razors; these teeth were weapons. Upon spotting the galleon, rising on a swelling wave, they leapt towards it, aided by the supernatural to make up for their lack of muscles.

"WHAT THE FUCK ARE THOSE?!" Wooyoung screeched as he backed away. He gave Jongho a glance, but the demigod looked as bewildered and as at a loss for words as the holin himself.

"How am I supposed to know?!" Jongho yelled back, spitting hair and salty water out of his face as the ship crashed back down from its dizzying height, and sea spray crashed into her. Many of the pirates tumbled to the floor, whilst others fought to keep their balance. "Do I look like an all-knowing all-seeing god?!"

"Well sometimes you act like one! Plus you have the blood of onee, don't ya?!"

Jongho rolled his eyes, before hurriedly swinging a fist upwards as one of the skeleton-things leapt at him. It gnashed its teeth together, which made a horrible clacking sound as they clashed, and stumbled backwards. The maknae then promptly stumbled back also, clutching his bleeding fist.

"Why the fuck are they so hard!"

"I dunno, smartass, maybe because they're a bunch of goddamn bones?" Yeosang said, as he, San and Wooyoung struggled to keep another of the skeletons off of them. San lashed out with his Dark Energy, Wooyoung with his sword, and Yeosang struggled to move backwards to find space to shoot.

"Well whatever they are, they're fierce!" Vi cried as she crumbled under the weight of the last skeleton.

A mass of some inky-black substance crashed into its ribcage, and it was blasted across the deck as the black liquid exploded. It landed a couple of metres away, some of the residue from the substance eating away at the bone.

"My blood works on it!" Miyeon called, black blood dripping down her arm and one of her arrows in hand, the tip coated in the stuff as well. She nocked that same arrow, and as the skeleton got up, sent it flying straight towards its forehead. But even as the bone began to melt away, it clacked and advanced towards the vampire.