One month later

  “Wake up,” someone said, slapping Morwin lightly. His eyes fluttered open and he saw Captain Mikael there, standing over him. “We’re approaching the island.”

  Morwin threw his covers off of him and sprang off his bed. He made his way up towards the deck. When he was greeted by the outside air, he was met with emptiness. In every direction, there was nothing. No hint of any island for miles and miles around.

  Boris, one of the crewmates he’s interacted with during the month at sea, stepped up in line with him.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” he said.

  “I don’t see anything. Where is it? The captain told me we’re approaching,” Morwin said.

  The month had passed by in the blink of an eye. Instead of spending his time growing more and more anxious at the arrival, he’d enjoyed himself, and that passed the time more quickly than he’d thought. But disappointment filled him when he didn’t see any land mass around.

  “Here, drink this,” Captain Mikael came after him up the stairs. In his hand was a cup of a pitch black liquid. Even from here, Morwin could smell the bitterness within the cup. Just one whiff and he decided he didn’t want it.

  Morwin poked at the cup hesitantly. “What is it?” he asked.

  “Just drink it. Trust me, it’s going to help.”

  “With the sea sickness? You waited this long to give me a concoction? No thanks, I’ll manage the rest of the ride just fine,” Morwin said.

  “Trust him, lad,” Boris said.

  “It smells horrid.”

  “But it works,” Mikael spoke, a cheeriness in his voice. It seemed the captain was as glad as him to finally arrive at the Islands.

  “No thanks,” Morwin rejected. He pushed the captain’s hand aside, moving the cup from the reaches of his nose. Just the smell of it alone was enough to make him hurl. He couldn’t imagine the taste of it.

  “Suit yourself,” the captain said with a wink before receding back down below deck.

  Morwin stood there and stared out, wondering where the island was supposed to be. Was it in front of them? To the left or right?

  Thirty minutes he waited. Thirty minutes of standing there and watching as the sea rolled beneath, the waves crashing against the side of the ship. Some seagulls started appearing overhead, making their obnoxious caws.

  With the appearance of seagulls, that meant the island would come into view soon… Right?

  A sudden feeling passed through Morwin. A despair deeper than anything he’s ever felt. Sweat started rolling off his face like rain during a stormy night. It made a pool underneath him.

  He stared into the distance, the Aylin Islands still nothing more than a concept within his mind. But this feeling… he couldn’t shake it off. It made him see things. Things he knew weren’t there.

  One of those things was a cloaked figure, floating in front of the ship, holding a massive scythe in its bony hands. Not bony as in skinny. Bony as in… His hands were literal bones. It wore a gray hood covering his face, but one look into its sunken eyes and Morwin knew a floating skeleton hovered there.

  He backed up slowly. The feeling of death and despair increased tenfold. He pointed out at the floating skeleton in front of him. Something was happening. Something terrible.

  During the month at sea, Morwin found some real gemstones underneath in the cargo, an assortment from Agnius. Rubies, aquamarines, emeralds, and topazes. He’d borrowed some from Mikael, and was glad the captain allowed it.

  Morwin Absorbed in as much emerald as he could hold and let out a powerful blast of wind to blow this threat away, but no matter how much of his essence he used up, the skeleton remained there. No, not skeleton. He’d heard stories of these when he was younger. Stories of reapers meant to scare children into doing their chores and be obedient.

  He’d grown up still scared of them. To think, they were real!

  Morwin backed down the stairs, but the reaper seemed to be attracted to him for some reason. As he backed down the steps, the reaper floated up. What was it? It had to be an omen of death.

  He spun his head around and saw some of the crew mates gathered on the deck. But they all looked towards the sea. They seemed to look past the skeleton. He pointed a finger at the floating figure.

  “Do you guys see that?” he called out. All the crew mates ignored him. No, they didn’t ignore him. They stood frozen, Morwin noticed for the first time. Frozen in place. Morwin was the only one that could move freely.

  He Absorbed in some more emerald and let out a blast of wind more powerful than the first. Although this blast sent splinters of wood flying from the mast of the ship, the reaper didn’t seem to be affected by it. He needed to take other measures.

  The skeletal figure drew ever closer to where Morwin stood. He Absorbed in some emerald and flew upwards and away from this creature. He flew high and fast, but no matter how high or fast, the reaper still followed him a fixed distance. He soared through the clouds, but the reaper still followed just as quickly, scythe held menacingly in his hand.

  Morwin did a circle and flew downwards, straight for the ship. He landed on heavy feet and made way towards the frozen crew mates. He waved a hand in front of Boris, but his eyes were unblinking.

  Morwin looked up and the reaper came dove straight for him. He raised both of his hands to block the creature from coming into contact with him, but to no avail.

  The skeletal figure passed straight through him as if he were made of air. His spine tingled. Every hair on his arm stood on end. A terrible chill passed trough him and he shivered violently.

  The reaper was gone, but it left an imprint in his mind. One of death. Despair. Hopelessness.

  Morwin’s stomach turned. He wanted to hurl, but seeing as he hadn’t had breakfast yet, he didn’t think he could.

  Everywhere around him, the crew started to move again. They pointed towards a shadow off in the distance. The Aylin Islands.

  Morwin no longer wanted to go there. If a horrible thing such as that reaper was on the outskirts of it, then something even worse had to await them within the Islands themselves.

  Morwin made a run for the lower cabin, his head spinning. He felt sick and rotten to the core. He needed to get out of there.

  He wished he had his sapphire to Absorb, so he could absolve this feeling of doom around his mind.

  “Captain!” Morwin shouted. The captain was walking along the halls and talking to some of his crew that resided below decks.

  Captain Mikael turned to the sound of his voice. “What is it, lad? You look horrid!”

  “Please,” Morwin begged. “You have to turn this ship around. The island, something terrible is coming! Something is horribly wrong here!” Morwin turned around, and out of one of the closets, he could see the skeletal figure of the reaper there, standing and staring with its hollowed out eyes, staring straight at him, piercing his very soul. “The Islands… they don’t feel right.”

  The captain raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean they don’t feel right? Isn’t this what you wanted? To leave Agnius and come to the Aylin Islands to do whatever business you have here? And now you want us to just turn this ship around for you?”

  Did nobody else see what he just saw? He turned back around to look at the closet, and the reaper no longer stood within its darkness, but he could still feel a pair of eyes on him. Or multiple.

  He nodded fervently. “We have to go. Something is coming for us. I can feel it.” He raised his arm to show the captain all the goosebumps he had along his skin.

  The captain laughed. “Whatever it is, you’re going to have to deal with it. No way in hell am I turning this ship around. I have some commerce I have to perform, and these men would like to see their wives. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  The captain ignored his pleas and made his way past Morwin. He sucked in a breath. If the captain won’t listen to him, perhaps the sailors would. He maneuvered to the upper deck and moved to the starboard side, where there were sailors gathered with their navigation devices and several maps sprawled all over the place. Only one was at the wheel, a rather skinny man wearing a blue naval uniform and a white hat.

  “Turn this ship around,” Morwin demanded.

  Morwin still couldn’t shake that strange feeling off. Something felt outright wrong with the Aylin Islands.

  The sailors roared in laughter, pointing fingers at Morwin.

  “Don’t you guys see the reaper coming for us?” he asked, dumbfounded.

  “Yes, we did! It’s what you see if you don’t take the bitterroot tea,” one of the sailors spoke in between laughs.

  “The captain told you and you didn’t listen!”

  Morwin looked at them confused.

  “Indeed he didn’t,” Mikael’s voice came from behind him. The captain stepped up, with both hands wrapped around a cup holding the nasty smelling liquid. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the effects of the Aylin Islands earlier, lad, but the crew insisted I didn’t. Watching you scurry all around the deck, trying desperately to make this ship turn around was too much!” Even the captain was trying to contain his laughter.

  Morwin stared at the dark liquid sloshing with the movements of the ship and stared back at the captain. “What do you mean?” Morwin asked.

  “It’s an effect of coming near the island. I’m not sure what causes it, but it’s best if you just listen to me and drink this. I think it’s a defense mechanism for the island, seeing as that’s their only method of defense.” The captain held the cup of sloshing black liquid for Morwin.

  He took it and bit back some bile rising in the back of his throat.

  “Most sailors that make it this far can’t continue any further. The closer they get to the Island, the more they want to turn around. And they eventually break under the pressure and do. It’s an effect of coming closer to the island. Trust me when I say, you’ll feel a lot better once you drink that.”

  Morwin squeezed his nose to block the smell. He just had to swallow it. He wouldn’t even taste it.

  He shut his eyes and pushed the cup to his mouth and downed all the liquid in one gulp. His eyes snapped open, a burning sensation passing through them as the liquid traveled into his mouth and down his throat. Once the cup was empty, he threw it down in a fit of rage, hacking and coughing, wanting to vomit whatever he just drank out. It tasted worse than death itself. He wasn’t sure if he’d rather deal with the feeling of doom or drink another cup of that stuff.

  “That… was horrendous,” he commented.

  The captain picked up the cup. “Feel better now?”

  Morwin couldn’t believe it. The feeling had slipped away from him the moment he drank the liquid. He looked around, and everything appeared normal. The bright blue sky overhead, the mass of lands off in the distance coming closer. Everything felt just right. Nothing out of the ordinary. He tried to recall what he had seen moments before, but found he couldn’t.

  Some kind of figure floating? But he couldn’t place a finger exactly on what it was. Something within his mind blocked that piece of memory from coming to the surface. Morwin knew it was there, but he just didn’t know what it was.

  “Anchors at the ready!” the captain barked orders to the crew mate on the deck. Morwin stood and watched as the men scurried about, moving back and forth preparing to dock the ship.

  The island grew bigger and bigger with each passing moment, and Morwin could make out the terrain. Unlike Agnius, the terrain of the Aylin Islands was rather flat. Hills adorned the landscape, but only small hills. No mountains overshadowed the towns there. Even from that distance, he could see the abundance of trees and plant life on the island.

  The trees themselves were a mixture of colors. Instead of being green all over, there were some trees that had pink leaves, some had red, others had purple. Only a small amount had the normal green leaves. And these trees ran around the entire island that was in sight.

  Morwin looked at the dock which they were coming to and noticed some ships coming in and leaving as well. He pointed to one of those ships and whispered to a nearby crew mate, “Are all of those ships going to Agnius?”

  The crew mate let a hearty laugh. “No,” he said. “You know there are other countries outside of the Aylin Islands and Agnius, right?” Then the man he was talking to went about his business, helping the others prepare for the docking.

  Other countries besides those two? Morwin never gave it much thought. Geography of the seas and beyond was never taught to him. He had been led to believe that Agnius was the only country in the world, and the seas that touched the shores spread outward infinitely. He’d been naive to believe that, but that was what most of the people in Agnius believed.

  He clenched his fists. Different cultures, different types of people, and the existence of magical Blessings that came from the gods. Morwin couldn’t believe how much he wasn’t taught growing up. All that was drilled into him was basic mathematics, diplomatic studies, native geography, and language. He’d never even learned he had a Blessing until recently. Just how much information did his schooling withhold from him? He’d learned from this short voyage that the world he thought he knew didn’t exist at all. There was so much more beyond the walls of Rathalin and across the seas.

  The ships grew closer. Even looking at the ships, there were different designs. This ship looked as if it came from Agnius, while the next one over was covered in metal and had smoke rising out of some kind of pipe in the center. How curious.

  In retrospect, a metallic ship would be much better than a wooden one because if the wood ship caught on fire, then it would burn and sink the sailors.

  As they grew even closer, Morwin could make out that the large island he saw was not one island, but three separate ones. They were disconnected by what appeared to be wooden bridges. No, not wooden bridges. The bridges were of wood, but it appeared as though they were also trees, grown to take shape of a bridge.

  The whole country seemed beautiful. Just moments ago, he thought this place would be foreboding and have omens of death, but now, looking at it, it seemed like a nice place to live.

  Men scurried about as they threw anchors and attached them to the docks. The plank lowered and tied to the ground, providing a way for the crew members to leave.

  Morwin walked down the length of the plank, and when his feet hit solid ground, he felt a disorienting sensation. After a month traveling by sea, it sure was weird to be standing on solid ground again. He felt the shadow sensation of the ship swaying even though he stood on solid ground.

  Men started unpacking boxes and carrying them off the ship. Did they not feel the same thing that Morwin felt?

  Captain Mikael descended down the plank as well, hands clasped behind his back.

  “Galvin has paid for a two-way trip for you,” he spoke. “Whatever you need to do it, make sure you have it done within the week. Come back to this spot in one week when you’re ready to depart, and we’ll set sail. If not, you will get left behind, as I can’t afford to wait.”

  Morwin nodded. “Got it. Thank you, Captain.”

  “And you might need the gemstones, so I’ll let you keep them. My reward for you being not that bad of a crewmate.”

  The captain receded back to the Mara’s Dream to help his fellow crew members unload some stuff. Morwin turned around to face the Aylin Islands. He took the first steps along the dock, leaving behind him the month of sea travel, ready to see what lay for him on the islands before him.