A Few Minutes Before The End Of The World | COMPLETED

'Part 4'

It was foggy that night. A thick veil of white had enshrouded the expanse. The small merchant ship sailed through the clouds. At midnight it got so misty that it was hard to see the waters. Tied to the mast flopped a freezing man. It was John Abberton. His eyes were glued open. He couldn't sleep. How could he in this cold night? But the morning didn't have anything for him to look forward to. It wouldn't give him the reprieve that he so desperately craved. In fact, he'd probably die tomorrow. He'd be thrown into the ocean where hungry, bloodthirsty sharks would surely relish on his flesh.

"Those dumb sailors and their obtuse taboos. Do they really think natural phenomenons are influenced by acts of mortals? How ignorant and self-centered!" Abberton grumbled. He didn't get his rations that night, his stomach acids were slowly wreaking havoc in his belly. He lost track of time.

He didn't want to die.

Not that he had anything against the certainly benevolent act of feeding malnourished sharks, there was just the itty-bitty inconvenience of the feed being him. He gawked into the fog of enigma. He was searching for a way out. Where would he find it? In that white blob there? Or maybe that slightly greyish blot of fog there. Oh, wait that's the ocean. That too is the ocean. And that. And that. And that. It's just ocean, it's just water. And the ocean, as many may already know, was awfully reticent to his questions.

"Ahoy, there!"

John grinned. He had read about this. How stressful conditions such as his own would cause people to hallucinate, make up cobwebs of imagination that may alleviate their pain. Like how a man in a desert hallucinates a lagoon. His mind decided to soothe him by creating the voice of a young girl. But it was not a girl. It was his mind weaving a Shangri-la in the middle of a Gehenna, it was but a gossamer of imagination arduously weived by his brain.

"The praiseworthy attempts of my mind to soothe me will not go unrecognized. I will play along with this charade as a way of commending the efforts of my brain"

"I said Ahoy, there! Ya'll asleep? Shit! I knew this midnight thing was gonna flop. What's wrong with doing this in the afternoon? Lots of light, lots of woke healthy conscious people. Well, maybe not healthy"

"Figment of my imagination! Phantasm of my creation. Hear me. I have recognised your attempts at healing my cerebral pain but I must refuse, I am made of sterner stuff, I refuse to take the easy way out"

"Okay? Dude, can you be a good lad and go fetch the Captain?"

"Alas, girl of my phantasmic cobweb, I am bound to this post due to ignoramuses aboard this ship. Any attempt at locomotion would sadly give disappointing results"

"I see, wait- what did you just call me?"

"My mind is truly astonishing. It amazes me how the human mind could perform such wonders in situations of adversity. To be able to make me doubt the reality of your existence. My brain must truly be a step above the rest of the chumps aboard this ship"

"Is there anybody on this log of wood, that is not crazy?" she yelled.

"How dare a figment of my imagination insult me? Guards! Off with her head!"

"This head is staying right here mister, is there a sane human aboard this ship?"

"If you yell like a girl one more time Mr.Abberton I'll pull your tongue- " The Captain came rushing from his cabin with his feet slamming the deck. His steps came to a halt as his eyes locked on the boat that was stationary on the starboard side of the ship. "Hey, priest, don't tell me you can see a girl in a white gown in a white cutter in the middle of the ocean"

"What? You hear it too? We must all be losing our minds" it was then Abberton directed his eyes toward the bow. There it was. On the starboard side, a boat, a white cutter. On it, a woman as pale as a jasmine, donning a white gown, stood.

"Hello, can I get your attention, please? Haven't ya'll ever seen a witch before?" the young girl asked. By then the sailors had already gotten on deck, only to be spooked by the silhouette enshrouded in the fog.

"Young lady, what are you doing here? Did you get separated from your main fleet?" Humbard enquired.

"Main fleet? This is the middle of nowhere! Look at that gown, that face. There's no reasonable explanation as to how a girl could have made it out here. What else could she be other than a mermaid?" a sailer yowled.

"She's come to seduce us young sailors and then drink our blood" another whined.

"Okay? Firstly, ew! Secondly, are you even listening? I recall myself saying explicitly that I was a witch"

"A witch?" Ilkman asked.

"Yes, sir. A witch. Women who has sold her soul to the devil? The mistress of hell, the mischief worker, causer of calamity and disease, instrument of the adversary's will. I have danced naked in the twilight and wrote my name in the book of the damned. Yadda yadda yadda! A witch. Ring a bell?"

"Ilkman, don't listen to her. She's lying, there's no such thing as a witch. It's all made up. Uneducated village folk needed a medium to blame their bad luck on. There's no such thing" Abberton said to the gawking sailors.

"How weird of a God's man to say that, do you not believe in God Mr.Abberton?"

"How in the heavens did you know my name? And what sort of a question is that? I'm a minister. Of course I believe in God"

"I'm a witch, I keep telling you. Then may I ask you, do you believe in the existence of the devil?"

"!"