[ WP ] You 're an explorer in the Dark Ages and set out westwards to show that the earth is round . Except it is n't and together with your crew you sail off the world 's edge .

Thin, sun darkened faces—once smug and exuberant—showed their true shock when it seemed they would no longer be sailing forward in a straight path, and instead would plunge over the murky, grey precipice of the world, free-falling for time eternal. 
 
 Several conditions heralded World's End, and each had the captain feeling acutely ill. The first omen, as it were, was the sky. Like diseased arteries, thick coal-black clouds pulsed through the dark aether above, occasionally lancing the ocean with a fork of incandescent lightning. 
 
 An uncanny rushing noise, possibly the loudest in existence—surely the greatest the captain had ever beheld—had sounded out ahead them for miles, but they had not taken it to mean what it did. 
 
 *'' Eet ees just a noise of nature, capteen,'' * his French cartographer had soothed. *'' We should not heed eet, like a leetle boy might hees shadow. Yes? *'' 
 
 And even if he *had* heeded it like a scared, little boy might his shadow, the captain *knew* there was nothing he could've done. By the time his cartographer had shouted his assurances over the roar of a celestial waterfall, the great tide had already been pulling them toward the abyss for a long while. And would n't stop anytime soon. 
 
 Strange fish shone beneath the green, sloshing waters, silvery and sharp as needlepoints. Just a mere twelve ship lengths ahead, a mist of shifting chrome exploded out from the water, seemed to fall over the side, and concurrently rose back up as if just a mundane fog. But as it buzzed through the air above their ship, the captain realized it was a school of those sharp fish—they apparently had wings and had adapted to *fall over the side of the earth*. 
 
 And when they had finally come over a threshold—one that separated the normal world, from the End—they had seen the horizon laid out in front of them for miles across. But there was a queerness about it, a proximity that bespoke the supernatural. It was not the perfectly flat, ever unreachable thing that the captain had got to know in his many years at sea. Because while relatively flat, gouging rocks and jutting reefs of coral rose free of the water, and along the once flat line of horizon the sea seemed to bubble and boil. 
 
 If these were not telltale signs of World's End, then the captain did n't know what was. Once his men caught sight of them, the omens that spelled their doom, cries of fright and dismay had rung out along the deck. And still onward they sailed, because a captain never abandons his ship. That, and he had tried altering their course but the pull was too strong—the claws of the sea had gripped them tight and would only let go when they reached the edge. 
 
 None but the cowards and fools would jump overboard. Aside from the flying needlefish, they were ignorant as to what lurked below these terminal waters; and at the speed the ship was going something with the mass of a man would get sucked along, only a little bit slower—and that was assuming no blind monster, chained to the sea floor by some natural anchor, rose up and gobbled them first. 
 
 At this point, they were in the hands of Destiny, and it was Her cloaked brother who would follow them to the end, if He saw fit. 
 
 The captain stepped away from the ship's wheel at the helm, and walked down the short, wooden staircase to the main deck. Lined across the starboard and port sides were all his men, solemn and scared. But there was a certain amount of acceptance. 
 
 He walked through the middle of the ship, and turned to lean against one of the great, towering spars. The captain faced his men. 
 
 `` Well chaps, the end is up ahead.'' 
 
 A shudder went through them. One or two cried out. But as a whole, they remained quiet—even as the distance decreased to four ship lengths, and the roaring of the tides misted them with ocean spray. 
 
 `` We all have loved ones who're gon na miss us, yeah.'' He was shouting. `` But at least they'll be content in the knowledge that their brothers and husbands and fathers went off on a noble cause of science.'' 
 
 `` But sir,'' a portly blond fellow called out, `` we've been proven wrong.'' 
 
 `` True,'' the captain responded, hiding a grim smile. `` But it's not like anyone will know that for a long time to come.'' 
 
 A few stifled laughs. `` Now men!'' Despite himself, the captain felt a smile come to his face. `` Nothing to do but clench and think of England.'' His cartographer scowled, not unkindly, and braced himself. 
 
 And the edge came up to greet them. And the ship went over. And then the sailors were among the stars. 
 
 
 

