"WAKE UP, MEIN BUTTERLOAF!"
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Captain hollered, honking on the horn that's been duct-taped to the sled.
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"THE CAPTAINIA-EXPRESS HAS ARRIVED AT OUR DESTINATION!
Please disembark with cautions and don't leave any of your bags unattended. Unattended bags will be served for breakfast to the starving bomb recovery squad!"
Just as Captain gave this dire warning, Pilot collapsed out of exhaustion onto the ground.
image [http://rom.ac/img/53-A.jpg]
"Great. Just great," I thought. "That's what I get for falling asleep on a sled. Who knows where we are now and how long Pilot's been dragging us."
I looked behind me at the long, uneven tracks snaking across the dry ocean floor into the distance...
image [http://rom.ac/img/53-B.jpg]
Then I looked at Pilot, still lying in a heap, with large ropes over his shoulders.
"Hrrrrmm... It seems we are experiencing technical difficulties with our main driving engine!"
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Captain dismounted the sled and poked Pilot with a shoe.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
"Manual disembarkation protocol initiated!"
With this declaration, Captain grabbed the sled's edge and tipped the whole thing right over. Still drowsy from my sleep and not expecting such, helplessly, I tried in vain to grab the sled's edge. I flopped right out of it, with backpacks, bags and rags raining onto me.
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Cleaning sand out of my stuff, I tried to get my bearings. Behind us was the vast desert. In front, thick white fog, and Captain, who was pulling Pilot out of his harness.
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The fog slowly lifted from the surface of the barren un-sea. I realized that in our pointless meandering across the ocean floor we'd come across a ship-wreck. A battleship.
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"Ah, our cruise ship is here, right on time!"
Captain declared.
I looked up.
A monumental battleship, from who knows what century, towered over us. Pieces of rusted ironworks littered the sand. Some of them stuck straight up, looming in the desert like ancient obelisks. The battleship itself was full of huge gaping holes from which slight rays of light broke through. Sunrise was coming.
image [http://rom.ac/img/54-SHIP.jpg]
Silently, we entered the ruined battleship we’d found out on the dry seabed.
Even Captain seemed a bit reverent of it. Pilot was probably just too tired to cause trouble.
What flora had made it their home in the distant past hung like sad echoes in the gloom but as we emerged on the opposite side we discovered something unique. It seemed that a community had settled here, tearing down large parts of the ship and using the scrap to build a junk-town.
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The town itself was long abandoned. Metal mesh that surrounded it whistled in the wind, tiny bird skeletons crunched under my boots, metal shards hung on strings all over the place and jingled an eerie melody.
I grabbed a crowbar from our bags, on a quest for supplies.
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Captain and Pilot went to play. I had potential goodies to scavenge!