[ WP ] `` What 's the status ? Your ship is cursed , your crew is insane , and everyone out there wants us dead . ''

I awoke groaning, my body throbbing with the motion of the ocean. `` What the hell happened?'' 
 
 `` What's the status? Your ship is cursed, your crew is insane, and everyone out there wants us dead.'' 
 
 Where did that voice come from? 
 
 `` Open this blasted drawer!'' a voice boomed. It sounded vaguely like my first mate, Douglas. 
 
 I opened my eyes to an unearthly, pulsing green light filtering from the porthole in my quarters. I rushed to the window - light came, distorted and bent, from a great distance above. The air itself was tinted sea-green. The water we floated on was black as void. There was not a single reflection. In the distance, land and ships. 
 
 `` I'm *suffocating* in here Jones! Surely good men are n't so easily replaceable as to stuff them into little holes!'' A drawer rattled to my right. I opened it; the only thing occupying it was a carved skull. A trinket, gifted to me by an old friend. It opened its mouth and screeched, `` Well, Jones, why're you giving me the lovey eyes? You've no questions? Content to peer into my sockets, are ye?'' 
 
 `` Douglas? What the blasted hell kind of trickery is this? This some blasted puppet trickery is n't it?'' I huffed. Damn words got away from me at times. 
 
 `` Nay, Cap'n. These be rough times for us. First, ye need to know a few things. Do not open the door to the deck. Yes, there be your men, but they're no longer yours nor they men, eh? And do no say what ye hope or want. The ship's no longer yours, either, Cap'n. Aye, she'll bend to sail and oar, but you speak your wishes where she can hear, and she'll do whatever she can to make it never so. Finally, everyone in this blasted world wants to kill us. Ye follow so far?'' 
 
 `` I, huh, what?'' 
 
 The skull - Douglas shook his head. 
 
 `` I suppose we'll have to do with listening first and understanding later. What do ye remember of our mission?'' 
 
 `` Oh, aye. To seek the end of the world. The oceans were draining away, we were to find and plug the hole.'' 
 
 `` So you do remember! Well, it was a bigger hole than we expected. Welcome to where the oceans drain. This place is no the world as we know it. It's strange. There be no need of food, water, nor sleep. From what I've seen we do no age. From what I managed to garner, we all awoke at differing times. Only when one died or went mad did the next wake so that only one was lucid on the ship at a time.'' 
 
 `` So, Douglas, tell me how it is you're here talking to me. And, why should I trust you if everyone on this ship but me is a raving lunatic?'' 
 
 `` Damn it, Jones, I'm trying to help ye! I tried waking ye, cap'n, but for the life of me I could n't. So, as first mate, I took certain liberties. We went towards land, and a woman washed up. We dragged her up, and she, the skinny, half-drowned wench killed three sailors with her bare hands! I would not believe it meself if I had n't seen it. We manage to capture her, and I'm about to take her evil head off when she promises me a boon.'A gypsy witch I am' she crowed. She promised me a way to wake you, and I agreed. Next thing I know, here I am.'' 
 
 `` This is trouble indeed, Douglas. You say you tamed the men earlier - how'd you do so?'' 
 
 `` Ah, well, there be great bird-men here. Makes me think they wrought the demise of your men, as each one cringed at the sight of one. So's, I manage to shoot one, take his feathers for a cloak and the men obeyed better than they ever did before.'' 
 
 `` Where is this cloak, Douglass?'' 
 
 `` In your storage chest, cap'n. For yer convenience.'' 
 
 Something clicked. 
 
 `` Douglass, why was I on the floor?'' 
 
 `` Er, cap'n, I do no know-'' 
 
 `` Admit it - ye stole your captain's cabin and his bed. That's near mutiny.'' 
 
 `` Ah, well, extenuating circumstances?'' 
 
 `` Fair enough Douglass. If ye ever get out of that skull and we make it back to whence we came, I'll have you wipe the deck'til it shines.'' 
 
 ``... Aye cap'n.''
