"Ow, stop!" I yelp after being hit by a pillow.

“Wake up, you lazy hog,” someone shouts, but I instantly recognize it as my sister Elanor.

“Bro, stop with the pillow,” I yell, blocking my face.

“Get up. I want to know what's going on!”

“Why do I need to be up for it? Why can't you just fill me in?”

“That's just what they said,” she said lazily, hitting me with a pillow.

I snatched the pillow from her and frustratingly yelled, “Stop!” I stand up, rear my arm, and barely stop myself from hitting her.

“Okay, sorry, I was just messing around.”

Throwing the pillow back at her, I noticed she was staring at me with a very concerned face. I suddenly felt dizzy. "Woah, my head! I think I need to sit down.”

"Okay, when you're free, head outside,” my sister said sweetly, and I instantly felt terrible for almost punching her.

I quickly fixed myself up and headed outside. By the way the sun was beating down, I assumed it was around noon. I wasn't hungry so I just kind of stood there awkwardly, and I had a huge headache, probably because I was drinking last night. Which made the slap in the face that was everything that had happened last night softer.

“Okay, everyone, my name is Stephanos, but please just call me Steven. I am one of the merchants and I've been sent to pick you guys up,” the man said. He had dark brown skin and a very ectomorphic body. His dreadlocks were tied back in a ponytail.

In response, no words were spoken.

He continued, "I am sorry about the inconvenience of our meeting after everything that was yours had been burned, but unfortunately that's exactly how it was supposed to happen other than the fact that there should be more of you who made it out alive."

"Wait, so you mean to tell me that you knew about this?" Mateo shouted.

“What do you mean?” he asked. " Of course, if I didn't know, then I wouldn't have risked this pristine boat out here to save you guys. You know this boat was made over 1.5 thousand years ago and the fact I've been able to keep it this way is a miracle."

"You could have warned us, or helped us, or..." He stumbles and trips over his words.

“We did, but what your father did with the information was his choice,” he replied.

Then Mateo, who was tense and staring at the ground, relaxed after Leo whispered something.

Mateo let out a deep sigh. “I dont have the patience for riddles. What's going on?.”

Steven took a deep breath and slowly let it all out. “Thank you. We need your help with something. Its not going to be easy though.”

“Could you elaborate?” someone said to my right, but I didn't know who since everything started to turn into a haze of confusion.

“What I'm saying is that we need your help.”

“Wait, what is this we? I've only seen you on the ship?” Mateo asked.

“I've been told not to disclose that information,” he said like nothing was wrong with it.

“No… no, no, no, that's bull-”

“He means that's dumb, and that's not how this works,” Leo intervened, covering Mateo's mouth.

Mateo walked up to the helm of the ship where the man who wasn't making sense was standing. He put the point of his newly acquired sword to Steven's throat.

“You can put that down,” he said calmly, and not phased.

A thin line of blood slowly dripped from where Mateo was applying pressure with the sword. “Say one thing I don't like and I'll apply more pressure.”

“Okay, so the other merchants," he started.

As Mateo applies more pressure, he asks, "what are the names of these people?".

“Listen, you'll meet them soon enough."

“This is Bullshit,” Mateo says through his teeth, so I can barely hear what he says. Any more pressure on the sword would have sliced through his neck.

“One of our companions is getting weaker and closer and closer to death.”

“So, why do you need us?” Mateo asks.

“I was just given a location and what would happen until you guys got on the boat?”

Mateo put his sword down. “Okay,” he said coolly, “i'm not buying it”

“I will drop you guys off in a town that used to be called Bayfield, which is about seven hours away,” he says, wiping the blood off his neck.

"So you're not coming with us?” I ask.

“Sadly, I cannot travel with you lively bunch,” he remarks sardonically.

"Okay, what do we do then?” Leo asks.

"Get to Huntsville, Alabama,” he stops himself and continues, “that's what it was called a long time ago. It is now a town called Huntersville. There are people who will help you get to parádesios.”

“Okay, thanks for clearing that up, but how are we supposed to find it?" Alex wonders. "Why do we need to travel to pará- what?”

“Parádesios, and you just need to go south. I'm sure if you need redirection, we will help.”

“You didn't answer my question?”

“Right so the truth behind the nature of the universe's quote unquote mysterious ways is that twelve superior beings, we merchants, call them the keepers now they weren't bent on making the world the way it is now but as humans started corrupting the world, the keepers who were in charge of all negatives became corrupted and then from there everything fell out of balance.” He stopped to make sure we were all following along. "In a utopian world you'd all be living in cozy quaint houses with happy and healthy families, but I've been alive for three thousand years and this world still keeps falling apart."

Mateo walked up to where Stephanos was standing and lightly pushed him back while whispering.

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"Okay everyone,” he shouted proudly, turning to us “I'm tired and last night I realized there is no turning back. We don't have a home anymore. So what do we have to lose, right? There is no point in whining and moping. No matter what we do, I need something to do to keep me busy, so let's at least do something worthwhile. This might lead us to our deaths, or to a catastrophe; who knows, this should be fun.”

Despite the last words being sarcastic and bringing me down, I wanted to follow him. He didn't look scared or anything. It provided a sense of security, no matter how false it was.

“Sure, this guy over here,” he jabs his thumb at Stephano's, and continues, “might be lying and just want to eat us for dinner or something. At this point, I still can't seem to care enough. Therefore, I want everyone to be prepared. We have never been this far outside of our home and since we can't get any closer, we might as well venture further or die trying.”

Everyone was silent as Mateo walked down from the helm and then down below the deck with the door making almost no noise behind him. Everyone was left to digest the words he left lingering in our heads.

“I will assure you that I will not be eating anyone,” Stephanos said, “but I should start the trip to Bayfield.”

Each of us processed Mateo's death speech in our own way, doing what we could with the words given to us. Alex and Leo joked around and then started sparring with each other. So they wouldn't think I was watching. I started doing push-ups on the other side of the boat, taking small breaks to look at them.

“Hey did you know this boat is a Spanish galleon?” James asked Elizabeth, who had been lying on the ground looking at the pure blue sky.

“No, how did you figure that out?" she replied, sounding genuinely interested but still looking up.

“The Stephanos guy told me." I tuned them both out at that point.

As a result of forty minutes of sparring, Leo and Alex lay on their backs exhausted at the end of the session.

That's when I realized I hadn't seen Elanor anywhere, which is when I got up, already stiff and sore from doing pushups for forty minutes in a row. I looked around on the boat's top deck when a wave of seasickness suddenly hit me. I gave up on my search and headed down below deck. That's when I saw her in the corner, swinging in a hammock, and I walked to her.

“Hey, what's with the sudden change in feelings about the hammock?” I wonder.

“It doesn't feel so tight anymore, like it's not suffocating me,” she explained.

“That's fun. What are you doing down here?”

“Trying to find the off switch for my anxiety,” she joked.

"What are you having anxiety about?" I asked.

She looked at me. "Do I really need to say anything?"

"Right, I'm sorry," I said, wondering how I could have asked such a dumb question.

“Did you know I was planning to ask Matt out?”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I realized yesterday after he showed me a spot to watch the sunset, that I should ask him out but I had this feeling in my gut,” she says, seeming embarrassed.

“You mean you got butterflies in your stomach?” I laughed. “ It's a normal response, and it's often a sign that you should take the plunge and ask them out."

“Yeah, and then I tried again, but then Luke and James cut me off with all of their fighting,” she said, disappointed.

“Damn, I'm sorry." I felt a pang of guilt.

"It's okay, maybe it's for the best. What if he doesn't like me back?" she said, the pain in her voice increasing. "What if that's what life is telling me?"

"One: there are too many ifs in that, and two: that can't be true. You heard Steven, most of the stuff that's going to happen to us is going to be difficult. We just have to fight our way through it."

"I hope so."

"Furthermore, aren't you worried he'll hear you?” I asked, trying to get her off the topic.

“No, as soon as he got into one of the hammocks, he passed out,” she said sadly. “Why are you down here?”

“I was looking for you, then I got seasick, so I'm gonna try to sleep until we get to Bayfield,” I said, “and I'm sorry.”

“You're fine. Hopefully, I will find a better chance sometime soon,” she said, smiling, but a hint of sadness filled her eyes. “Goodnight.”

“Thanks.”

I looked around and found the darkest corner. I climbed into a hammock and closed my eyes when a sudden feeling of loneliness washed over me. I fell asleep while trembling.

I wake up in a dusty room, I see a chair with its back turned to me. As I look around, I see a desk in front of the chair and the walls are lined with books on shelves.

“I can give you anything you want, your family back, wealth, or I might,” he pauses for a moment, “I might be willing to give you power. Yes, you'll be as strong as me.”

I thought for a moment, then remembered what Mateo had said, and I didn't want to let anyone down.

“Hmm, interesting,” the voice said, “you can remember stuff from reality even in a dream, but no matter, follow your friend, I don't care.”

He started laughing and then the chair turned to face me. As I watched the blood pour over the top of the walls, I saw a charred, rotting body, laughing with no emotion, and glaring at me.

“But no, by all means, follow your friend.”

The room started boiling, my skin burning into a goo.

I woke up with my face touching the ground, and pain shooting up my nose. I got up to see Leo coming towards me from a hammock that was on the opposite side of the room. Mateo was sound asleep, and Elanor was absent.

“Are you okay,” Leo asked, brushing me off, and wiping off the small trail of blood coming from my nose.

“Yeah, I'm alright,” I laughed lightly, my head wieghtless with Leo this close to me.

I quickly brushed Leo off, and started for the door. Again I started feeling sick again, I wobbled through the ship trying to figure out how much time I had left on this wretched boat. I looked around the deck and saw no one. I wandered down below the deck and heard voices. I opened the door when I heard a noise coming from it.

“Hey,” James said, the only one who seemed to notice that I had walked into the room.

“What's going on?” I asked.

“We are eating lunch,” he said, getting up and handing me a sandwich.

“What's in it?”

“Nuts and a jam, its really good.” James informed me.

I grabbed the sandwich and took a bite. “Hey, that's not bad.” I continued to eat two more sandwiches.

“How long do we have left?” I asked Stephanos.

“Um, about thirty minutes, which means I have to avoid the islands," he ran out of the room and I followed.

Sure enough, we had passed three islands and two more were coming up with a third dead ahead of us.

“Hey, that's not Bayfield, is it?”

"No," he replied, turning for the helm.

The ship groaned and started turning. Instantly, my nauseation worsened. Then we had woven through two more islands.

Steven yelled, "That's it Bayfield, the estimated arrival time will be ten minutes. Wake everyone up."

When Mateo walked up to me with Elanor behind him, I knew that we were about to fall deep down the rabbit hole.

“Oh, this is gonna suck,” Mateo said yawning, “you wouldn't believe what I just dreamt about.”

“Oh really?” Elanor asked.

“I'm sure it's pretty believable. I wouldn't be surprised if we started getting hunted down by monsters at this point.”

“Huh, really?” Mateo asked.

“Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't put it past our luck. A few hours ago, we were just living our normal lives, and now look at us." I said, shaking my head, “I don't know. When do you think I'll get a sword?”

"Who knows, maybe never," he said, looking like he was about to fall asleep again.

"I'll just pry yours from your cold, dead hands.”

“That's not funny,” Elanor said.

“It's not supposed to be,” I replied. "I mean it.”

“I don't plan on dying anytime soon,” Mateo said slowly.

“Well, sometimes things don't work out according to plan."

He quickly retorts, “yeah it'd be nice if they did though.”

“Yeah, it would be nice, wouldn't it?” Elanor said, sliding down the wall of the railing. As we got closer, the town looked filthy and grim.

“I don't think this town originally looked like this,” James said, stating the obvious.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure it wasn't always this way," Elanor said, looking around. "I mean, it looks like a giant trash can exploded."

Leo nodded in agreement. "Well, at least the rats are having a good time!"