A story written for "Gloves Up| A Multi-Genre Smackdown Contest", Round 4.1 (November 2022). Genre: Action + Adventure.
Story Word Count: 3998
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Daredevils, a ten-letter word meaning a reckless person who enjoys doing dangerous things.
And we, the grave robbers, were no less. Grave robbers, corpse stealers, grave raiders, or whatever you name us. We were all of it.
Where the lines and limits of foolhardiness and temerity end, there begin our twisted minds.
And this time as well, we had everything planned out. The profession which we'd mastered since birth, seen our parents and their parents to do. Something that ran in the lineage. We were grave raiders, and there was no doubt about it.
Our planning had always been precise and clear-cut. We raid, we steal, and we run, leaving not even a sliver behind. We had always done that. Flawlessly, just like an expert.
However, for the first time in my entire twenty years of this heavenly, unethical profession, my hands trembled, and an inhumane kind of anxiousness intoxicated me. Only if I knew what my next target had in store for me.
Only if I knew...
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The journey began at 17.05 degrees north of the Equator with me and my six crew members and involved crossing twelve time zones, ten checkpoints, three bodies of water, and at least as many ecospheres.
By the time I actually set foot on Tristan da Cunha, a remote group of volcanic islands in the South Atlantic Ocean, I had been traveling for over 104 hours in a combination of a train, a jeep, and a ship. So, my first emotion on facing Tristan da Cunha's expansive pasture, lowland tussock grass, fern bush, Phylica woodland, grass slopes, and sparsely vegetated ash slopes was relief, followed by an immediate and profound greed and curiosity.
"Nathan, everything set?" The Japanese devil, Kimi, asked.
Mingling. A terminology we'd given as an advice. For knowing the crowds, one needs to join the crowd. It was that easy.
So, that's what we did. We parted ways, I with Shiro, Kimi, and Nathan, and the trio, Shelly, Dew, and Jack together.
Adventure comes with risk. And with risk comes more risk. Especially when that involves robbery, murder, and a lot of trouble.
"Numain, there's the West Wing." Shiro pointed out the last shop on the street. We made sure to blend in with the crowd in every way we could, be it our outfit, walking style, or polite fake smiles here and there. We did it.
For something far more precious was awaiting our arrival.
Entering the leather shop, we scrunched our nose smelling the smoky, almost burnt woody and balsamic odor. The traces of tar and tobacco lingering in the atmosphere. We walked past the suede and wood strewn around, stopping in front of a familiar white-haired Latino.
"Numain." He greeted, eyeing the two of us. We nodded in acknowledgment. The fierce eye battle continued for longer than I'd anticipated.
Trust. A constant waging war. And we weren't the ones to be trusted. They knew. Everyone did. In profession like ours, race, age, caste, creed, and nationality didn't matter. All mattered was trust. Loyalty. That's it.
For we all had same goal. To feed our dark souls with the afterlife of even darker ones. Yeah, we were those kinds of twisted psychos.
"It's decided, Gael. No backing out now. Lead the way, my friend." I spoke, declaring my final say.
"Save the sweet talks for later." He blankly said, turning his back to us. I could feel Shiro biting back his lip. Even I couldn't suppress my amusement.
No one's anyone's friend in this business. We cheat. It was in our nature. Our blood. And there weren't one or two sharks in the ocean; hell, the whole bloody ocean was polluted by us. And what's the ocean without the fish? Too bad, Gael was just that for us.
