Kane didn’t really know the first thing about fixing up a ship. Because why the hell would he?
But the other three men sprang into motion, clearly cognizant of their roles, so Kane had no choice but to follow along.
Lucian strolled over to the ship’s wheel while the other men filed towards the stern door. Kane followed the group in, his eyes fixed on Lucian behind him — who was carefully pocketing the amulet and pulling out his pocket watch, an inquisitive expression on his face — until he was out of sight.
The inside of the ship looked so much nicer than the exterior. While the outside was all knobbled black wood that looked like it could be stepped through with the firm placement of a boot, the inside was actually furnished, upholstered, and at least marginally taken care of. Candelabra and lanterns flickered, creating soft shadows on the walls and the floor, the latter of which had sections carpeted in red and gold. There were even decorations on the walls such as tapestries, ropes, shelves replete with bottles and trinkets, and… and hooks. Lots of hooks.
Maybe Kane was given this space a little too much credit.
Tal led the group in an ambivalent silence down a set of stairs. Esau had pulled out another spliff after his first one had mysteriously disappeared during the battle, lighting it with his thumb and taking a drag. Saul had holstered his scimitars on his back — the tips reaching all the way down to his ankles given the swords’ size — marching with his arms crossed, something clearly on his mind. They were all eerily silent, the only sounds being the water on the outside of the hull and their steps on carpet and wood.
That was, until Saul cleared his throat to finally speak up. “I do get your half of the grave chest, right Tal?” he asked.
Tal stepped into a large, dimly-lit chamber filled with barrels, planks, scrap, tools, and various other supplies. “Did you kill the kraken?”
Saul snorted. “Weren’t you there?”
“You didn’t,” Tal said, his voice nonchalant as he lifted up several stacks of planks with his power. It was eerie watching the several pounds of wood simply hover around him — falling upwards but not quite falling all the way — with him exerting next to no effort on his part. Kane felt like chopped liver beside him. “Lucian killed it with the invocation.”
“He wouldn’t have been able to do it without me chopping up its insides,” Saul stated, his voice growing irritated as he picked up a large crate of nails. “Softened it up for him.”
“It doesn’t matter regardless,” Esau interjected, looking somewhat sullen. He let out a puff of smoke before picking up some more planks and a hammer. “Tal’s half is gone — and a good amount of mine, too. I used it for healing the both of you.”
At that, Saul’s eyes drifted towards Kane. Kane squirmed under his steely, heavy gaze, moving to pick up his own set of planks and a hammer.
The man looked just about ready to swing on someone. “Then I’m getting what’s left of your half. Easy, problem solved.”
“Like hell you are.” Esau followed Tal forward to another staircase. “It’s really just gold coins left, so you don’t even have any use for it,” his voice echoed from below.
At this, Saul’s expression darkened. “I’m plenty good with coins,” he muttered nearly inaudibly, as if the remark made any sense.
They worked their way further into the ship, and without the sight of miles upon miles of actual blood around him, paired with the vapid casual banter about money, Kane finally worked up the courage to join in. “So, where exactly did you guys find this… this chest?”
For a good moment, as they marched in single file with their supplies, none of the three men looked back at Kane, nor did they say anything, and Kane felt his cheeks redden at his apparent social blunder. But eventually, Tal dignified him with a response.
“They just float around in the Sea. Oftentimes on the surface, or just below.” Now, they were at the very bottom of the ship, the stores. The left and right sides of the massive space were made up of rows upon rows of curved planks of wood. The chamber was flooded, barrels and crates floating around and leaks sprung in all directions.
Tal stepped off the staircase, seemingly using his power to clear a dry gap of space for him to place his feet for a moment. The other men waded into the shin-high water, unfazed by the crimson tint. Kane hesitated for a couple of seconds before following, too. It mostly felt like regular water, except for the fact that it tingled a bit, as if electric. But of course, it still smelled like blood.
“So… who puts them there?”
Tal dumped all his planks to the side of the room and then stretched and yawned, windmilling his arms and all as if he were about to take a very sleepy jog. He took a seat on the staircase and raised his hands, then shut them both into fists. All at once, every leak in the chamber was stoppered.
In the shallower parts of the now-calm water, Kane could see the edges of the holes in the wooden hull had turned to stone thanks to the kraken’s touch, likely not making patching them up any easier.
For some reason, Esau now seemed to be willing to answer Kane’s question. “You know how some people like to get buried with their possessions when they die? Think Pharaohs in Egypt. Well, this is where that stuff goes.”
He got to work, placing a plank over a stoppered leak. Saul tossed him a couple of nails, and Esau began to hammer, his swings infused with small, fiery sparks that propelled his ring-adorned hands in short bursts.
Kane moved to work beside him, although Saul didn’t bother to throw him any nails. So he held out a hand to Esau, who ever-so-kindly passed him half. “And where exactly is this?”
He’d done it. He’d finally asked the question, the main question that had been on his mind ever since arriving here. But it was enough to make Esau look up to him with a dumbfounded expression. “I’ll give you exactly one goddamn chance to tell me where you think we are.”
“Ah. So, Hell, then?”
Esau pressed his lips together in a sardonic smile of affirmation and got back to hammering.
“We’re not quite sure,” Tal interjected, “but it’s our best guess at the moment.” He was sitting on the staircase, watching the others as they worked, likely still using his power to keep the remaining holes closed.
Saul, meanwhile, was simply pressing the nails into the wood, no hammer at all. They sunk into the planks like butter — hence the insane progress he was making.
He’d seemingly gotten over his frustration enough to join in the conversation. “What kind of grave was it, anyway?”
Esau grinned with teeth, his smile lopsided. “Russian. I’m thinking… 1890s?”
Tal had floated a barrel over to himself, placing his heels on it and reclining. He yawned, then said, “I’d been hoping for a Roman one. Crazy how we’ve never seen a Roman one.”
Kane finished hammering his plank and waded over to grab nails from Saul’s crate before getting a second plank. “What exactly is Russia?”
Esau snorted, nearly ceasing his hammering altogether. He shook his head. “Ah… you guys remember when I was like this?”
“All too well,” Tal said drily. “Hey, Kane. Buddy. Tell us, what do you remember?”
Kane wasn’t sure how to reply. He didn’t even remember the last thing that happened to him before ending up down here. And he somehow felt like saying he only remembered his name would give these guys the opportunity to take advantage of him.
At least, thanks to Esau, he remembered that he had his wallet on him. He pulled it out of his jeans pocket and slipped out the driver’s license he saw in the first pouch.
NEW YORK STATE USA
DRIVER LICENSE
MOTORIST
HARRIS, KANE
8180 BRICKELL STREET
ALBANY, NY
DOB 08/18/1979
ISSUED 03/07/1995
SEX M HEIGHT 5’-11” EYES BRO
“Ah, his IQ’s above room temperature.” Tal mumbled, dark eyes twinkling in the dim light. “That makes at least three of us now. So, where are you from?”
“Upstate New York, apparently,” Kane muttered, as a couple of scant memories came back to him not in a flood, but in a trickle. The sensation was odd, comparable to making progress on a crossword — insignificant yet satisfying, but ultimately a step in the right direction.
Tal nodded, reclining against the wall. “I can sort of hear it in your voice. But do you remember what Russia is?”
Kane thought back to his memories of New York. All cloudy, frankly; he knew it was a place and that was about it. He then remembered how he’d go back and forth between two cities, Albany and NYC, all the damn time. He remembered how much he hated it, and how much he felt his parents — who were his parents? — must have hated him, until he eventually realized they truly just hated each other.
He could just barely remember classes in high school in Albany, remembered his old, grizzled history teacher covering the unit on something called the Cold War, and injecting several of his own personal biases and grievances (and possibly falsified anecdotes) against this country called Russia. Oh, how this teacher despised Russia.
Kane allowed himself a small smirk. “I remember it now,” he said, slipping the license back into the wallet. “Not all of it, but enough. Holy shit. How could I forget about the existence of an entire country?”
“You’re not the only one,” Esau said. Kane looked up to see that the man had blazed through the leaks in the area and had moved on to another. He took another drag of the joint. “I have a theory.”
Tal rolled his eyes. “Do tell,” although his expression all but guaranteed he’d heard it before.
“I think that there are people here who don’t want us to remember our lives. They know we’d be too powerful if we did. So they cut it right out of or brains — all the important memories, all the useful information. Many of the basics, and hell, even knowledge about our powers. And then they dropped us down here.”
Kane was already rifling through his wallet for more information. “They?”
At this, Esau simply shrugged. “Lucian probably knows.” There was a hint of bitterness in that remark.
But Kane paid it no mind, because he’d come upon an item that had caught his eye.
A Polaroid photograph — Kane was surprised he could remember what those were, since they didn’t seem to be as significant as nations and politics. This one in particular featured him two people in it. The first was a tall, lean man that Kane took far too long to realize was himself. In the photo his dark hair was shorter than the mess it was now, and a pair of Walkman headphones were cradled around his neck. He was wearing a white dress shirt, and leaning into a passionate kiss with a woman. She herself wore a denim jacket and emerald green shirt, her dark hair tied into a ponytail.
Stolen novel; please report.
In the photo, both their eyes were obscured by a trick of the light. Dark curtains in the background serving as an adequate backdrop — it seemed to be an event of some kind.
And Kane found himself frustrated that for the life of him, he could not remember this woman. But she must have been important to him if he kept this photo of them within his wallet.
Kane needed to know who she was. He knew she was important, in his gut, in his soul. How the hell could he forget her?
His head snapped up. “When does my memory come back?”
Tal languidly turned to Saul. “How long have we been down here?”
Saul shrugged, pressing nails into wood with little enthusiasm.
Tal pursed his lips. “And have you regained all your memories?”
Saul shrugged again, this time slamming a nail in with his fist.
Tal turned back to Kane. “There you have it. Down here, there’s a lot of ‘who knows?’ Like Luce said, you’ll simply have to get used to it.”
Kane could feel his heart rate ratcheting up, pocketing his wallet with shaky hands. Panic was finally beginning to overtake him. “How do we get out of here? Do we have a plan? I need to get back.”
Tal nodded a head towards Saul again, who shrugged on cue.
Kane fell to his knees, totally distraught, the frigid bloodwater biting at his legs. What the hell was this? Why was he in Hell? What had he done to deserve this? He couldn’t even remember.
“You wanna… pick up your hammer, bud?” Esau said, getting to his feet and approaching Kane. His tone was empathetic and rather gentle, just as his healing had been. “The holes aren’t gonna patch themselves.”
Kane didn’t move a muscle, astonished that the stranger simply wanted to push past his breakdown. “How have you not gone insane down here?” he whimpered, a thousand-yard stare plastered onto his face.
Esau grinned, placing a firm hand on Kane’s shoulder. “Good company, of course!”
Said the man who had thrown a dagger at his head.
“Nope, that’s not it,” Tal said.
“Absolutely not,” Saul muttered.
—
Kane didn’t really get much out of them after that. Not that he’d really tried; he’d mostly hammered away with a unsettled expression as his brain tried to process everything that he’d seen, heard, and felt within the last hour. Together, they had finished patching up the ludicrous amount of holes in the hull lickety-split — it was actually frightening how efficient these men were. Each with their own bullshit power to help.
“So, when do I get my own power?” he asked Esau as they made their way up to the deck.
Esau glanced back and shot him a look. “You don’t have one?”
Kane furrowed his brows. “Not that I know of. It would’ve been cool to be, you know, marginally helpful during that fight with the kraken.” Although he had been, lopping off the stray tentacle that had attempted to ambush a distracted Esau, although for all Kane knew, Esau had some power up his sleeve that would have allowed him to survive.
After they’d finished patching things up, Tal had said he wanted — no, needed — to take a nap, while Saul had said he wanted to go sharpen his swords. But Esau didn’t seem to have a plan, which meant he was technically open to interrogation — no, conversation. Good old friendly conversation, with no ulterior motives whatsoever.
So the pair continued to walk up the stairs a good amount behind the other two, Esau’s expression genuinely curious as he tried to piece together why Kane’s situation was the way it was. “Well, Lucian doesn’t have a power.”
“OK, well, he’s a badass pirate captain with a golden rapier. It isn’t the same.” Kane thought back to the way Lucian had contributed during the kraken fight, with his insane aerial maneuvers and his clutch saves. Yes, it seemed he didn’t have a power like the others, but he was still in a league of his own.
Esau pushed open the door to the deck. It finally struck Kane how empty the area looked — this ship was far too large for just four people, but Kane had inferred that there was no other crew than this lot right here. Additionally, it seemed the damage to the deck up here was going to be ignored for the time being, which made sense — with five people, could they really bother with obsessive upkeep?
Esau set his thumb aflame with a flick of the wrist, eyeing the fire with all the wonder of a pyromaniac. “Remember how we said your memories will come back little by little? Your power will probably come with them. It’s been like that with me so far.”
“Wait, so you guys had your powers on Earth?”
He put out the flame with a snap. “I… I think so. It would make sense, but frankly, it’s still kinda foggy.” They made their way towards Lucian, who was manning the wheel. “Another theory I’ve got: they took away our memories because it was the only way for them to get rid of our powers. They’ve gotta be linked.”
The grave chest from earlier was positioned squarely underneath one of Lucian’s boots, as if it were a prop for a photo shoot. Esau reached down and yanked it away, and Lucian gave him a curious glance.
“Cool theory, Esau.” His voice was firm and dripped with sarcasm. “Everything fixed up down below?”
“Yessir.” Esau lifted the chest’s lid and reached in, pulling out a leather-bound journal with moderate wear and tear. “Tal said you might find use in this.”
A moment passed as Lucian stared at the book in Esau’s hand. He then grabbed it with, opening it up and gingerly flipping through it so as not to damage the old pages. His eyes passed over them rapidly, nearly carelessly; theoretically, he could understand the foreign-looking script.
Esau slammed the chest shut harder than he had to, the loud noise waking Lucian from his reverie.
“I’ll get to work on it,” he said, his voice nonchalant and eyebrows curious. He removed his hands from the wheel, then met Esau’s eyes. “You showing our new friend here the ropes?”
“Ummm…“ Esau allowed himself a quick glance at Kane. “… sure. Suppose I am.”
“Good. Then I’ll get Saul to steer.” With that, he began to walk away, before Esau even had a chance to respond.
“Sounds like a plan, cap…” Esau trailed off. Once the man was out of earshot, he leaned against the wheel and chuckled. “What an enigma, that guy.”
Kane looked out over the sea. The sky had darkened a slight amount since before; everything looked grayer. It felt like they were approaching sunset, but of course, there was no sun in the sky to help him tell. “Why does he need to translate the journal? Is there something in it that will help us get out of here?”
Esau gripped the spokes of the wheel tight, his posture straightening, overcorrecting, all in a mock display of a pirate helmsman of old. “Of course not. The journal’s definitely filled with ravings about, like, aristocracy, the shitty tsar, and good tea or something. It’s the only form of entertainment we have on board.”
He removed the joint from between his lips and offered it to Kane. “You smoke?”
Kane squinted at the roll. “I… don’t know.” He wouldn’t remember, would he?
Esau looked Kane up and down, taking in his hair, clothes, all of it. “You look like you smoke.” Feeling confident in his appraisal, he placed the blunt between Kane’s fingers. In amateur fashion, Kane hesitantly took a deep drag.
When he exhaled, the cloud of smoke seemed to leave with some life to it. It had this inexplicable extra kick, curling geometrically in the air with flair, like a living art piece. “I was expecting to cough my lungs out.”
Esau watched with curious, nearly hungry eyes. “It’s my fire. It’s different than… than other fire. Hard to describe.”
Kane nodded, a small smirk on his lips as he handed the blunt back. “Hey, Esau. You feel… pity for me, don’t you?”
The question caught Esau off guard. He took another drag of his own. “What do you mean?”
Kane had to make sure to phrase things right. “You’re treating me like a human being now, perhaps a tiny bit differently from how you treated me an hour ago. From what I can infer, you were the last person to join the crew. Now you’re no longer the newbie. I am.” Kane watched Esau’s brown eyes as the man stared out front towards the sea, searching for any possible malevolent intentions or offense taken.
But Esau simply turned and looked at Kane for a few long seconds, his brows knitted. “I do feel kinda bad for throwing a dagger at your face within two minutes of meeting you. And yes, you did safe my life afterwards.” He paused. “I just don’t trust new is all,” he added.
It was an extremely strange comment, but Kane simply smirked. “We’re both experiencing new things right now. And if this place is anything to go off of, new isn’t always good.” He watched the ocean’s horizon; if he tried really, really hard, he could almost imagine he was staring at a doctored postcard. “But I’m OK with being the new guy. If you keep throwing sharp things at me, then we might have a problem.”
“I’ve had friendships end over less,” he said, matching Kane’s grin. “But yeah, I suppose it’s nice to not be the new guy around for once. Nice to not be the most clueless on board, you know? Although that actually might be up Saul’s alley — both the clueless thing and the throwing sharp objects part.”
The door to the lower floors of the ship slammed open right then, revealing Saul. He looked absolutely pissed, his leg raised from kicking the door open. He dropped his foot to the deck with a loud thud, trudging forwards as he fixed the pair with a stare.
“Speak of the devil,” Esau said in a whisper, pushing himself off the wheel.
Saul arrived, grabbing and dragging a barrel along with him to sit on. He didn’t say anything to the pair, only offering them a curious raised brow but saying nothing. Clearly, he’d rather not be steering.
“Don’t crash us,” Esau called with a cheeky grin as they walked away, making half a heart sign with his free hand, the other arm occupied with cradling the chest. “If you find land, there might be some gold in it for you.”
Unfortunately, Saul responded with a hand gesture of his own — a far, far ruder one.
As they went back inside, Kane caught Saul taking a seat on the barrel, pulling out one of his scimitars and a file, and getting to sharpening.
—
“I could set up a hammock for you,” Esau began as they entered the crew’s quarters, “buuuuut I’d rather you do that yourself. I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but I get paid zero an hour.”
Kane watched the man clamber into his own hammock, then looked down at the unmade hammock that lay on the floor beside it. They’d just run a mini-tour of the ship — Esau had basically talked without really saying anything at all, but hey, it was a way to kill time — and now they were finishing it off with the “crew’s quarters.” The space was towards the helm of the ship, tight in a cozy sort of way, and only two hammocks were up at the moment: judging by the skull and crossbones crudely etched in the ceiling above the second one, it likely belonged to Saul.
At least they’d made an effort to decorate the place. The area resembled Kane’s vague memories of what a man cave might look like. Barrels and crates were filed down and cut into a couch, tables, and chairs adorned with threadbare cushions; a homemade dartboard with a crude drawing of a stickman in its center had fallen to the floor; chests of different shapes, sizes, and materials lined the walls; and there was even a shelf filled with a paltry amount of old-looking books. Not to mention, they hadn’t even been in the room for 30 seconds, and Esau had lit at least twenty candles around the space via jets of flames from his fingertips.
Kane got to work on the hammock, his mind leaping into action as soon as he began to move. “Do you have a sense of how long you’ve been here?” he asked, raising one end of the hammock to a hook hanging from the ceiling. “Saul seemingly didn’t, but I have a nagging feeling he isn’t the most open book.”
Esau struggled to right himself — at 6’-something, he was too big for his hammock. Once he’d done so, he pointed at the wall behind him, where Kane caught sight of a set of tallies burnt into the wooden wall.
“I’ve been really prudent about keeping up with the date,” Esau said. “I just don’t want to miss my birthday. Life — especially in a place like this — needs to be celebrated and all that, you know?”
There were 66 tallies on the wall, above what could be referred to as Esau’s bedside table, which held a bowl of gold coins, a low candle, and a nondescript hardcover book.
“And when’s your birthday?” Not that Kane actually cared, but it would be weird not to ask.
“August 18th,” he said. “If my calculations are correct, today should be—”
Kane raised a hand. “Hold up. August 18th?”
Esau smirked. “Yep. Best day of the year.” In a flash, his expression switched to concern. “You do remember the months, right?”
Kane chuckled and shook his head as he attached the other side of the hammock to a hook in the ceiling. “We have the same birthday.”
Esau frowned as the gears in his mind turned, likely in slow motion. “Well get your own!” he said eventually, as if he actually meant it. He laid back onto the hammock, fire dancing on his fingertips as he eyed the wall.
“It is still 2000, right?” Nothing about what Kane had found out told him he hadn’t been frozen in time, or sent back to the past or something. “Like, the year?”
“Last I checked. And to think I was so excited to see the new millennium.” He sighed. “Anyways, yeah. 67 days…” He paused, shook his head, pointed a finger to the list of tallies, and fired a tongue of flame, etching in another one. “You can’t be forgetting these, man,” he muttered to himself.
Despite Kane’s now doubtful expression, Esau cleared his throat. “67 days here. I can’t complain. The digs are nice, the people are chill, and we have an enchanted chest in the galley that gives us ingredients twice a day. I make all the meals aboard now. Lucian said it himself: he wonders how they survived without me.”
It was a lot to take in. The others hadn’t been clear on how long they’d been on the ship, but assuming the times between arrivals were consistent or at least similar, it gave Kane a good point of reference. But it didn’t help that Esau seemed to have trouble counting.
Additionally, Kane couldn’t get over how optimistic Esau seemed to be about everything. With his limited memory, Kane knew full well that he was and had always been an adamant pessimist. Esau seemed to be his polar opposite in that regard, what with his reckless confidence and lax attitude, and Kane had so much trouble believing it all that he suspected the man may be faking his demeanor as a coping mechanism.
“You cook? Did you use to be a chef or something?” Kane ignored his growling stomach by testing his hammock, pressing down into the layers of linen with his palms before rolling his whole body into it. He let out a deep sigh, settling into the rough fabric as the hammock began to sway with the motion of the ship.
Esau pointed a finger at him, and for a split second, Kane thought he had somehow screwed up and earned himself a scorched face before realizing it was a only simple gesture of acknowledgment. “Good hunch — and a correct one at that. My memories are faint, but it makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? A chef who has mastery over fire. I just know I must’ve made some banging meals. And I still do!”
It was only now occurring to Kane that he had eaten since arrival. He’d previously chalked his stomachache up to the day’s stress, and in the end it still paled in comparison to his constant shock at each new revelation. “I could use a bite.”
“Dinner’s in a bit, so you can wait a little. It’s never really wise to fuck with the galley chest outside of designated times. It has a bad temper.”
Kane sat up, squinting. “What do you mean it—”
A bell resounded from above, muted by the layers of wood between them and the deck. Five chimes.
“Looks like an all-hands on deck,” Esau groaned, mood already falling fast as he flopped right out of his cozy bedding.
Kane hopped out of his hammock, his heart rate already picking up. “Is it another kraken?”
“Worse. Lucian wants to talk to us. With words.”