Opening my eyes, I realized I still had my face in the pillow. I didn’t know how I slept so soundly without suffocating myself. Sitting up on the edge of the bed, I looked around in confusion. Right, the sakoar. I was on the sakoar. Probably some sort of submarine by the looks of it. I looked around the room again, bored out of my mind. I wonder how that old dragon Merlo’s doing, I thought. My stomach growled. Ah, great. I got up. Time for some exploring.

I poked my head outside the door. Nobody. Is there really nobody here? Well, it’s not like they’d kill me if they found out I left, right? Since I came from the right, I decided to head down to the left of this long corridor.

A few steps into the journey and I came across Mark. “Oh. Hello Mark.” Please don’t kill me.

He looked at me a few times. “What are you wearing?”

“Huh?” I looked down at my red wetsuit. “New clothes?” I replied.

“Were there no other suits? Nevermind. Captain’s looking for you.”

“Oh, she is?” Ah, damn it. So much for the journey. “By the way, was her name Dans?”

“Yes, Captain Dans. She’s waiting for you at the cafeteria. Just follow the path down and make a left.” He pointed farther down in the direction I was headed for. He then started to move past me.

“Oh, not coming with?” I asked.

“No, I’m busy.”

“Okay. Thanks for letting me know.” Nice. It’s adventure time!

Mark continued to walk past me towards the opposite direction from where I was headed. I trotted along the corridor barely large enough to fit two people side by side. It was pretty cramped, but I wasn’t here to expect luxury. I had wanted to explore the place since I had first entered, but apparently, I was too tired from the swimming. I peered down at my stomach. I’m not out of shape though. Just out of practice, I told myself.

The interior of this place was nothing more than plain. It was just an endless corridor of metal. No paintings or pictures or decorations. The sakonians really did feel more like a bunch of barbaric meatheads now that I thought of it. It was as if these people were laser-focused on how to maximize their potential for being the most boring people in history. Have they never experienced a renaissance? Do they even know what art is? At this point, I’d consider Dagaea Castle to be more artistic than this. And that was an abomination.

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The thought of dragons reminded me of the burn incident. I wondered where they kept the burned bodies. At the very least, I wanted to confirm if they were actually there to kill Merlovak. Dans had mentioned them being taken into the sakoar. They were most definitely here somewhere.

I started opening every door I came across. I couldn’t think of any better ideas to find where they kept dead bodies.

There were a lot of doors. I never realized that I could get bored of opening doors; I thought I’d been doing that all my life. It took me over two minutes to open every door in the corridor. And those were two minutes completely wasted because they were literally all guest rooms.

I went through an archway that seemed to open up into a new corridor. Maybe, I thought, a new section of this boat thing that didn’t just have a bunch of guest rooms. The first door I opened led to a bathroom. Why? I opened the second door and it was another bathroom. Don’t tell me. I opened the third door. It was in fact another bathroom. I skipped to the end of the corridor; this was another waste of time.

When I got to the end, it split into two different areas. There were two signs above the intersection. One read Cafeteria and the other read Crematorium. This was an interesting setup. An entire section dedicated to a crematorium? Lovely.

I didn’t quite understand why they had a crematorium in here, but I didn’t really question it. This was my destination after all. The bodies should be in there. I waved aside the sign to the cafeteria and headed towards the crematorium.

When I entered the new place, it was mostly empty. There were no walls either. Instead, I was surrounded by glass, almost like I was in an aquarium. I couldn’t see through the glass though. But I wasn’t really surprised. Who in their right mind would display dead bodies?

At the far end of the glass corridor was a door. Unlike any of the other doors I previously came across, this one had some sort of code lock on it. And on the door, it read, Crematorium Entrance as if I already didn’t know.

“What are you doing there?”

I turned around. “Oh, Dans.”

“My… what are you wearing?”

“You too? Please, tell me what’s wrong with this suit.”

“That’s for children.”

“What? Why? The size fits me.”

She continued to stare at me. “All wetsuits conform to the user’s body shape.” Then she gestured for me to follow. “Anyways, this is the crematorium. Can’t you read? I told you to come to the cafeteria.”

I wonder who has the code for the crematorium… I eyed Dans. Maybe her…

“Hello?” Dans waved her hands in front of my face. “You there?”

“Yeah, what?” I snapped. “Oh, sorry.”

“Hmph. Follow.” She walked back towards the intersection.

“Why did you want to meet me?” I asked.

“Why do you think I told you to come to the cafeteria?”

“To talk?”

She sighed. “Perhaps I should’ve left you there…”

“Huh?” What is she talking about?

She pointed towards the cafeteria. “Food. Hungry?”

“Oh.” Cafeteria. Right. I followed her to the cafeteria. Adventure time could wait a little longer.