Dream Hunt: Chapter 7

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(Author's note: It's understandable if this chapter is in anyway an uncomprehendable mess, I had a hard time finishing it and it's not a surprise if that manifests it on its quality)

Chapter 7: At Queen's Mercy, Part 2
 Roland ran over the first set of stairs in matter of seconds. Down in the first submersed chamber of the ship, the bounty hunter hid behind crates. Three stairs downwards and she would enter the bilge, where Axel was hidden.

 Roland had determination to not get so deep unless strictly necessary.

 With her back against wood crates, thus, she checked all the guns and ammo she had on her.

 “I’m right in front of his path, so there won’t be much time for a shootout,” she concluded and reached for her back. “Got to go with the axe, then. Wish it had space for more than one bullet.”

 Lachlann Muse jumped the whole set of twenty steps that was the stairs to the humid corridor. His eyes and guns were already scanning the whole place.

 Roland’s hiding spot was located right to the left side of where the gunslinger stood. She had, much contrary to her desires, hid inside an enormous crate full of fish.

 “What wouldn’t I do for my love, the surprise element… Here we go!” She thought and raised her body, raising with it several fishes that fell to the ground.

 However, her love had disregarded her wishes once more: when she pointed the axe-shaped firearm to Muse in front of her, the superhuman eyes of the pirate already locked on her. On the next instant, when she pulled the trigger, it was only natural that the bullet would miss—what it hit instead was another crate.

 Before the bounty hunter could perceive, the cold iron of a revolver already reached her face.

 “I should congratulate you for this design,” Muse coldly complimented. “The axe was a good choice.”

 “Thanks,” Roland said, smiled, and pulled a mechanism.

 What Lachlann Muse hadn’t truly noticed was that Roland’s gun possessed, in fact, a fortunate design. With both hands still holding it, by the pull of a lever, the bounty hunter made an axe head spin ninety degrees.

 “Shit,” Muse thought, perceiving the mechanism’s sounds, and moved his index finger at the same time as his opponent. Still Roland had a second’s fraction of advantage.

 The pressure released by the pull of the trigger made the axe head fly, straight to the pirate’s chin, painfully marking it red. Lucky, he could consider himself, for avoiding the blade completely on the impact. Still, it crushed his bones and sent his body flying back. When his own finger managed to pull a trigger, he already flew, which left Roland intact—the shot hit a wall behind her.

 “Well,” she thought, on the few seconds she had before Muse stood up—since unconscious, he was not. “I better get moving, otherwise I’ll have to face him directly…” Even the bare thought of dueling with a gunner that caliber made her shiver.

 She threw the axe’s base on the floor and ran to the second set of stairs.

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<p class="MsoNormal"> With her empty left hand, Toruviel created a small bell, which the piercing sword pierced through with its initial frontal stab.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “So it cuts iron, huh…” The elf thought, and threw her body to the right to avoid the blade.

<p class="MsoNormal"> The impulse of her thrust made Essi Queen travel at least two meters without touching the floor, and the air pressure her attack caused, was enough to blow the hairs of all the people surrounding its trajectory.

<p class="MsoNormal"> She turned back, to face the bounty hunter with a smile.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “Impressive flow you had there,” the pirate praised her opponent’s agility. “Quick enough to dodge one of my swifter thrusts. I’m just sorry I destroyed your cutie bell with it.”

<p class="MsoNormal"> “I’ll survive without it,” Tor picked her nose briefly and moved her right arm. The huge bell she held on the other hand, she threw it to the ocean.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Iron, she now knew, was not enough against the rapier.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “Are you sure you don’t want a sword?” Queen repeated her offer.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “Yeah, I know exactly what I’m doing.” The answer was blunt, direct and serious. A lack of humor that denounced it as a bluff, if one knew that elf’s habits. She had, with all her heart, no idea of what she was going to do without her sword: bells weren’t enough, and her fists weren’t trained on quite the same level.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “Guess I’ll find out when I need to!” Tor yelled in her mind. One side of her, the one that wasn’t thinking about death, felt genuinely excited about a fight under such high risks.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Essi raised the rapier and rushed. Closely enough, the wind followed.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Before the wind stopped, the piercing rapier had been immobilized: between two bells, like bread covering meat of a sandwich, Toruviel held the incoming blade.

<p class="MsoNormal"> She sweat. The blade wouldn’t move anymore, but at the cost of constant, extreme strength made by her hands. Her arms trembled to the amount of pressure they had to make and the sweat fell in greater and greater quantity.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Queen smiled.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “Good defense,” she congratulated. “And it seems as if our strengths are even, because I can’t even move my sword as it is, stuck between your bells.”

<p class="MsoNormal"> However, the pirate captain did not drop or signalized a withdraw of the sword. Much to the contrary, she raised the empty left hand and held the grip with both hands.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “Let’s put that evenness to test, shall we?” Her smile turned into a sadistic grin.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Watching closely, Florence the navigator felt both admired and scared seeing her master put as much heart into a single conflict, as she had never seen before. “Her opponents don’t usually last more than two thrusts,” she remembered and shivered.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Not being able to outdo the perpendicular pressure of the elf’s arms, the captain’s rapier remained unmovable.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Although, after several seconds of extreme force, Essi herself started to move. Her skin had gotten red and full of sweat, and her breath was irregular and fast-paced, but the same could be said about Toruviel, as she stood trying to resist more pressure.

<p class="MsoNormal"> What resulted of that conflict of opposite forces was the pirate moving forward. That invariably meant the bounty hunter, taking effort to resist her strength, moved.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Toruviel didn’t step back. She was pushed back. Her feet never left the ground as she faced the enormous strength, they stayed as they were and slid through the wooden deck.

<p class="MsoNormal"> And Queen kept pushing. She kept pushing with slow and firm steps that each seemed they would make her collapse.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Until the bounty hunter got her back against the edge of the ship.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “I’ll throw you at the sea!” Queen’s maddened gaze spoke, looking at Toruviel’s worried face.

<p class="MsoNormal"> And she was going to. If Essi Queen pushed more, she would make the bounty hunter fall into the water and drown, uncapable of any movements.

<p class="MsoNormal"> However, one decisive action changed the chain of events.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Toruviel dropped the bells, but only for a fraction of a second. Her arms opened widely and closed again with strength. The bells did, although, remain on the same location, as they hadn’t time to fall before she grabbed them again. On that meantime, the sword managed to move, and for inches it didn’t pierce her skin, before she held the bells again. The pirate moved as well, out of inertia, and her armored chest tumbled onto the sword’s grip.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Essi Queen dropped her smile. Her wide eyes asked what her opponent was planning.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “Jaa-Jin…” Toruviel smiled.

<p class="MsoNormal"> The pirate’s sword vibrated wildly.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “… Inside-out disarm!” The elf yelled in triumph and waited.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Before Queen could even wonder, she felt the sword grip shaking… and then her hand hurt, as if suffering impact.

<p class="MsoNormal"> It was enough impact to make her drop the grip and yell at pain and confusion.

<p class="MsoNormal"> The next instant a bell beat her face and sent her flying though the deck—from one edge she landed on the other.

<p class="MsoNormal"> On her knees, she dripped blood from the mouth. “Impact through vibration, is that it?” She cleaned the dripping blood. “Very…” She paused and spit red saliva onto the floor. “Interesting.”

<p class="MsoNormal"> “Yeah?” Toruviel, from the opposite edge, sounded uninterested. “I don’t give a shit.”

<p class="MsoNormal"> Essi Queen laughed. Upon standing up to the second round, the rapier was already on her possession.

<p class="MsoNormal"> The elf looked at her feet. In fact, there was no sword there, where the weapon was just a second before.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “I got my little secrets as well,” the pirate raised the sword once more.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “I already told ya,” Toruviel raised her bells. “I don’t give a shit!”

<p class="MsoNormal"> The wind blew stronger.

<p class="MsoNormal"> The anglers kept watching in awe, and Desso kept looking at his captain, who remained still and silent with arms crossed in front of his chest. He looked sadder than usual. “I can only hope the captain’s well,” he thought and bit his lip.

<p class="MsoNormal"> The pirates also watched in awe. Florence, in special, didn’t scream like the others did—she was a silent witness, worried in expectation. Many reasons she had for worrying.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Duchess the cat licked her little paws and decided to take a nap. She knew her master would be fine by the end of the day.

<p class="MsoNormal"> In the three whole years of her feline life, after all, never had she witnessed the contrary happening.

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<p class="MsoNormal"> That time, Lachlann Muse descended the steps carefully, one by one, to the second underground floor. His senses—as well as his precious shades—were tattered with the impact of the heavy and fast axe.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “Where could she be?” The enraged words repeated themselves hundreds of times in his mind, while his eyes moved sharply, through every corner of the room he could see.

<p class="MsoNormal"> He finished descending the stairs.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Unfortunately for him, ships had sparse floors, and those floors were often dark. Especially that gunpowder room, full of guns and cannons… Why would such a ship even have such armory?

<p class="MsoNormal"> He didn’t have much time to reflect on that question.

<p class="MsoNormal"> To his left side, coming out of the shadows, there was a cannon aimed at him, with Roland behind it. She was far away enough from the stairs, where his eyes would be incapable of meeting her until he stepped down to her level and took his time to search in the dark.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Besides the cannon, she also had a pistol pointed at him. Scratching the cannon once, she revealed she held a match, for it produced fire between her fingers. “Seems I got your life on my hands, eh?” The bounty hunter provoked. The match lit her face and revealed a cruel smile.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Clearly, she underestimated her opponent. And the environment.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Covered by shadows, the small fire was enough light for the gunslinger Muse to visualize his target. The bounty hunter had just revealed her location, while the pirate remained hidden by the dark.

<p class="MsoNormal"> She couldn’t see, for instance, how Lachlann Muse IV slightly raised one of his guns, without raising his arm.

<p class="MsoNormal"> His first shot didn’t kill her, however—it didn’t even touch her body. It went directly to the flame, and destroyed the match and its light.

<p class="MsoNormal"> To the second shot he raised his arm.

<p class="MsoNormal"> When he pulled the trigger, after the bang loudly resounded, sparks lit the room for a second: the bullet hit the cannon and bounced off. The sparks it provoked upon hitting the iron, however, were enough to put fire to the cannon’s fuse.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “Is he trying to kill himself?” The thought briefly occurred to Roland, shortly before her opponent’s next move.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Muse had laid down, both arms extended. He shot all ten bullets he had loaded, in a second.

<p class="MsoNormal"> The targets were all the cannon’s bottom surface. Each time higher, the sparks appeared like fire, as the impact had the barrel to point upwards. The cannon rose: the bullets hit its mouth and made force to lift its aim—it was as if an invisible hand lifted it.

<p class="MsoNormal"> If a picture was taken of that moment in particular, it would depict a laying Muse, a scared Roland and a cannon aiming above them.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Also, ten bullets under the same cannon, the bullets that pushed it to its position.

<p class="MsoNormal"> The fuse ended. The cannonball flew and destroyed the ceiling. The impulse of firing pushed the cannon, so it hit Roland and made her fall to the ground.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Above, Toruviel and Essi Queen interrupted their advances, feeling a projectile coming.

<p class="MsoNormal"> The cannonball made a hole on the floor they stood at and flew above their heads.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “Thank me later, Captain, your old trick is set up again,” Muse whispered and got up.

<p class="MsoNormal"> He walked to a fallen bounty hunter. His hands then moved as fast as his eyes—in a miraculous trick, his guns were reloaded in less than a second.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “I’m killing you now,” the gunslinger pointed the revolvers at the defeated bounty hunter.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “See you in hell!”

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<p class="MsoNormal"> The cannonball flew high over their heads. Perhaps more than anyone expected, it flew for seconds in an arc that would only be closed under the sea.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “What’re doing down there, Roland?” Toruviel asked and sighed. “Whatever, why don’t we…”

<p class="MsoNormal"> There was a chain coming out of Essi Queen’s right sleeve. A chain made of feathers.

<p class="MsoNormal"> The chain was extending itself seemingly forever, until it tied itself onto her hand and stopped.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Then, her arm moved.

<p class="MsoNormal"> The cannonball was tied to the other end of the chain. It described a horizontal arc in such speed that Toruviel could only raise her arms.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Somehow tying the ball to the chain midair in high speed, the pirate had used it as literal ball and chain. If not for guarding with her now-crushed bells by the last second, the bounty hunter would have been thrown to the ocean.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Queen pulled the chain and brought the ball closer to her side.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “Oh, Lach, you know me so well!” The pirate captain laughed and spun the ball and chain with the left hand.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Toruviel threw the destroyed bells to the ocean.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops:11.0cm"> “You wanna split the bill?” She casually asked. “Or the loser pays?”

<p class="MsoNormal"> “What?”

<p class="MsoNormal"> “I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t like if some strangers made a hole on my ship…” She made a pause and looked aside, pointing to the right. “You can see by the old man’s face he’s not happy with the damage.”

<p class="MsoNormal"> In fact, Captain Maccoil did not look happy. He did, in fact, have the same expression as he had for that whole fight.

<p class="MsoNormal"> The ball and chain stopped spinning.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Essi Queen rose an eyebrow.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “Fine,” she casually answered with a quick nod. “Florence!” She called.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “… M-Master?” The navigator was sweating.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “Write down our bet: ‘The loser has to pay the repairs of the Regal Silva. The fight is me against…’”

<p class="MsoNormal"> “… Toruviel.”

<p class="MsoNormal"> “’Essi Queen against the bounty hunter Toruviel.’”

<p class="MsoNormal"> Florence nervously wrote it down on a piece of paper and signalized she was finished.

<p class="MsoNormal"> The crew of anglers stood incredulous.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “Now, if you will!” Essi made the first move.

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<p class="MsoNormal"> “Roland!” The voice came from the downward stairs behind the two gunners.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Axel was the one screaming, with tears on her eyes as she climbed the last stairs to that floor.

<p class="MsoNormal"> With the light from the ceiling hole lighting the environment, Roland saw as Muse’s eyes clinched upon hearing the childish voice, without the need of looking back.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “How old is the girl?” The pirate whispered.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Roland, who was already accepting her death, stared confusedly at her enemy.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “I asked…” Muse was going to repeat himself.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “She… She’s fourteen,” she answered in a whispering voice.

<p class="MsoNormal"> The gunslinger mumbled something inaudible.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “We’re finishing this later,” he simply said and backed away. “Consider yourself lucky for having her here,” were his last words, making his way back to the deck where his captain was.

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<p class="MsoNormal"> The iron ball flew through the air and hit a bell directly, on a movement that sent it upwards. Essi, who held the chain, moved her feet for a thrust. Her rapier nearly touched the elf’s body…

<p class="MsoNormal"> Toruviel stepped aside with impressive speed.

<p class="MsoNormal"> The pirate kept her route, still forward, until she was able to stop. She smiled.

<p class="MsoNormal"> At that moment, the ball and chain fell under the ocean’s water.

<p class="MsoNormal"> The chain Essi Queen held was not the one now underwater, but one holding Toruviel’s ankle.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Essi Queen pulled the iron feathers and landed her last strike.

<p class="MsoNormal"> If any of the men there wasn’t as brave, they would have fainted. There were brave, so all the reactions were chills and screams. The pirate had pierced her blade through her opponent’s chest.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Toruviel, laid down, coughed blood.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Essi Queen kneeled next to her. “Seems I win,” she whispered with maniac eyes possessed by bloodlust.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “You can… You…” Tor coughed more.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “I can what?”

<p class="MsoNormal"> “You can stop dreaming of victory now!” The hunter yelled and moved her head with the speed of sound.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Her forehead hit Queen’s own forehead with the might of a cannon. The impact was such that some of the closer men had their clothes waving due to the gust of air caused by it.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Time seemed to stop.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Captain Maccoil looked slightly more invested in the occurrences. Desso, next to him, wondered what his captain was hiding from him.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Florence and Duchess forgot their rivalry and showed the same surprise at the same time.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Roland, holding Axel on a comforting hug downstairs—as well as Muse, who ate a potato at the kitchen—heard the impact that came from the deck.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Captain Essi Queen flew some good few meters behind before landing on her back, nearly destroying the floor she fell over. A spray of blood followed her.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Toruviel tried to get up. Noticing her difficulty—she had a sword on her guts, after all—Desso called two other anglers and came to help.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “Thanks, I’m fine now.” Tor refused the help of the men once she was on her feet. Stand she could… Remove a blade from her torso she also could. “All right,” she held the grip with both hands and pulled.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “Not so fast!”

<p class="MsoNormal"> A chain made of iron feathers took hold of the hilt and the hands that grabbed it.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Queen, her bloodied face enraged, pulled—Toruviel came. The next second, the pirate’s hands had grasped the hunter’s neck.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “Oh, it’s so good to create these feathers!” As she said it, Queen started to wrap a new chain around the elf’s neck. “I’m going to hang you for this humiliation!”

<p class="MsoNormal"> She kicked Toruviel to the sea, but held the chain attached to the elf’s neck. Not falling to the water, the hunter was suspended by the feathers, waiting to die hanged.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “It’s been some while since I’ve hung someone… Brutality keeps harassing me!”

<p class="MsoNormal"> Toruviel struggled and struggled. However, the iron was stronger than she was and the blood loss had lessened her strength.

<p class="MsoNormal"> The deck remained in silence, conquered by the evil aura of bloodlust.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “Ca... Captain?” Florence the navigator managed to break the aura.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “Me… Meow?” Duchess the cat added.

<p class="MsoNormal"> But the captain did not answer.

<p class="MsoNormal"> The only sound afterwards were steps. Desso ran to the murderer.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “Don’t get blood on our ship!” The young man yelled and jumped towards the pirate.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Queen raised her leg in a kick.

<p class="MsoNormal"> In a second time seemed to stop. Between the pirate’s kick and Desso, Grade Maccoil appeared. His eyes were filled with wrath, and his muscles appeared to grow.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Essi Queen flew and hit a wall due to a gigantic punch to her whole body.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Desso, ignoring the surprise, ran and held the chain of feathers that almost fell. “Guys, come and help me!” He asked and three men came to help him. Toruviel was laid down on the ground.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Grade Maccoil suddenly had blood coming out of his mouth. His muscles got back to the regular size, but now he looked older, and more tired.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “I’m not a pirate anymore, I don’t have the age, but I can’t stop drinking and brawling,” he stated bluntly. “Yes, I lied to my men about my past, but they are the only ones who accepted me as family, even with these stupid habits of mine… They even helped me to flourish those same idiotic acts, for no reason whatsoever.”

<p class="MsoNormal"> He put his hand over his chest, and fell to his knees.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “I may be old, but I’ll still fight if it is to protect the ones who matter to me!” He concluded quietly and fell.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “Captain!” Desso and others came to help. More than half of the men looked aside and nearly rushed towards the enemy pirates. The pirates, in response to the chaos, all drew their swords and threatened.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Despite the commotion, Essi Queen was not shocked. She stood up from the scrambles she was thrown into with difficulty.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Her eyes bore not the same rage from before.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “Captain!” Florence the navigator came to her aid.

<p class="MsoNormal"> However, Queen was not even close to becoming unconscious—not even on her knees, she was. Instead, the pirate was standing, glaring at the former pirate in front of her.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “What a terrible job,” she whispered. “I barely beat the girl and hurt an old man… ‘Flourishing idiotic acts,’ was it?”

<p class="MsoNormal"> “Captain?”

<p class="MsoNormal"> “Retreat with everyone, and leave me and Muse…” Her eyes moved from the former pirate to her opponent. “Someone’s waiting for me.”

<p class="MsoNormal"> She stared at Toruviel, who now stood on her feet and held the rapier with a bloody scar open on her chest. The bounty hunter threw her the sword, that she grabbed, barely able to stand still.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “It will end in a second,” the captain finished her orders. Florence hesitated, but obeyed. “Thanks for staying at my side, you and everyone, even if I’m a stupid person who can’t control my lust for blood.”

<p class="MsoNormal"> She never actually said the words aloud, but deep in her heart, that was what she felt. Regret for her actions… and gratitude for her followers. “Any of these days I’ll be deservingly betrayed,” she thought and raised the sword one last time.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “Boa Boa no…”

<p class="MsoNormal"> “Gan Gan no…”

<p class="MsoNormal"> A chain of feathers held the rapier’s grip. Queen threw it like a dart.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Toruviel deviated it with a bell.

<p class="MsoNormal"> But in a second Queen was right in front of her, pulling the sword by the chain, ready to strike. “… Charge!” She yelled.

<p class="MsoNormal"> The hunter had her hands to her back.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “… Smash!”

<p class="MsoNormal"> Two iron church bells were suddenly on her hands. Her opponent was close enough, so all she had to do was move her arms on an arc. The two bells clashed, with the pirate on the middle, breaking its target’s remaining strength.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Toruviel dropped the bells, and fell to her back.

<p class="MsoNormal"> Essi Queen threw a small bag with money on the floor (“to the repairs,” she said), and did the same as her rival, with the difference that Lachlann Muse held her before hitting the ground.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “I took it too far,” the pirate stated on her sleep. “My bloody curse won’t stop following me.”

<p class="MsoNormal"> Muse jumped to the pirate’s ship with his captain, and the ship departed.

<p class="MsoNormal"> “Dear Diary,

<p class="MsoNormal">'' When Roland finally allowed me to go upstairs with her, the fight had already finished. I was so worried about Tor, she had a hole on her chest and was covered in blood! But I’m glad everything ended well… More or less. ''

<p class="MsoNormal">'' Tor healed really really fast, in like a day. Because of that, the crew sent us away on a small boat with a bit of food and water, cause they never wanted us there anyway. Tor and Rol complained a lot, but they agreed that the ‘emotional resolution’, I don’t know what that means, was not our business. ‘We were never so involved to begin with and all we did was destroy the ship,’ one of them also said. ''

<p class="MsoNormal">'' Anyways, little diary, we rowed the boat for some good while until finding any land. The weather was cold and windy and cold and salty…” ''

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: right;"> To Be Continued