Missing in Venice

It was three days after the Carousel, an ocean liner aimed at the port of New York City, left the shores of Great Britain, that communication was lost. It was ten days after this that the ship and all of its passengers were declared missing, It was two days after this that the world was informed of the tragedy on their televisions. And in these twelve days after the ship stopped sending and receiving messages, it was torn off its course and flung many miles to the city of Venice. You may think that they were rescued by the gourmet chefs, tourists, and assortment of gondoliers that one associates with the watery city, but this was not the case. The carousel landed in an empty Venice, void of any singular person. In fact, the only humans for miles happened to be the ones on that ship. That ship that was slowly, but, oh, so very surely, being pulled into the maze of canals and waterways criss-crossing throughout the city.

With each passing hour, three things gradually deteriorated: the passing bridges and towers, the food supply, and the minds of the helplessly confused passengers. Even with her mighty engines in reverse, the ocean liner was pulled farther and farther into the canal. Any effort to delay their ultimate fate was all in vain, for an unstoppable force was hauling the Carousel into the city's heart. A force greater than any man, other than the sad souls aboard this ship, had ever known or would ever come to know.

Parties of five were sent off the ship's deck and in through the windows of the adjacent buildings. They were instructed to search for signs of life and means of nourishment, but this plan was quickly abandoned once they that every building was hollow. Furniture: there was none. The same went for food and, as previously stated, people. Soon, families began to vacate their small rooms for the large, empty rooms of the towers found directly against the ship's hull. They died off almost immediately, succumbing to hunger and thirst that was all but common in a prosperous city such as Venice.

And finally, after months of despairing and searching, the Carousel and its passengers were found at the bottom of the ocean far off course not ten miles from the coast of Venice, Italy, where it was estimated it had been sunk since communication was lost three days after its departure.