Mors Per Mare (ATEEZ FF)

9

These men, the ones that you're with, they hide something.

The white witch had said that to you weeks ago in a dream. You'd thought that it was simply you being an overly paranoid and very stressed college student. But now? Now you were starting to believe that the dreams had meaning. How could you not after hearing what you'd heard that night, and seeing what you'd seen here today.

The very same creature that had been in your dream the night you'd talked to Captain Hongjoong had just swept half the crew overboard, you among them.

And now, you found yourself staring directly into the prodigious yellow eye of the Kraken. Something you thought only existed in Pirates of the Caribbean.

That night, the Captain had told you that The Long Journey was 200 years old, and that he'd been the captain of the Long Journey since the ship was built.

"That's impossible. You can't be more than a few years older than me and I'm 20."

"And you said I wouldn't believe you." He laughed.

"But, how?" You asked.

"That tome is one I recognize. It belongs to the white witch. I, too, have experienced her magic." He explained. "A long time ago, when I was just a boy, My father sailed with a pirate crew. He was the quarter master to Captain Choi 'The Kraken' Wonbin. A rather well known pirate captain. Those that didn't know him personally, called him The Kraken as he laid wreckage to every ship he came across. And only very rarely did he spend any time on the shore. You can imagine what that did to my childhood." He grimaced, recalling his early life.

"I never met my mother. She worked at a brothel and gave me to my father as soon as she could. My father was a fisherman for the first few years of my youth, but he could barely support himself. So, he went off in search of work and found Captain Wonbin, who took the both of us in. Captain Wonbin was an odd man, the sea was his first love and everyone thought it would be his last. Until the day our ship was lost in a heavy fog for several weeks. We were running out of supplies, and beginning to starve when the man in the crow's nest began what would be his last shanty. He had starved himself so that everyone else could eat."

"It was the shanty that saved our lives; called forth from the sea foam by her song, the white witch saved our souls. She took pity on us, brought us to her island, where we found enough resources to make our way back home. We thanked her for granting us our lives, and sailed away. We all thought that we would never see her again, but Captain Wonbin had finally found something that he loved even more than the sea. She loved him too, and we would spend weeks on end on her island. It was peaceful times for us, but the crew was getting antsy. They didn't like to stay still for too long. My father was at the head of this."

"Was there a... mutiny?" You asked, but the captain shook his head.

"If it had only been a mutiny, I wouldn't be where I am today." He sighed. " I can't help but feel as though this is a punishment for what I did all those years ago. My father thought that if he got the White witch out of the picture, Captain Wonbin would return to his old ways. So he got me to document where the witch's island was on a map and the next time we made port, he went ashore and didn't return until three days later. Captain Wonbin was getting anxious to go, but he would never leave my father behind. So we took off for the white witch's island as soon as he boarded. When we arrived, though, there were royal navy ships everywhere, and Captain Wonbin's lover had been taken. She was to be burned at the stake as a pagan. We chased those ships down to the nearest port but it was too late. The Captain was in shock, he wanted to know how the royal navy had found her island."