Freak Wave

Chapter 3

For the rest of the night, we played UNO. I won twice against the others who had agreed to play; Poland, Germany, Ukraine, Russia, South Korea, Japan, Canada, and me. Germany also won a game; so did Ukraine.

Then, the ship cast off. Over the speakers, the captain's voice came on. He spoke in English, because that was the only language that everyone on board knew. "Good evening, crew and passengers," He boomed. "Tonight in five minutes, this cruise ship will embark on a journey across the Atlantic Ocean. We are setting off from Royan, France at 9:00 pm , also called 21:00 in military time. We expect to arrive in the Baltimore Inner Harbor, Maryland, on July 2nd. The cruise is expected to last eight days. We look forward to smooth sailing."

There was a small pause to let us absorb this information.

Then the captain continued. "At 8:55 pm every night, we will have announcements declaring the average speed and distance we traveled that day and the menu for tomorrow. Thank you for tuning in. Lights out is at 10:30 pm. Breakfast starts at 6:00 tomorrow morning and ends at 11:00. Goodnight!"

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A/N

I want to explain something! I have a headcanon that every country almost always speaks in their native language. However, since not all countries know every unique language, the words reach their ears in their own native language. For example, Germany speaks only German, but Ukraine still understands him because it sounds like Ukrainian to her. However, this does not apply if the speaker is human.

Thanks for reading this! Now let's get back to the story...

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"I'm heading off to bed," Canada sighed, standing up. "See you all in the morning." He glanced at New Zealand. "Kiwi, don't even think of doing that again." And he walked out.

"Think of doing what?" Aussie asked, turning to our little sister.

She giggled. "I stole his maple syrup one night while he was asleep and poured it all out onto the grass. He was so mad, madder than I've ever seen him before." She collapsed into helpless giggles.

"How are you still alive after pulling a stunt like that?" Australia chuckled. "That takes courage, mate!"

"Well, I was only six years old, so he couldn't be too mean," Kiwi grinned. "Besides, he eventually found out that it was America that told me to do it."

Every eye in the room turned to me. I grinned. "Yeah, he wasn't pleased with me. Threatened me with all his 'war of 1812' crap, which is scary enough even when he isn't mad." I rolled my eyes. "He got over it though, after trapping a Canadian Goose in my room for a few hours. Everything was trashed, including my important paperwork."

"When Canada gets mad, he gets mad." Australia emphasized. "I eventually managed to set the poor bird free."

"Poor bird?" I sputtered. "Poor bird? Did you see all the damage that devil did?"

"It was just stressed," Aussie responded, scowling at me. "It wasn't it's fault."

I rolled my eyes. "Y'all are unbelievable." Sighing, I stood up. "I'm going to bed too. See ya." 

But of course, instead of finding my way to my suite, I got lost and somehow ended up in the boiler room. I looked around and spotted someone. "Can you point me towards some stairs leading to the deck?" I asked.

The busy crewman looked up. "Es-tu en train de parler anglais? Je ne parle pas anglais."

"Oh. Um. Stairs?" I mimed the shape of stairs, but the crewman didn't appear to need that.

"Stairs," He nodded. Apparently he knew that word. He led me over to a doorway, opened it, and waved me in. Then he closed the door behind me and walked away, leaving me in darkness. I fumbled the wall for a lightswitch. Once I found it, I turned it on. Stairs stretched out in front of me.

With a sigh, I began to climb.

And climb.

And climb.

When I finally reached what must have been the tenth flight of stairs, I finally emerged onto a star-lit deck. I closed the door to the stairway behind me and took in the view.

I was standing underneath the top deck (or whatever it was called) where the bridge and captain's cabin were. It covered a little over half of the deck, but still left plenty of room on the sides. I walked out from under the shelter into the light of a dark black night.

I sighed contentedly, leaning against the guardrail and staring up at the stars. I rarely got a good view of the night sky. I was often up late on the internet, not looking at the sky. And when I was, I was usually in a city that had a lot of light pollution.

The only time I ever spent looking at the stars was when I spent quality time with my states. Specifically, Alaska. Stargazing was one her favorite pastimes. I tried to spend one day a year with each of my states to strengthen our unity as a nation. It was a tactic I had learned from Canada, actually.

I wondered what my states were doing right now.

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aaaaah short chapter I know

But it ended nicely, right?

There's no specifically right time to play the song. You don't even have to listen to it if you don't want to. But I really like it, it's one of my favorites from the Beatles.

Word Count: 921