Truth, Dare and Demons

Aurelio had planned to be home two days earlier than he had, the forecast had been decent and he was eager to hand over his cargo and meet back up with Nero. He had many reasons to be excited and yet he had nerves about how far into madness this entire thing might take him.

3am on the morning they were setting back to port it was the start of the dense fog, it wasn't unusual and many legends accompanied those periods. From Sirens due to take you over the boats to the undead coming along with Davy Jones to claim more crew, Aurelio was not going to let these things affect him, it was fog pure and simple. It was thick and unnerving but the instrument panel was holding strong and they weight anchor.

“May as well take a few hours sleep now, when it finally clears we'll head back.” He assured the crew and then went to his room.

Aurelio didn't sleep well, which wasn't unusual in these periods. The ship started list in the waves even though the weather report had predicted it would be clear. The cry that came from the hull of the vessel woke the eleven crew and they ran down, each thinking that one of the others had landed themselves in trouble. Aurelio worried about an engine fire, perhaps hydraulics that had failed and one of these might have led the engineer to a serious injury. The eleven men cramped into the area they had heard it and then realised that none of them had made the noise.

A dissent of arguments began, who was to blame? They didn't like the idea of one of the monsters legends being true and in the end the decision was made to sit in the mess, get some coffee going and then radio out when they calmed down to see if another ship was in the area. After all, they knew from experience, that it wasn't without possibility that they were experiencing some form of mass hallucination or that a noise from a nearby vessel had not carried across in some bizarre way.

In the mess they were quiet, the talk slowly turned to the idea of prayer however and Aurelio told them they could, but he felt it wasn't necessary. Secretly he wondered if he should given his brother's... well blood and history. He sat down and stared into the coffee mug long after the others had left, had he brought this upon them? Eventually he headed to see what he would be able to get from the radio.

They could not make contact initially and the engineer stayed up with another crewman to keep an eye on it, maybe the fog would clear and they would get someone in the area. Aurelio settled into doing the logs, they had enough food for another week but he had wanted to be back far sooner, these delays were costly on motivation and cash.

The day the fog cleared they lost Anderson, the greenhorn, and it was unexplainable to everyone as to how. One moment he was there on deck working with them and the next all that was left to show any sign of the human being ever having been there was a bloody smear near a rail. There had been no cry for help and no wave that had come up across the ship to wash him away.

From then on in the journey back to port was fairly silent, people did their jobs and Aurelio made a decision to ask his manager about the ship's history. It had spooked him, it had unnerved him enough to think that the ship might even be cursed. Something he would have dismissed before meeting his brother. He sighed, this was ridiculous, it was simply an event at sea that could have happened to anyone. Ships went under without warning, it was feasible that sadly Anderson could have too.

Aurelio sat down at the bar that night, showered and changed he'd pushed the notions aside and rang the family to explain they had lost the greenhorn. He drank deep from the pint in front of him and then shook his head in disbelief. There was the kid, he was there! At the bar, ordering a pint as though nothing had happened. Aurelio went to speak to him, to demand an answer but then he found himself unable to move, Anderson looked directly at him, as if challenging him to be stupid enough to stand up... in the end the guy moved out of the bar having finished his pint, the strange spell ended and Aurelio ordered a stiffer drink before he went to the DMC, screw the time this was getting almost too weird to comprehend.