Date: February 11, 2025

Location: Sierra’s Song, Pacific Ocean

Xane Qiun’s favorite thing in the world is the sea. The vast endless blue and the smell of salt. Fishing was all the boy ever dreamed of when he was young. However, on his 18th birthday he wasn’t on a mere fishing trip. He was out to explore and find something.

His parents Henry Qiun and Lucy Qiun were rich. Not billionaire status but had millions to their name. This allowed Xane to get the best education and pretty much whatever he wanted. His father was an architect and world known painter and his mother an actress everyone wanted in their media, from movies to adverts.

Xane left on a boat that he designed himself with the best navigation system, the greatest captain that money could hire that just so happened to be one of Xane’s oldest friends literally and figuratively. Captain Von Sway, a name by choice not by birth.

The boat's name was the Sierra’s Song, Xane being the one who named it never told anyone the story behind it, or if there even is one, to begin with.

The running rumor was that he met a girl in a seaside park named Sierra with the most beautiful voice. They were friends in an instant and found that they both had a love for the ocean. Sierra went out one day on a boat ride with her family never to be seen again. This was a strike to Xane’s heart that never healed. Mostly since it was his fault. He had begged his father to let them take the family cruise boat for Sierra’s family vacation as a present.

Xane wasn’t allowed to sail far out till he turned 18. Well, today was that day and out in the Pacific ocean is where he is. To the knowledge of only Xane they were following the exact course that his love Sierra had taken exactly a year earlier. He even left at the same time. Losing the love of your life on your birthday was a pretty bad present.

Xane didn’t know why he wanted to follow Sierra’s path. Perhaps it was destiny, or just lingering grief. Perhaps he thought it would bring closure. Whatever the cause he was aboard Sierra's Song heading straight into the Pacific Ocean.

A big wave that rocked the hull of Sierra’s Song broke Xane out of his wild thoughts of home and the reasons for him being here. Xane peeked out of the main cabin of the carvel of his own design. The vessel had two main masts. The wood for the ship was Brazilian ebony. While that might not be the strongest wood in the world, it gave the ship its stunning black and cream color that Xane just had to have. To make kup for the woods weakness he had th ship reinfoced with an interior metal hull. The vessel only looked to be made of only wood.

All the classes he took were on math, naval architecture, and marine geology. He learned sailing from his tutur and captain Von. His parents were always confused about why he wanted a wooden looking boat, Xane just told them it looks cooler.

Xane decided to go out and talk to Von and see where they were. “Hey, Von my man, how's it going up here?”

“Going well,” the 40-year-old man said, not even looking at Xane. Von was a well in shape man that had a large beard which ran down to his mid-chest and large beefy hands. Von also had hair that was always hidden inside a ball cap that stated, ‘The ocean is my land’.

Just before Xane could ask the question he had intended this little trip for, Von added in, ”How was your beauty sleep; you were out for at least 11 hours.”

This shocked Xane. He knew he wasn’t asleep for that long, but that just meant he had been sitting there thinking the rest of the time. The shock must have been evident on Xane’s face since Von piped in,” well you are here just in time the view is just beautiful.” Von said, pointing out to the vast ocean where the sun was just starting to set, casting radiant pinks and reds through the sky and water.

This brought Xane out of his thoughts to which his mind kept bringing him to. His mind was finally empty. They just sat there watching the sun hide behind the curve of the world.

When the sun was fully gone and its light show ended Von finally asked, “So what did you come up here for? I sure know it wasn’t the sight.”

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“Well at first the sight was pretty terrible till you pointed out a better one.”

Von showed a false face of hurt as he took the meaning. And Xane left before Von could come up with a similar jab back and started angling the sails so they would catch the wind and speed up their journey. He loved doing it but again wished he had brought more people on this journey than himself and Captain Von. There were modern motors on board but why waste power?

After this was done he walked to the bow of the ship where he had a chair and telescope sitting for him totally forgetting that he wanted to know where they were.

An hour later the clouds started to form in the dark night covering the only light the moon could provide for the two sailors.”Turn on the lights, will you,” yelled out Xane. Even though Sierra song was based off of a 15th century caravel ship the lights and navigation system were more current technology. With retractable solar panels and windmills to power the lights and other more convenient needs like a fully functional kitchen. Xane designed his boat for aesthetics and also comfort. The ship itself looked like it came straight from the past albeit with slight changes for better sailing.

“Would you kindly re-adjust the sails the wind is changing,” yelled down Von.

Xane did just that. He then went up to the bridge of the ship. “I can be captain while you take your nap.” Xane stated with a knowing smile.

“Oh, really you think you can just walk on up and call yourself captain?” Von said eyebrows creased in mock anger. ”I’ll go halfway, you can be honorary first mate.” Knowing this would be the only way that Xane would be allowed to steer his own ship he agreed.

Von went to his small room on board and took a nap while Xane finally remembered to look at the GPS to see how far they had gone. The problem was all he saw was errors. Confused, he tried restarting the system. This took an agonizing 5 minutes for it to reboot and try to reconnect. “State of art my ass!” Xane yelled out in annoyance. Hopefully, Von didn’t hear that. Though Xane not wanting to wake up the sailor too early. He did that once and fully regretted it. Xane was worried about why it wasn’t working. The clouds would have to be made of aluminum foil to block the strength of the system he had.

Xane was too distracted by the GPS to tell that it had started to sprinkle. Then after a few minutes rain, the wind was blowing with much more force than usual, and the waves were becoming quite high.

Von sensing that something was wrong in the way that only a seasoned sailor could quickly started running out his cabin. Not needing to clothe himself since he never undressed.

What Von came out to was a disaster and one that Xane was trying to fix. Xane was pulling the sails up to stop them from being pushed around by the wild wind and also to protect the sails from any debris if there were any. This brought a smile to Von's face to see that his little prodigy was doing great work. The smile didn’t last long however as a strong gust of wind halted Xane’s progress.

Von ran up to help Xane and together they got the last sail up and the rope tied. With that all done they sat down against the middle mast for some respite

“Sorry for waking you.”

“You did no such thing. A sailor always knows when their ship is in need.”

“Your ship? Where is it?” replied Xane standing up and looking around for any stray ships. “I don’t see any-”

Xane stopped mid-sentence looking out towards where their ship was heading. Which looked like the largest toilet just got flushed and they were in it.

Xane couldn’t bring himself to look away from the massive spiral into the darkness that their ship was heading straight towards. It both fascinated and horrified him. First, this would be the first ever documented occurrence of such a phenomenon, well except Charybdis but that was only myth, across the world. What causes it? Did it have a bottom? The questions kept flowing through him like the boat's course towards what he could only think to call the eye of the storm.

Then came the realization that he was, in fact, heading straight towards it. This was not what broke him from his thoughts. What did was Von’s rather large hand hitting Xane’s face with too much force. That worked and Xane ran towards the wheel. Von was somehow already there trying to steer the ship away from the hole of presumably death, this was in vain. Xane tested the wind, but the wind had shifted to be pushing towards the spiral, so lowering the sails would only hasten death.

Xane tried to think of something to do. He did have the engine installed in the aft of the ship, but this too had the problem of pushing them faster towards doom. Unless.

“Turn us around and use the fans,” Yelled Xane. Well that is what he was about to say before a large piece of wood was launched out of the whirlpool hitting Xane. This shard of a mast rolled away as the ship lurched to port side.

Von ran towards Xane picking him up. He tried to get to the door but a wave halted progress. Another even larger wave tossed water onto the deck and over the two men. Drenched and tired, Von picked up Xane once more, half pulling half carrying him towards the door. A last big wave slammed the door into Von’s side pushing him to the ground. The last thing he saw was the door fully shutting with both men outside before he succumbed to darkness.