Post by Bobbie on Jul 29, 2022 11:54:33 GMT -5
[Warning: The following log contains material of a sensitive nature related to suicide.]
Standing at the gangplank to board The Lucibelle, Shinsei Zen Shisui took a deep breath. He turned around to get a final look at his home town, wishing for it to be a good and hard look as this was the town where he had built so many memories with his Kes and little Shoten. This was where his life truly started - he had never realised or appreciated that until he lost both of them, and perhaps even more so over the past couple of months as he lived with their absence. Silver Islands… an attractive name that held so much to fill the man’s heart, but it also contained so many tragedies to shatter it.
He had made up his mind that this would be the last time he ever sets foot on the island again, planning on boarding this ship to carry out maintenance on deck and never return. Turning his back to the hustle and bustle of the dock, he stepped on the gangplank and joined the working crew on The Lucibelle, where he would be carrying out his last job.
Shinsei called it maintenance, but it wasn’t as fancy as that sounded, really. His work mostly consisted of the work that none of the crew members wanted to do, tasks like cleaning, polishing, repairing and replacing components that had given in to wear and tear such as the ropes that held the sails up, pulleys, and so on. It was simple work and anybody could do it, but Shinsei found very few as willing as he was. On the contrary to others who looked down on this sort of work, Shinsei welcomed it and found a certain beauty in the manual labour that it entailed, working with his hands and taking pride in his work, regardless of whether it was scrubbing a deck spotless or tying the perfect knot. It was this humble nature in the man’s attitude that many found quite appealing and he often bonded quite well with the crews he worked for.
As the ship set sail, Shinsei got to work. He was given a cabin to share with three of the crew members, as four people bunked in each room. It was crammed, but it didn’t bother the man, he had simple needs and that did not include a lot of storage space. In reality, he hadn’t brought a lot with him, as his bag was only filled with the essentials to get him through with the bare minimum though it seemed like there wouldn’t be enough for the entire voyage; this was something that his three cabin mates had noticed, often bringing up their concern for the genuine worker not having enough supplies with him to make it through the journey from beginning to end, but Shinsei always laughed it off and reassured them that he had enough to last as long as he needed it to.
The Lucibelle was steered all across the South Blue on a long and tiring journey as Shinsei slaved away relentlessly. While he stopped to keep himself fed and for rest breaks to re-energise his body with a good night’s sleep, he refused to stop working at any other time it was absolutely necessary, even when his muscles ached and screamed in protest.
“No rest for the wicked…” Shinsei would always reply, down on his knees and looking up at the crew who urged him to take a break, sweat and brown strands of hair in his hazel eyes that glimmered in the burning sun. Then he would continue to toil away, all for a hefty payment that he would be given at the end of this journey - the captain couldn’t complain, of course, Shinsei did excellent work. His Luci had never been cleaner!
Days became weeks and before he knew it, Shinsei had lost track of time as it all merged into a single stretch of existence. It was a long journey as the captain’s goal was to leave the South Blue and explore what the islands in the Calm Belt had to offer. More specifically, he aimed to verify rumours of a man dubbed ‘The Puppeteer’ living on one of these islands was also on his bucket list.
Returning to his cabin one night, Shinsei sat quietly so as not to wake his three bunkmates and grabbed his bag to have a look at what was left inside it. It was no surprise that all his food was gone and his bag was a very sad collection of dirty clothes and waste materials that were to be discarded - he had planned for it to only last half way through the journey. It was an estimate that wasn’t as accurate as he’d like it be, as several islands on Calm Belt were already visible, but they were certainly not at their shores yet. “No rest for the wicked…” he spoke quietly to himself, easing his nerves and letting relief wash over him as that statement was about to be proved false. This wicked man was about to finally get his rest.
Taking his nearly empty bag, he sculled down to the weapons hold where barrels of gunpowder and cannonballs were kept, those that came loose occasionally rolling around at the mercy of the sea’s waves. He’d start with those, cleaning up the mess while he took what he needed. “One… two… three…” he counted up until six cannonballs were fitted into the bag, the zipper refusing to close fully and the weight being almost too much for him to lift. In a sudden burst of energy, he hoisted the bag up in his arms and left the storage hold without making a sound, heading out onto the deck. Making sure the sails would be secure, he cut off some excess rope and moved to the taffrail where he had left the heavy bag of cannonballs. He put his skills to good use as he tied un unbreakable knot around the bag’s handles, and then the other end went around his waist. This is it… he thought to himself as he leaned against the rail, polished by his own hand, and brought one leg up over it. I’m sorry Kes, then his other leg went up and over. I’m sorry Shoten. Reaching over, he grabbed the bag and with a throbbing arms and a strained groan, he brought the heavy package over onto the other side of the rail where he stood.
I just can’t do this without you.
Giving it as best a swing as he could, he threw the bag, letting it drop toward the ocean. Taking his last breath of oxygen, he closed his eyes and slowly exhaled until his brief meditation was cut off by the sudden back-breaking jolt of the rope yanking him off the ship’s side.
The weighted bag hit the water first with a loud splash, and then Shinsei impacted the surface from the height of the ship, before he was pulled deeper and deeper down into the darkness of the ocean by the load tied to his waist.
Instinctively, the man’s body fought against the pulling force, his lungs screaming for air, but he soon found himself letting go of that instinct and simply allowing the water swallow him. The moonlight no longer shone through the surface to reach Shinsei as he lost consciousness, his body continuing to sink at the mercy of gravity that beckoned him into a cold descent.
Some members of the crew stirred as Shinsei’s throw did not go as far as he planned for the immensely weighted package to go, and the bag of cannon balls rolled on the side of the ship before reaching the water. One of the labourer’s cabinmates was startled awake by a sound more vicious and destructive than he had ever heard before as the bag thudded loudly into the ship’s side and threatened to splinter the wall of the vessel. Mistakenly thinking that they were under attack and panicking, he promptly woke up the others in the room and soon found that Shinsei was gone. Then the loud splash could be heard, muffled by the wooden walls of the ship’s frame.
Bare feet thundered throughout the cabin as chaos ensued.
“Shinsei!” one member shouted, waking up others in the process, and bolted to the deck, then to the rail. Another young sailor ran to the rail on the other side, before screaming, “Here! What are you doing!?” His voice coincided with the splash of Shinsei’s body crashing through the water’s surface as the sound of a second splash filled the air. “What the heck!? He jumped!”
“No, there were two splashes. Do a head count! Quick! Is anybody else missing?”
As the members all crowded on the deck, panicking and looking around them to each do a head count of their own, the captain stepped out of his own private cabin on the ship. “What the heck is going on!?” his voice bellowed and everybody fell silent. One sweeping gaze over his crew and the bearded man shook his head, “What are you all doing out here in your briefs, and what’s with all the panic? Are you trying to wake up all of the ocean’s creatures off the seabed!?” he ironically yelled louder than everyone, red in the face with fury of having his precious sleep disturbed.
“Captain… It’s Shinsei. We think he jumped overboard… we were checking if any of our own-”
“Everybody’s here! And who the seagull’s flapping feathers is Shinsei!?”
Silence followed the captain’s question and the crew looked at one another before the bravest of them replied. “The labourer who has been keeping the boat cleaned and up to standard, captain. The man who polished the floorboards you are stepping on right now.” The sarcasm in the sailor’s tone was impossible to miss and the captain found himself with his back against the wall - on the one hand, he didn’t particularly care about some nobody who spent more time on his knees scrubbing dirt and grit than up on his feet doing anything great; yet on the other hand, now was not the time to have his crew mutiny against him over the decision to leave the man behind.
“Then go get him!” He snapped, as if it was obvious that they should already be working on that plan. This was when a brainwave hit him. The Puppeteer was rumoured to be on the Clam Belt, which they were remarkably close to, and this supposed mastermind earned his title from tinkering with real human bodies to make dolls and puppets out of them without taking a single life. Here they were with a man who was in need of being saved… an excellent test subject to find out if the rumours were true.
And so, the anchor was dropped and the crew fumbled to locate Shinsei’s body that had sunk quite far down. Their best swimmers dived into the water in search for the man. It took a long time, but they were successful, almost at the cost of a few of their own men. Shinsei, however, was entirely unresponsive and several members of the crew took turns performing life-saving chest compressions and occasional puffs of air blown into his lungs to keep his heart beating, partly out of genuine desire to save a life, and partly out of fear of their captain, who screamed at everyone on board to do two things: keep the man’s heart beating, and make it to the Calm Belt Islands before the first task fails.
While Shinsei was unconscious and at death’s door, his heart was kept beating, enough oxygen reaching his brain and the rest of his organs to prevent his body from shutting down. It was a wonder that he didn’t die after swallowing so much sea water, but the series of illusions that the man’s subconscious allowed him to witness and experience while unconscious displayed nothing wondrous.
As neurons fired in his brain, fighting to keep functioning, the darkness that Shinsei had fallen into was suddenly replaced with flashes of bright light that scattered across his vision, and then faded away once more. He squinted at the bursts of light that disappeared as suddenly as they appeared, until they were accompanied by a muffled rumbling sound that he couldn’t identify. Assuming he was dead, his first reaction was to search for his late wife and child, eager to be reunited with them. “Kes?” he called out and took a step forward in a black pit where the ground and the walls all blended together in darkness. “Shoten?”
“Kes?” his own voice echoed back to him from the abyss. “Shoten?” Came the next utterance.
The muffled sounds grew louder and he couldn’t tell if it was a persistent mumbling of a crowd or a fire crackling somewhere that he couldn’t see. That question was quickly answered as the space all around him suddenly lit up with flames, the blackness that surrounded him being replaced with a hellish red glow.
“Bring the torches!” The crew medic cried as his arms threatened to give way after nearly an hour of chest compressions. “Check his eyes, does he respond to the fire?”
A sailor brought a handheld torch close, being careful not to burn anyone with its flames while a companion held Shinsei’s eyelid up, forcing the light into his eyes.
Shinsei’s eyes began to burn as they needed more time to adjust, and he became very weary of his surroundings. “The fire!” he heard a voice seem to come out of the monstrous flames. His heart was racing as he looked all around him, confused as to where he was or where he could go to look for his wife and son. Guilt ran deep within him as he thought about them being trapped in a place like this on their own, though he was quite unsure of why they would be in a place like this… what was this place?
“Kes! Shoten!” He shouted again and pushed forward, following the only path that there was available to him. It seemed to open up right before his eyes, huge flames on either side of it.
Suddenly, Shinsei felt unable to move as his arms and legs felt like they were being squeezed. Looking down at his arms first, then at his legs, he froze in horror to find black charred hands that seemed to be reaching out of the fire to grab at his limbs and pull him. “Get off! Get off!” Frantically pulling against them, he resisted their grasp, but it seemed that the more he struggled, the more they pulled. In a fit of panic, he lurched forward with all his might, adrenaline taking over as he broke free and darted forward to try and get away.
“We need to move him away from the edge and to a more stable area on the ship because of turbulence. Grab his arms and legs. Lift!” The crew moved Shinsei’s lifeless body to an area of the boat that wouldn’t rock as much due to the battering of the sea’s waves.
“Damn it, how much longer!?” the medic shouted, “We can’t keep going on like this forever, how far is this island? He is going to die!”
“Raise your voice at me again, and you’ll be experiencing something worse than that man’s death, you worm!” The captain yelled back, losing his patience, and then he recomposed himself as he stood at the helm, watching over his crew from his elevated platform. “We’re almost there…”
The crew glanced at each other worriedly, before leaning over Shinsei, casting shadows in the moonlight over his body as the torches were moved aside.
Daring not look back, Shinsei kept running, striving to reach the end of this dreadful path that looked like something out of a nightmare. “You thought you were going to die?” He heard a disembodied voice fill the air.
“You deserve worse than… death…” Shinsei slowed down as he looked around him to try and figure out where the voices were coming from, some words too muffled to be made out clearly. Shaking his head, he breathed heavily, “N-No…” he denied it, though deep down he believed it. His wife’s death, his son’s death, their blood was on his hands.
“You worm!”
A look of sheer panic on his face, Shinsei walked backwards, as if to ensure nothing was following him, then he turned again. He was about to call out for his beloved Kes once more, but as he whipped his body around, a large shadow seemed to come out of the flames and simply stand there in front of him, a blank dark canvas of a silhouette that had no eyes or any defining features. Then another one popped up, and then another, until Shinsei found himself surrounded. He must have rotated in a circle at least twice to look at all the figures that looked like they had horns, all towering over him.
“W-What do you want!?” His voice shook as he cried out as it became clear to him that Kes and Shoten were not here. He now knew this with absolute certainty, they were too good to be thrown into this miserable plane of spiritual existence. They were too good to be in Hell.
“We’re almost there…” a whisper that came from behind him was warm on his neck, prompting Shinsei to quickly turn once more, all the shadows that had darkened the area around him suddenly vanishing and he was left standing there alone, the fire crackling away at each of the path’s sides.
For a moment, he stood there and considered turning around to go back instead of forward. A quick glance over his shoulder, however, and he immediately changed his mind, as the paved way seemed to crumble and succumb to the flames. “Almost where?” He whispered to himself as he moved one foot in front of the other and continued on his journey, but his body started to feel heavier by the second as if he had weights strapped around his waist again and each step he took was followed by a force in his chest that seemed to challenge him back.
“Okay, we’re here. Get him on the stretcher.” The captain gave the command, eager to see for himself whether The Puppeteer was real or not. Shinsei was lifted onto a wooden plank that was the full length of his body and supported with iron rims that ran along its width. The medic hopped onto the board to sit on Shinsei’s waist and continue forcing his heart to beat, hitching a ride along with their patient as other crew members lifted and carried the wooden board.
Docking at the beach, the dying man was carried across the shallow waters and onto the sandy shores, before the crew travelled inland in search of the crazy doctor who supposedly lived on this very small islet.
As Shinsei continued along the path, the earth beneath him seemed to shake and rock, until he was suddenly met with complete stillness. Shadows once again rose from the fires, this time snuffing them all out as he was shrouded in absolute darkness again. Frozen, Shinsei was afraid to move as he waited for his eyes to adjust, but it seemed to be taking a lot longer than usual.
A sharp pain shot through the man’s chest and he gasped, staggering backward as he clawed at his shirt. “What… the…” the crushing pressure made him cry out, but it was impossible for him to get more air in. With each scream of agony, air was being expelled without any way of being inhaled again that caused his lungs to tighten and his heart to thump against his constricting rib cage. He was suffocating. He was drowning again…
“Don’t stop! We’ve been doing chest compressions since the moment we brought him out of the water, he’s not breathing. You can’t stop now-” the medic began pleading with the acclaimed Puppeteer, who seemed to have a plan of his own.
“Don’t worry about that. His heart is struggling right now, but I can do something better!”
“What are you talking about!? He needs that water out-”
“You are the crew’s medic, yes? Well, while I’m sure I could tell you how to do your job a lot better than you actually do it, you certainly cannot do the same to me. I was trained by the greatest, so stop babbling and get out of my way.”
The medic was dumbfounded, staring at this young man who had an ego that made the room feel twice as small. “W-What are you going to do?”
There was a moment of silence following the medic's question as the narcissistic doctor stared at him without uttering a word. Then he spoke, “I’m going to save his life.” The smile on the rose-haired youth was disturbing and the medic was left speechless. The captain on the other hand was grinning ear to ear. The Puppeteer, in the flesh… the rumours were true. “Come on, Novak, give the man his space to do what he does best.” Patting his medic’s shoulder, he ushered him out of the room to leave the doctor to work his magic.
Shinsei’s back felt cold and his entire body shuddered as if it had come into contact with metal that sapped all the heat from his body. He had no idea what was causing this sensation, as he struggled with the pain in his chest and was now reaching back over his shoulder to remove anything that he thought was touching him, a desperate man trying to fight off something that he couldn’t see, but as he clawed and spun around, there was nothing.
A bright light suddenly lit up the ceiling above him and he looked up at it. It was like a floodlight that made him squint and forced him to raise one hand to block some of the light as his breath was raspy. This, however, was soon partially blocked by another horned silhouette that appeared to come out of nowhere and peer down at him menacingly.
“Don’t worry… I’m going to help you.” The voice was not at all reassuring and was deeper than any voice he had ever heard in his life, and it made his bones rattle. “This might hurt a bit.” The demonic figure continued, before a new light suddenly filled the room, a fire, that abruptly combusted on Shinsei’s chest. His heart beat loudly in his ears as he screamed in pain, desperately trying to pat the fire out, but it seemed immune to his attempts, his hands simply going right through it, unaffected. The fire appeared to follow a pattern, like a fuel trail that led from his heart to all four of his limbs, and the previous pressure in his chest was now replaced with an unbearable burning that made the man writhe and flail until he collapsed. Kneeling in the centre of the room, his entire body ablaze, he could now see that he was in a very small room, the walls covered in several more shadows of people, men and women, children, all looking at him as his own anguished cries drowned out their mumbling.
What followed for what felt like an eternity were several torturous methods inflicted upon him, from head to toe he had felt his body burning from the inside out, prodded at and operated on. The entire ordeal, however, brought a very particular scent to his nose that he couldn’t quite place.
“And we’re done!” A long sigh escaped The Puppeteer’s lips, the three-day operation finally completed as Shinsei’s blood had been replaced with burning hot nicotine, his heart given mechanical components to keep beating and rely on this spicy-smelling fluid instead of regular blood that ran through his veins, and his skin was replaced with a flawless synthetic material that could withstand burns and hid scars very well. He was a masterpiece that the young doctor felt proud of, a cyborg, but perhaps most importantly, he was alive.
Shinsei’s eyes snapped open once the procedure was done and his body was given all the fuel it needed to function, his heart was beating at an incredible rate. The adrenaline from the subconscious terror that he had just endured coursed through his veins along with the nicotine that he could just now recognise the scent of.
“You’re awake! I’m so glad-” the young doctor couldn’t finish expressing his excitement as Shinsei leapt off the cold metal table he had been laying on and grabbed the younger man’s throat, ramming him into the wall behind him and sending a tray of tools crashing to the ground. As Shinsei looked down at the metal tray, he stared at his own reflection. His brown hair was a bright fiery red, as were his eyes.
“What did you do to me!?” He snarled at the one who just brought him back to life.
“W-What do you mean?” he wheezed, clawing at Shinsei’s wrist to try and get him to let go. “You would have died… I… saved you! You… drowned! You... ungrateful...” His shoulders to the wall, the young man’s scrawny weak frame was no match for his own creation, who only squeezed more tightly in a blind rage. Finally throwing him aside, Shinsei’s attention was directed toward papers on the wall that hung behind his target.
Snatching one, he stared at the blueprints. It was a perfectly drawn human figure with accurate anatomy, but it was all… wrong. “What is this?” Human organs where replaced with sketches of some mechanical contraptions, and a list of possible life fuel was in the corner, reading ‘Sea water, plant sap, nicotine’. The first two were crossed out, but the third item in the list was underlined. “I asked you what this is!” Shinsei turned to the spot where he was sure he threw the young macabre doctor only to find that he was gone, the door left ajar. Realising the coward escaped, the fresh cyborg flew into a fury as he angrily threw every tool onto the floor, flipped every table, and tore down each and every sketch off the walls. With each swing of his hands, a subtle spark would come from a dark ring on each of his ring fingers, a stream of nicotine flowing through a ravine that ran down the middle of it.
In his fit of anger, Shinsei didn’t realise each little fire that fed on whatever fuel it could reach - papers, gauze, chemicals - and before long he found himself surrounded by growing flames in what was originally the doctors operating theatre. Everything was burning and for a few seconds, Shinsei stood right in the middle of it, his skin seemingly unaffected by the burning fire.
For that moment, he was calm. He felt invincible and nothing else… quickly, that translated into emptiness and sadness, as he longed for the fires to burn him, yet they wouldn’t. That turned into anger and his rage returned. Furious that he was brought back and not allowed to die the way he wanted to, Shinsei took it all out on this stranger’s lab as he took advantage of being unaffected by the fire and made sure that not a single thing within the the building survived.
Leaving the lab in burning ruins, he went to the islet’s shore, seeing a small row boat in the distance and the tall young man who had restored his life in a cursed existence now rowing so diligently, eager to get away from him, no doubt. Fully fuelled, he felt he had the energy to swim across the entire ocean to catch the rat, but his wits held him back as he could easily see that was not a bright idea. Thankfully, there was a second rowboat on the beach, poorly concealed beneath some palm fronds. He figured it was most likely left there in case the other was stolen. Shinsei dragged it by the nose to the sea and hopped in, prepared to leave the islet and let the currents take him anywhere.
As he sat in his boat, he closed his eyes and felt the breeze on his face, yet it wasn’t the same. Of course, nothing was the same and nothing ever will be again. Yet, something was stopping him from rolling over into the water and letting go of everything… Remembering the horrors he experienced, images burnt into his memory, brought a frown to his face and he was forced to open his eyes again to fill his vision with the more scenic visuals of the ocean around him. Convinced he was in Hell, he let out a long sigh.
His eyelids felt heavy and his body tired after all the exertion. Where to go next was a big question in his mind, but so many thoughts were soon overwhelmed by a matter more pressing, as if his new body was trying to tell him something.
First, he needed to find out what it was exactly that he was craving so badly…
Standing at the gangplank to board The Lucibelle, Shinsei Zen Shisui took a deep breath. He turned around to get a final look at his home town, wishing for it to be a good and hard look as this was the town where he had built so many memories with his Kes and little Shoten. This was where his life truly started - he had never realised or appreciated that until he lost both of them, and perhaps even more so over the past couple of months as he lived with their absence. Silver Islands… an attractive name that held so much to fill the man’s heart, but it also contained so many tragedies to shatter it.
He had made up his mind that this would be the last time he ever sets foot on the island again, planning on boarding this ship to carry out maintenance on deck and never return. Turning his back to the hustle and bustle of the dock, he stepped on the gangplank and joined the working crew on The Lucibelle, where he would be carrying out his last job.
Shinsei called it maintenance, but it wasn’t as fancy as that sounded, really. His work mostly consisted of the work that none of the crew members wanted to do, tasks like cleaning, polishing, repairing and replacing components that had given in to wear and tear such as the ropes that held the sails up, pulleys, and so on. It was simple work and anybody could do it, but Shinsei found very few as willing as he was. On the contrary to others who looked down on this sort of work, Shinsei welcomed it and found a certain beauty in the manual labour that it entailed, working with his hands and taking pride in his work, regardless of whether it was scrubbing a deck spotless or tying the perfect knot. It was this humble nature in the man’s attitude that many found quite appealing and he often bonded quite well with the crews he worked for.
As the ship set sail, Shinsei got to work. He was given a cabin to share with three of the crew members, as four people bunked in each room. It was crammed, but it didn’t bother the man, he had simple needs and that did not include a lot of storage space. In reality, he hadn’t brought a lot with him, as his bag was only filled with the essentials to get him through with the bare minimum though it seemed like there wouldn’t be enough for the entire voyage; this was something that his three cabin mates had noticed, often bringing up their concern for the genuine worker not having enough supplies with him to make it through the journey from beginning to end, but Shinsei always laughed it off and reassured them that he had enough to last as long as he needed it to.
The Lucibelle was steered all across the South Blue on a long and tiring journey as Shinsei slaved away relentlessly. While he stopped to keep himself fed and for rest breaks to re-energise his body with a good night’s sleep, he refused to stop working at any other time it was absolutely necessary, even when his muscles ached and screamed in protest.
“No rest for the wicked…” Shinsei would always reply, down on his knees and looking up at the crew who urged him to take a break, sweat and brown strands of hair in his hazel eyes that glimmered in the burning sun. Then he would continue to toil away, all for a hefty payment that he would be given at the end of this journey - the captain couldn’t complain, of course, Shinsei did excellent work. His Luci had never been cleaner!
Days became weeks and before he knew it, Shinsei had lost track of time as it all merged into a single stretch of existence. It was a long journey as the captain’s goal was to leave the South Blue and explore what the islands in the Calm Belt had to offer. More specifically, he aimed to verify rumours of a man dubbed ‘The Puppeteer’ living on one of these islands was also on his bucket list.
Returning to his cabin one night, Shinsei sat quietly so as not to wake his three bunkmates and grabbed his bag to have a look at what was left inside it. It was no surprise that all his food was gone and his bag was a very sad collection of dirty clothes and waste materials that were to be discarded - he had planned for it to only last half way through the journey. It was an estimate that wasn’t as accurate as he’d like it be, as several islands on Calm Belt were already visible, but they were certainly not at their shores yet. “No rest for the wicked…” he spoke quietly to himself, easing his nerves and letting relief wash over him as that statement was about to be proved false. This wicked man was about to finally get his rest.
Taking his nearly empty bag, he sculled down to the weapons hold where barrels of gunpowder and cannonballs were kept, those that came loose occasionally rolling around at the mercy of the sea’s waves. He’d start with those, cleaning up the mess while he took what he needed. “One… two… three…” he counted up until six cannonballs were fitted into the bag, the zipper refusing to close fully and the weight being almost too much for him to lift. In a sudden burst of energy, he hoisted the bag up in his arms and left the storage hold without making a sound, heading out onto the deck. Making sure the sails would be secure, he cut off some excess rope and moved to the taffrail where he had left the heavy bag of cannonballs. He put his skills to good use as he tied un unbreakable knot around the bag’s handles, and then the other end went around his waist. This is it… he thought to himself as he leaned against the rail, polished by his own hand, and brought one leg up over it. I’m sorry Kes, then his other leg went up and over. I’m sorry Shoten. Reaching over, he grabbed the bag and with a throbbing arms and a strained groan, he brought the heavy package over onto the other side of the rail where he stood.
I just can’t do this without you.
Giving it as best a swing as he could, he threw the bag, letting it drop toward the ocean. Taking his last breath of oxygen, he closed his eyes and slowly exhaled until his brief meditation was cut off by the sudden back-breaking jolt of the rope yanking him off the ship’s side.
The weighted bag hit the water first with a loud splash, and then Shinsei impacted the surface from the height of the ship, before he was pulled deeper and deeper down into the darkness of the ocean by the load tied to his waist.
Instinctively, the man’s body fought against the pulling force, his lungs screaming for air, but he soon found himself letting go of that instinct and simply allowing the water swallow him. The moonlight no longer shone through the surface to reach Shinsei as he lost consciousness, his body continuing to sink at the mercy of gravity that beckoned him into a cold descent.
- - -
Some members of the crew stirred as Shinsei’s throw did not go as far as he planned for the immensely weighted package to go, and the bag of cannon balls rolled on the side of the ship before reaching the water. One of the labourer’s cabinmates was startled awake by a sound more vicious and destructive than he had ever heard before as the bag thudded loudly into the ship’s side and threatened to splinter the wall of the vessel. Mistakenly thinking that they were under attack and panicking, he promptly woke up the others in the room and soon found that Shinsei was gone. Then the loud splash could be heard, muffled by the wooden walls of the ship’s frame.
Bare feet thundered throughout the cabin as chaos ensued.
“Shinsei!” one member shouted, waking up others in the process, and bolted to the deck, then to the rail. Another young sailor ran to the rail on the other side, before screaming, “Here! What are you doing!?” His voice coincided with the splash of Shinsei’s body crashing through the water’s surface as the sound of a second splash filled the air. “What the heck!? He jumped!”
“No, there were two splashes. Do a head count! Quick! Is anybody else missing?”
As the members all crowded on the deck, panicking and looking around them to each do a head count of their own, the captain stepped out of his own private cabin on the ship. “What the heck is going on!?” his voice bellowed and everybody fell silent. One sweeping gaze over his crew and the bearded man shook his head, “What are you all doing out here in your briefs, and what’s with all the panic? Are you trying to wake up all of the ocean’s creatures off the seabed!?” he ironically yelled louder than everyone, red in the face with fury of having his precious sleep disturbed.
“Captain… It’s Shinsei. We think he jumped overboard… we were checking if any of our own-”
“Everybody’s here! And who the seagull’s flapping feathers is Shinsei!?”
Silence followed the captain’s question and the crew looked at one another before the bravest of them replied. “The labourer who has been keeping the boat cleaned and up to standard, captain. The man who polished the floorboards you are stepping on right now.” The sarcasm in the sailor’s tone was impossible to miss and the captain found himself with his back against the wall - on the one hand, he didn’t particularly care about some nobody who spent more time on his knees scrubbing dirt and grit than up on his feet doing anything great; yet on the other hand, now was not the time to have his crew mutiny against him over the decision to leave the man behind.
“Then go get him!” He snapped, as if it was obvious that they should already be working on that plan. This was when a brainwave hit him. The Puppeteer was rumoured to be on the Clam Belt, which they were remarkably close to, and this supposed mastermind earned his title from tinkering with real human bodies to make dolls and puppets out of them without taking a single life. Here they were with a man who was in need of being saved… an excellent test subject to find out if the rumours were true.
And so, the anchor was dropped and the crew fumbled to locate Shinsei’s body that had sunk quite far down. Their best swimmers dived into the water in search for the man. It took a long time, but they were successful, almost at the cost of a few of their own men. Shinsei, however, was entirely unresponsive and several members of the crew took turns performing life-saving chest compressions and occasional puffs of air blown into his lungs to keep his heart beating, partly out of genuine desire to save a life, and partly out of fear of their captain, who screamed at everyone on board to do two things: keep the man’s heart beating, and make it to the Calm Belt Islands before the first task fails.
- - -
While Shinsei was unconscious and at death’s door, his heart was kept beating, enough oxygen reaching his brain and the rest of his organs to prevent his body from shutting down. It was a wonder that he didn’t die after swallowing so much sea water, but the series of illusions that the man’s subconscious allowed him to witness and experience while unconscious displayed nothing wondrous.
As neurons fired in his brain, fighting to keep functioning, the darkness that Shinsei had fallen into was suddenly replaced with flashes of bright light that scattered across his vision, and then faded away once more. He squinted at the bursts of light that disappeared as suddenly as they appeared, until they were accompanied by a muffled rumbling sound that he couldn’t identify. Assuming he was dead, his first reaction was to search for his late wife and child, eager to be reunited with them. “Kes?” he called out and took a step forward in a black pit where the ground and the walls all blended together in darkness. “Shoten?”
“Kes?” his own voice echoed back to him from the abyss. “Shoten?” Came the next utterance.
The muffled sounds grew louder and he couldn’t tell if it was a persistent mumbling of a crowd or a fire crackling somewhere that he couldn’t see. That question was quickly answered as the space all around him suddenly lit up with flames, the blackness that surrounded him being replaced with a hellish red glow.
- - -
“Bring the torches!” The crew medic cried as his arms threatened to give way after nearly an hour of chest compressions. “Check his eyes, does he respond to the fire?”
A sailor brought a handheld torch close, being careful not to burn anyone with its flames while a companion held Shinsei’s eyelid up, forcing the light into his eyes.
- - -
Shinsei’s eyes began to burn as they needed more time to adjust, and he became very weary of his surroundings. “The fire!” he heard a voice seem to come out of the monstrous flames. His heart was racing as he looked all around him, confused as to where he was or where he could go to look for his wife and son. Guilt ran deep within him as he thought about them being trapped in a place like this on their own, though he was quite unsure of why they would be in a place like this… what was this place?
“Kes! Shoten!” He shouted again and pushed forward, following the only path that there was available to him. It seemed to open up right before his eyes, huge flames on either side of it.
Suddenly, Shinsei felt unable to move as his arms and legs felt like they were being squeezed. Looking down at his arms first, then at his legs, he froze in horror to find black charred hands that seemed to be reaching out of the fire to grab at his limbs and pull him. “Get off! Get off!” Frantically pulling against them, he resisted their grasp, but it seemed that the more he struggled, the more they pulled. In a fit of panic, he lurched forward with all his might, adrenaline taking over as he broke free and darted forward to try and get away.
- - -
“We need to move him away from the edge and to a more stable area on the ship because of turbulence. Grab his arms and legs. Lift!” The crew moved Shinsei’s lifeless body to an area of the boat that wouldn’t rock as much due to the battering of the sea’s waves.
“Damn it, how much longer!?” the medic shouted, “We can’t keep going on like this forever, how far is this island? He is going to die!”
“Raise your voice at me again, and you’ll be experiencing something worse than that man’s death, you worm!” The captain yelled back, losing his patience, and then he recomposed himself as he stood at the helm, watching over his crew from his elevated platform. “We’re almost there…”
The crew glanced at each other worriedly, before leaning over Shinsei, casting shadows in the moonlight over his body as the torches were moved aside.
- - -
Daring not look back, Shinsei kept running, striving to reach the end of this dreadful path that looked like something out of a nightmare. “You thought you were going to die?” He heard a disembodied voice fill the air.
“You deserve worse than… death…” Shinsei slowed down as he looked around him to try and figure out where the voices were coming from, some words too muffled to be made out clearly. Shaking his head, he breathed heavily, “N-No…” he denied it, though deep down he believed it. His wife’s death, his son’s death, their blood was on his hands.
“You worm!”
A look of sheer panic on his face, Shinsei walked backwards, as if to ensure nothing was following him, then he turned again. He was about to call out for his beloved Kes once more, but as he whipped his body around, a large shadow seemed to come out of the flames and simply stand there in front of him, a blank dark canvas of a silhouette that had no eyes or any defining features. Then another one popped up, and then another, until Shinsei found himself surrounded. He must have rotated in a circle at least twice to look at all the figures that looked like they had horns, all towering over him.
“W-What do you want!?” His voice shook as he cried out as it became clear to him that Kes and Shoten were not here. He now knew this with absolute certainty, they were too good to be thrown into this miserable plane of spiritual existence. They were too good to be in Hell.
“We’re almost there…” a whisper that came from behind him was warm on his neck, prompting Shinsei to quickly turn once more, all the shadows that had darkened the area around him suddenly vanishing and he was left standing there alone, the fire crackling away at each of the path’s sides.
For a moment, he stood there and considered turning around to go back instead of forward. A quick glance over his shoulder, however, and he immediately changed his mind, as the paved way seemed to crumble and succumb to the flames. “Almost where?” He whispered to himself as he moved one foot in front of the other and continued on his journey, but his body started to feel heavier by the second as if he had weights strapped around his waist again and each step he took was followed by a force in his chest that seemed to challenge him back.
- - -
“Okay, we’re here. Get him on the stretcher.” The captain gave the command, eager to see for himself whether The Puppeteer was real or not. Shinsei was lifted onto a wooden plank that was the full length of his body and supported with iron rims that ran along its width. The medic hopped onto the board to sit on Shinsei’s waist and continue forcing his heart to beat, hitching a ride along with their patient as other crew members lifted and carried the wooden board.
Docking at the beach, the dying man was carried across the shallow waters and onto the sandy shores, before the crew travelled inland in search of the crazy doctor who supposedly lived on this very small islet.
- - -
As Shinsei continued along the path, the earth beneath him seemed to shake and rock, until he was suddenly met with complete stillness. Shadows once again rose from the fires, this time snuffing them all out as he was shrouded in absolute darkness again. Frozen, Shinsei was afraid to move as he waited for his eyes to adjust, but it seemed to be taking a lot longer than usual.
A sharp pain shot through the man’s chest and he gasped, staggering backward as he clawed at his shirt. “What… the…” the crushing pressure made him cry out, but it was impossible for him to get more air in. With each scream of agony, air was being expelled without any way of being inhaled again that caused his lungs to tighten and his heart to thump against his constricting rib cage. He was suffocating. He was drowning again…
- - -
“Don’t stop! We’ve been doing chest compressions since the moment we brought him out of the water, he’s not breathing. You can’t stop now-” the medic began pleading with the acclaimed Puppeteer, who seemed to have a plan of his own.
“Don’t worry about that. His heart is struggling right now, but I can do something better!”
“What are you talking about!? He needs that water out-”
“You are the crew’s medic, yes? Well, while I’m sure I could tell you how to do your job a lot better than you actually do it, you certainly cannot do the same to me. I was trained by the greatest, so stop babbling and get out of my way.”
The medic was dumbfounded, staring at this young man who had an ego that made the room feel twice as small. “W-What are you going to do?”
There was a moment of silence following the medic's question as the narcissistic doctor stared at him without uttering a word. Then he spoke, “I’m going to save his life.” The smile on the rose-haired youth was disturbing and the medic was left speechless. The captain on the other hand was grinning ear to ear. The Puppeteer, in the flesh… the rumours were true. “Come on, Novak, give the man his space to do what he does best.” Patting his medic’s shoulder, he ushered him out of the room to leave the doctor to work his magic.
- - -
Shinsei’s back felt cold and his entire body shuddered as if it had come into contact with metal that sapped all the heat from his body. He had no idea what was causing this sensation, as he struggled with the pain in his chest and was now reaching back over his shoulder to remove anything that he thought was touching him, a desperate man trying to fight off something that he couldn’t see, but as he clawed and spun around, there was nothing.
A bright light suddenly lit up the ceiling above him and he looked up at it. It was like a floodlight that made him squint and forced him to raise one hand to block some of the light as his breath was raspy. This, however, was soon partially blocked by another horned silhouette that appeared to come out of nowhere and peer down at him menacingly.
“Don’t worry… I’m going to help you.” The voice was not at all reassuring and was deeper than any voice he had ever heard in his life, and it made his bones rattle. “This might hurt a bit.” The demonic figure continued, before a new light suddenly filled the room, a fire, that abruptly combusted on Shinsei’s chest. His heart beat loudly in his ears as he screamed in pain, desperately trying to pat the fire out, but it seemed immune to his attempts, his hands simply going right through it, unaffected. The fire appeared to follow a pattern, like a fuel trail that led from his heart to all four of his limbs, and the previous pressure in his chest was now replaced with an unbearable burning that made the man writhe and flail until he collapsed. Kneeling in the centre of the room, his entire body ablaze, he could now see that he was in a very small room, the walls covered in several more shadows of people, men and women, children, all looking at him as his own anguished cries drowned out their mumbling.
What followed for what felt like an eternity were several torturous methods inflicted upon him, from head to toe he had felt his body burning from the inside out, prodded at and operated on. The entire ordeal, however, brought a very particular scent to his nose that he couldn’t quite place.
- - -
“And we’re done!” A long sigh escaped The Puppeteer’s lips, the three-day operation finally completed as Shinsei’s blood had been replaced with burning hot nicotine, his heart given mechanical components to keep beating and rely on this spicy-smelling fluid instead of regular blood that ran through his veins, and his skin was replaced with a flawless synthetic material that could withstand burns and hid scars very well. He was a masterpiece that the young doctor felt proud of, a cyborg, but perhaps most importantly, he was alive.
Shinsei’s eyes snapped open once the procedure was done and his body was given all the fuel it needed to function, his heart was beating at an incredible rate. The adrenaline from the subconscious terror that he had just endured coursed through his veins along with the nicotine that he could just now recognise the scent of.
“You’re awake! I’m so glad-” the young doctor couldn’t finish expressing his excitement as Shinsei leapt off the cold metal table he had been laying on and grabbed the younger man’s throat, ramming him into the wall behind him and sending a tray of tools crashing to the ground. As Shinsei looked down at the metal tray, he stared at his own reflection. His brown hair was a bright fiery red, as were his eyes.
“What did you do to me!?” He snarled at the one who just brought him back to life.
“W-What do you mean?” he wheezed, clawing at Shinsei’s wrist to try and get him to let go. “You would have died… I… saved you! You… drowned! You... ungrateful...” His shoulders to the wall, the young man’s scrawny weak frame was no match for his own creation, who only squeezed more tightly in a blind rage. Finally throwing him aside, Shinsei’s attention was directed toward papers on the wall that hung behind his target.
Snatching one, he stared at the blueprints. It was a perfectly drawn human figure with accurate anatomy, but it was all… wrong. “What is this?” Human organs where replaced with sketches of some mechanical contraptions, and a list of possible life fuel was in the corner, reading ‘
In his fit of anger, Shinsei didn’t realise each little fire that fed on whatever fuel it could reach - papers, gauze, chemicals - and before long he found himself surrounded by growing flames in what was originally the doctors operating theatre. Everything was burning and for a few seconds, Shinsei stood right in the middle of it, his skin seemingly unaffected by the burning fire.
For that moment, he was calm. He felt invincible and nothing else… quickly, that translated into emptiness and sadness, as he longed for the fires to burn him, yet they wouldn’t. That turned into anger and his rage returned. Furious that he was brought back and not allowed to die the way he wanted to, Shinsei took it all out on this stranger’s lab as he took advantage of being unaffected by the fire and made sure that not a single thing within the the building survived.
Leaving the lab in burning ruins, he went to the islet’s shore, seeing a small row boat in the distance and the tall young man who had restored his life in a cursed existence now rowing so diligently, eager to get away from him, no doubt. Fully fuelled, he felt he had the energy to swim across the entire ocean to catch the rat, but his wits held him back as he could easily see that was not a bright idea. Thankfully, there was a second rowboat on the beach, poorly concealed beneath some palm fronds. He figured it was most likely left there in case the other was stolen. Shinsei dragged it by the nose to the sea and hopped in, prepared to leave the islet and let the currents take him anywhere.
As he sat in his boat, he closed his eyes and felt the breeze on his face, yet it wasn’t the same. Of course, nothing was the same and nothing ever will be again. Yet, something was stopping him from rolling over into the water and letting go of everything… Remembering the horrors he experienced, images burnt into his memory, brought a frown to his face and he was forced to open his eyes again to fill his vision with the more scenic visuals of the ocean around him. Convinced he was in Hell, he let out a long sigh.
His eyelids felt heavy and his body tired after all the exertion. Where to go next was a big question in his mind, but so many thoughts were soon overwhelmed by a matter more pressing, as if his new body was trying to tell him something.
First, he needed to find out what it was exactly that he was craving so badly…
Shinsei: #ba0303
Crewmate 1: #04a553
Crewmate 2: #0479a5
Crewmate 3: #04a58d
Crew Captain: #a57d04
Crew Medic: #68eeeb
Disembodied Voice: #a5a5a5
The Puppeteer: #eacce2