The Floating Graveyard

The sun scorched the earth without mercy, and the night ahead promised an unforgiving chill, as cruelly cold as the day had been blistering hot.

The Sea Vulture glided across endless waters, silent except for the groan of its masts in the sluggish wind.

The deck was a graveyard.

Bodies were dragged to the edge, one after another, and cast overboard like garbage. 

Each time a corpse hit the water with a muted splash, sharks thrashed in a feeding frenzy, ripping the bodies apart.

The assault from the night before had been devastating, nearly breaking the pirates' spirit.

They toiled without words, sweat streaming from their brows, hands numb from hauling the dead.

Thud!

Scrape!

Splash!

Each sound bled into a steady rhythm that dulled thought and feeling.

A few slaves knelt nearby, scrubbing the deck where blood had seeped deep into the wood.

No matter how fiercely they scraped, the stench of iron clung to everything, heavy and inescapable. 

Only the strong had survived.

Thus...

If another spirit attack came, those left alive had the resolve to face it head-on, their hearts hardened against the fear of death. Perhaps that was why an unusual happiness flickered on their faces.

Not only had they killed their rivals, who once threatened to share their loot, but they had also proven to the captain that they were worthy of staying on the ship.

But not every pirate was a mindless fool, caught up in schemes over rank and spoils, blind to how weak they had become.

Above the deck.

In the captain's control room, a deathly silence hung among the veterans.

Vargo stared at the table, knowing the ship was already done for, broken beyond saving.

The course he'd set was gone, lost in the madness of yesterday when everyone had been too busy fighting those damned spirits.

The ship had veered into uncharted waters, and there was no way back.

A man as sharp as Vargo saw it quickly enough, but even then, there was nothing he could do to change it.

With most of the slaves dead, turning toward Burning Island was a hopeless dream.

This ship ran on muscle and wind, not engines, and now there was no one left to steer it.

Opposite the battered map table stood a middle-aged man, well past fifty, with salt-streaked hair and eyes dulled by years of violence at sea.

This was Diago.

The vice-captain of the ship and a master navigator.

But more than that, he was Bogo's father.

Or at least, he had been.

Last night, fear shattered his son's mind.

Bogo had been a typical bully, but when terror gripped him, his fragile will broke, turning him into a half-dead thing, lost forever among the wailing horde of restless spirits.

But Diago barely flinched.

Weakness had no place in a man like him.

A boy was just a boy.

He just needed to rape another bitch.

He will take what he wants, and when the time comes, he'd father another bastard.

It was all too easy.

What mattered now was survival.

With the ship in ruins and the crew thinning, Diago stood with the captain and the senior pirates, ready to carve out the only course that mattered.

One that would keep their sorry asses alive.

He leaned over the cracked map, wiping his face with a filthy sleeve.

"We can't hold, Captain. Half the crew's gone, and we're bleeding slaves dry just to keep rowing. If another storm catches us... we're done."

"I'm telling you, we need land. Now. Nearest island or nowhere at all."

At the far end of the room, Captain Vargo stood by the window, arms folded, his gaze locked on the cursed waters beyond.

The dull thuds of sharks scraping against the hull echoed in his ears, a cruel sign that the sea was hungry and waiting for the ship to sink.

"You think I don't know that?"

Vargo said, spinning to face Diago.

His voice was sharp, filled with venomous frustration.

"You think I don't see the cracks forming? The men breaking? But what do you expect me to do? Crawl into some cove to rot? Have you forgotten what happens if we fail this quest? That nobleman from Westeros won't just let us walk away."

At the mention of the nobleman, a chill swept through the room. His cruelty was legend, his threats more terrifying than any storm.

The pirates exchanged uneasy glances, knowing that the sea's wrath might be kinder than his.

Diago gritted his teeth.

"No one's saying we quit. But Captain, if we face another storm, or worse run into a pirate ship, we're finished. The men are stretched too thin."

The pirates nodded in agreement.

"Captain, if we reach Braavos, the pressure's off. Dead men don't chase dreams. Keep going like this, and that's what we'll be, just rotting meat, sinking with no quest finished."

"The crew's breaking, and the stink of blood is pulling beasts our way. We keep tossing bodies, and sooner or later, something big enough to swallow this ship whole is gonna show up. And we're too beaten to stop it."

"This sea's bleeding us dry. I don't give a damn if the land's cursed or crawling with ghosts, it's better than getting picked off one by one out here. Call it now, Captain, or we're already done."

On the other hand...

Vargo stared at the ripped map spread across the table.

Only one place stood out in his greedy eyes...

The Burning Island.

It was smeared in blood-red ink like a curse waiting to be fulfilled.

And a dagger was stabbed through the name, as if sealing the fate of anyone bound for it, like a promise carved in bone and steel.

On the western edge of sothoriyas, under a rum-stained glass, words glared back:

Unknown Waters.

Below that, a few words were scrawled like a death sentence...

The Black Sea.

There are eight major seas in the world, and none are as unforgiving as this one.

Even the cursed waters beyond Sothoryos leave survivors with half-mad stories to tell.

But the Black Sea swallows everything...

Ships.

Men.

Hope.

Without a trace.

No bones left for the waves to spit back, no wreckage drifting ashore, just the silent void pulling it all under.

It is the kind of place that digs your grave long before you step into it.

And Vargo knew it.

Knew what lay ahead.

He didn't care about any nobleman or Braavosi lords.

The only reason he kept sailing was tied to someone that mattered more to him than his own skin, but that didn't mean he planned on dying here.

Finally, he slammed his hand down on the table.

"Fine! You Bastards!! Nearest island it is. But listen close, Diago, if anyone tries to jump ship when we dock, they die. Right there. No second chances. Weakness spreads like rot, and I won't let it take this crew."

Diago gave a slow, grim nod.

"Understood, Captain."

Vargo's boots thudded against the wooden floor as he paced, every step was a sharp punctuation of his frustration, he replied.

"Good. Now gather everyone, pirates, slaves, kids, women. I've got a decision to make."

Meanwhile,

Below Deck, Rowing Hold.

The rowing hold was even worse than the deck above, where the sun's light still offered some relief. Down here, darkness pressed in from all sides. 

A faint glow crept through a crack in the wooden wall, accompanied by a slow trickle of water.

It pooled near the floor; though for now, there was no immediate danger. 

However, that was no comfort.

The stench of blood was so strong it made breathing feel like inhaling iron. 

With the ship's movement, something toppled over, landing on someone and drawing a scream. 

The man jolted awake, his hands sticky with some unknown substance. 

"Ahh... Old man Gerrold, Mira..." 

The ship rolled, letting more light seep through the cracked planks and revealing the one who had shouted...

...Jarek, the disinterested slave boy. 

In that moment... 

An unseen weight pressed down on him. 

It was crushing, absolute. 

Then, suddenly... 

The square gate covering the entrance crashed down, flooding the hold with harsh sunlight. 

"Oh God." 

The boy whispered, his voice barely audible beneath the riot of pirate laughter above and the wet, tearing sounds of beasts feeding. 

But all of that faded into nothing before the nightmare now revealed by the light. 

He shoved a corpse aside that had been pressing on him. 

Before him lay another graveyard. 

Over eight hundred bodies were arranged in two crooked columns. 

Chains wound around their wrists and ankles, locking them into sitting positions, binding them together. 

But there were no chains around their necks, not because the pirates were merciful, but because all of them were headless. 

Every one of them. 

And from the raw terror frozen on their faces, it was clear their deaths had come only hours before. 

'To die in chains, a slave denied the sun for their entire life... This was the worst kind of death,'

Jarek thought. 

The boy stared at the rowing hold, the human engine, where blood pooled halfway up his ankles. 

Severed heads floated with the ship's movement, rolling and colliding, nudged along as if the sea itself wasn't done with them yet. 

"Mira! Mira! Gerrold!" 

Though Jarek often felt disinterested in life, he couldn't ignore the pain now gripping him.

A conclusion surfaced in his mind,

'The pirates must have killed the man last night out of fear.'

He tried to stand, but the blood dragged him down. He fell hard, the warm, sticky filth wrapping around him like a suffocating shroud.

It was cold blood. 

"Shut it, boy. You're alive, and so are I and the girl."

A voice said.