I stumbled and Alexander nearly fell as I rested most of my weight on him to regain my balance as my theory came crumbling apart. I had gone to bed on November twenty fourth, my parents had been in town for Thanksgiving, and I had been tired from the turkey and turned in early. Now I was on a Russian icebreaker after having been fished out of the arctic circle. I was adrift, there were no facts here to cling onto, no theories to explore no science I could use to explain this. I felt myself begin to shake as my vision tunnelled and I leaned heavily on Alexander. I heard him say something in Russian and I vaguely registered the older man turned around in front of me. My arm slipped from over Alexander's neck and I felt my knees hit the metal deck with a jarring thud that set my teeth rattling. I leaned down pressing my hands against the cool hard metal and I saw Alexander crouch down in front of me looking at me with concern. I retched, once, then twice. Nothing came out, bile mixed with spit dribbled out of my mouth and onto the metal in front of me. I swayed, I couldn't tell if it was the ship or myself. I looked down at my spit on the ground. Why couldn't I vomit I wondered dreamily, Id had a big meal last night. I felt drunk. I felt wrong. I could hear blood rushing in my ears. I could feel heat in the bottom of my stomach, in my chest, in my head. It burned like a raging inferno as my mind tried to find some point of reality to grasp onto. Even the metal under my hands felt tacky and liquid. Looking up I felt like I was looking through a heat haze as everything seemed to shimmer and warp. Alexander seemed so far away now, he and the older man seemed to be standing side by side. They looked at me with open terror on their faces as they watched me break down. I could hear popping noises in my ears, creaks and groans that I knew must be coming from me. A wailing that seemed too mechanical to have been made by a human was escaping from me now. A hissing also filled my ears, a constant sound like a wet pan on a hot stove that seemed to drill into my mind. Then I felt a cool hand against my cheek and I looked up. Alexander was back, his white hand pressed against my face as he lifted my head to look into his cool blue eyes. He seemed deathly pale but had a determined grim look on his face as he stared at me. The feeling of his icy hand against my cheek pulled me back into reality. I sagged as the panic started to exit my body and be replaced by sheer exhaustion. I heard boots walk towards me and I felt myself being hauled up and forward roughly by the collar of the pyjamas, I was wearing. My arms were threaded over the shoulders of both the older man and Alexander and I walked forward with them in a shuffle.

The wailing it appeared had not been coming from me and some sort of klaxon was going off throughout the ship and I was hoping it hadn't been my fault. The embarrassment I felt that someone might have pulled an alarm at my mental breakdown somehow made me feel better. Feeling embarrassed was such a mundane usual feeling that it grounded me, wherever I was and whatever had happened I was still me that was for sure.

“Sorry if I’m the one causing the commotion,” I shrugged trying to smile.

Each man gave me different silent looks that let me know that I was the cause. The older man seemed angry bordering on furious as he more drug me than walked down the hallway. Alexander looked at me with a mixture of empathy and pure terror which I guess was fair considering he’d likely been the one to pull the alarm I assumed. What I realized now up close though was that they were both wet and so was the deck as we moved further. There must be a storm going on and I just hadn't noticed their state until now. If the deck was wet too I assumed then that we were likely moving outwards towards the open air as well then. My assumption was proven correct when we started climbing a set of stairs and I saw a porthole in one of the walls. The circular piece of glass looked out onto a dark sea that seemed to be lit only by the lights of the boat. I realized that no matter what time it was probably dark given how far north we were so I didn't let myself be concerned by the fact. As we kept walking up the stairs I felt my foot begin to ache as I tried to keep up with the pace at which I was being drug. Even so, I watched as we ascended higher and higher and the portholes gave me better and better views. The ship was massive, bigger than any moving thing I’d ever been on and I was struck by how amazing it was that humans had built something of this size and scale. My admiration was cut short as I was yanked out literally up another step and we finally reached a large door. It had a circular wheel on the front of the hatch that I thought looked a little cartoonish but hey I was no ship designer I guess. I saw a small intercom button next to it which the older man pushed and spoke into for about a minute in hushed Russian. Then the wheel began to spin and the door swung inwards to reveal a medium sized room with a few people in uniform inside. The room was dominated by a few sets of panels with blinking buttons and lights and screens. Windows covered the entire front wall of the room and I was treated to a breathtaking view of the ship stretching out into the night ahead of me. The vessel was cutting through the dark water like a razor through fabric. The ripples of the water seemed like wrinkles as the bottom unseamed the very material of the water as it moved forward. It seemed so incongruent that something of this size could ever be considered a fine tool but in the vastness of the sea, it was. Pulling my eyes away from the view I saw a man who I assumed to be the captain get up from a central chair. He walked towards us and I tried to stand on my own even as pain shot through my bad foot I stayed steady and looked towards him. The captain was dressed in a knitted beige woollen sweater and grey slacks that ended in well worn and well taken care of boots. A blue fisherman's cap covered his hair and ears and a silvery beard extended from it. He was old, older than I had expected and his face was surprisingly tan with wrinkles along his cheeks and forehead. He stood slightly shorter than me but I assumed that in his prime he had been my height or maybe even taller and he carried himself with an easy strength. The only thing to denote his rank was a small emblem pinned to his sweater of an anchor and rope with a sun in the centre. It had Cyrillic below it which probably indicated his name or maybe it just said the captain. Either way, the man was clearly in charge as shown by the difference between every man on the bridge. Walking towards us he inspected me slowly, his eyes were a sharp blue and his lids crinkled and folded as he squinted. There was not even a hint of decline behind his eyes, much the opposite his gaze seemed to be honed by decades as he saw into me. In the seconds it took for him to get to us I felt as if he knew me better than almost any person in my life ever had. I felt myself sag at the mere fact of being truly seen, there was no need to pretend to be strong here, this man knew I wasn't. Saying something in Russian he motioned and I was moved and sat down on an old plush couch against the back wall. Sitting there I looked up and the three men stood in front of me, the captain in the centre Alexander to his right and the older man to his left. Each man had an entirely different look on their face ranging from concern on Alexander to fury on the older man. There were a few minutes of silence as I looked at the tableau before me, it really was a crash course on human emotion. It was the captain whose expression I found most interesting, there was no anger there and sympathy didn't seem to be the right word either. Concern, whether for me or his crew I couldn't tell, curiosity almost definitely and more than anything caution.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

The captain was the first one to speak,

“I see that once again you have caused quite a commotion on my ship.” His voice was crisp and cool, like cold water and his English was perfect although clearly accented.

I looked around and could vaguely still hear the klaxon from the lower decks and cringed as thought back to my collapse only a few moments before. I tried to think of some sort of quick response to say and opened my mouth and it died in my throat. There was absolutely nothing I could say quickly to explain my absolutely catastrophic meltdown. How does one explain that their entire world has collapsed in on itself in the span of less than a few hours?

“I’m sorry.” It was all I could say.

I sat there in silence, deflated, my head was full of questions but I couldn't find a reason to ask them. It felt like there was no point, where do you start when the entirety of your world has been shifted on its axis? So instead I just sat there saying nothing, slumped in on myself looking at the ground.

“We need to know how you got where you were if you work for any government or organization.”

The captain spoke again and I looked up at him spreading my hands helplessly.

“I don't even know how to answer that,” I said “I barely even know where I am let alone how I got here.”

The captain looked at me and the older man said something to the captain who turned to him sharply and they began speaking rapidly in Russian. Alexander stepped forward with the same look of grim determination and inserted himself into the conversation. The older man was gesturing at me angrily as Alexander seemed to contradict him. The rest of the crew on the bridge clearly were trying not to look or listen as the argument between the two of them grew. Finally, the captain said something in Russian and the two of them were silenced. Then louder he spoke again and the crew on the deck started to file out the bridge the door closing loudly. Like the door, the closing was a signal Alexander and the older man were back at it, screaming at each other in Russian before the door even stopped ringing. The captain barked something in Russian and both men immediately stopped again and the captain turned to me.

“It would seem that you're causing quite the argument between my lookout and first mate, normally this would be enough for me to throw you off the ship.” The captain looked at me sternly and I could see his first mate straighten as it looked like he’d won the argument.

“However,” the captain looked over his shoulder towards the older man. “Considering that we are in transit and you are a castaway that would be both morally and legally incorrect.”

Locking eyes with the older man, “would you not agree first mate Kirill?”

Turning to me, “as for Alexander's belief that you are nothing but a shipwreck victim or some victim of an experiment gone awry, this is something I am even less inclined to believe.”

Alexander stepped forward as if to contradict the captain but a look from him made it very clear that this was not a matter up for debate. Something else passed between the captain and Alexander and the first mate, there was definitely some sort of tension here pre-dating me.

“First I will answer your question,” the captain locked eyes with me, “You are aboard the RS Salhinsk, but I believe you knew this already. This ship is independently owned but at this moment we are under contract by the Russian government for use as a supply ship. Our precise location is not something I'm willing to divulge, I will say we are nearing the East Siberian Sea.”

The captain watched me carefully for any reaction to his statement and was clearly only more puzzled by my reaction of slumping with my head in my hands.

From between my palms I spoke, “I have absolutely no idea what's going on, I went to bed yesterday in America.”

Saying it out loud finally made me face the situation, this was no dream and I needed to make sure that whatever had happened I got out of here. Clearly, things were happening both on this ship and where they had picked me up that they were keeping from me. I knew enough to realize that whatever was happening here information was the currency in this exchange. If I wanted to hold any sort of cards I had to be careful about whatever I told them and what I lied about. I knew for a fact there would be absolutely no convincing them that I was a Russian agent or national for instance. I honestly didn't even know if it even would have been a good idea to try that line even if I could pull it off.

Dragging my hands down my face I looked up at them,

“My name is Lucian Armitage Clark, I’m an American citizen and I'll say again I have no idea what's going on.”

I looked up at them hoping that at least the captain saw that I was genuinely lost and that at least so far I hadn't lied to him once. I heard Kirill scoff at my words which earned him a sharp look from both the Captain and Alexander.

“I am captain Repun, you have met first mate Kirill and first lookout Alexander.” He gestured to the two men to either side of him.

I stood shakily and reached out my hand, he grasped mine firmly in his and shook it firmly as we looked face to face for the first time. I sank back onto the couch as our hands let go, Kirill was red faced and I could see a faint smile on Alexander's face.