Ritual

Lucas stared at the person hanging from the ceiling, swaying from the tide.

He then looked at the box next to him, impatiently ignoring the person hanging from the ceiling and started moving the box into the room, once inside he stacked a couple of boxes on the door to block out any intruders.

The stern storeroom was one of the smallest on the ship and that is why it was rarely used, it was only used to store some emergency supplies, which is why it was practically never used.

Although it was small, it was also one of the most distinctive, since it was right at the stern, that is, the forward part of the ship, so one could feel that the two wooden walls trapped it in a kind of triangle.

"He probably came to the same conclusion as me, this is a good place not to be disturbed," Lucas muttered confidently, as he uncovered the wooden box, completely ignoring the dangling ornament.

The box was opened, inside one could only notice a paper covered in oil, this was Lucas's second joker, luckily it was not used, not only did it prevent the contents of the box from being seen, but it also covered the smell nauseating from rotting guts.

When lifting the paper, some guts covered in oil could be seen all over the box, Lucas took the knife that was inside the box and opened the guts again, from so much movement it seemed that all the parts had been mixed in a meat salad.

Lucas put his hand in the box and after rummaging around a bit he managed to find the head, in his haste he had never been able to notice who Ricardo's victim was.

"How ironic, it seems that he was one of the guys Ricardo was drinking with at the party..." Lucas muttered.

"Well that's life, friend, one day you're perfect and the next day you're dead" Lucas said to the head in his hand.

"You're not very talkative, are you?" Lucas asked, but his head didn't seem to want to answer him, or he just couldn't...

Lucas looked around, besides the fact that the room was somewhat claustrophobic, and a dead body was hanging from the ceiling, there were many boxes with emergency supplies everywhere.

"Well, if we're going to do it, let's do it right…" Lucas said, leading the way as he rifled through the boxes.

Lucas, he seemed not to be in a hurry, this room was hardly ever used, it would be rare for them to bother him, so he took the time to go through the boxes and from time to time he took something that he considered useful.

Having already found several 'useful' things, Lucas found a somewhat small box, grabbed three emergency candles and formed a triangle.

Then he submerged his only hand in the box with the guts and stirring it a little he stained his hand with blood, with the stained hand he proceeded to paint a circle that joined the three candles, under each candle was another smaller circle.

He dipped a rope into the box and with it then created another larger circle around the circle of blood.

He then found the head of the murdered young sailor and placed it among the three sails.

Not only that, but he took the knife and cut the forehead of the head to draw an inverted trident and crossed out the trident with an X.

Finally, he grabbed a paper from a survival diary and, with the tip of the knife smeared with blood, he wrote sloppily and in a language quite different from the one the captain used in his diary.

"When I don't doubt, make me doubt."

Opening the corpse's mouth, he inserted the paper and closed its mouth again.

With some emergency matches, he managed to light the three candles and put out the oil lamp that illuminated the warehouse.

The lighting dropped quite a bit since the candles did not light up the entire room, but the dance of the candles on the fire and their slow lighting gave Lucas a certain comfort.

"I'm pretty good, I'd even think I'm an initiate of the church..." Lucas murmured ironically when he saw his altar.

"What a strange adventure, I got this time" he murmured in a low voice looking at the head resting peacefully between the three candles.

"I just hope to get to port and start a decent life for the first time in my life" Lucas muttered, putting his hand in the box full of guts.

"It's so complicated to live peacefully, without tempting death every day..." Lucas said, putting some entrails mixed with parasites in his mouth, "... that shitty priest is going to end up killing me, if this adventure continues like this"