“There was once a ship that was put to sea!” Abel sings loudly, clapping his hands rhythmically as he does so.

  “The name of the ship was the Billy O' Tea!” Hibiki sang along, laughing slightly as he did so.

  “The winds blew up, her bow dipped down!” Luh continued, grinning as she tapped her foot to the rhythm.

  “Oh blow, my bully boys, blow!” Elena sings, clapping her hands to the rhythm just as Abel is.

  “Huh!” Miku exclaims, jumping up as she does so.

  “Soon may the Wellerman come! To bring us sugar and tea and rum! One day, when the tonguing is done, We'll take our leave and go!” They all sing, putting their arms around each other's shoulders and waving along with the shanty’s rhythm.

  Mohan, who was manning the ship and checking the route on the map Luh had drawn out, making sure they were going in the right direction, grinned widely as he looked down at his friends dancing and enjoying themselves. This warm feeling was only intensified by the beautiful weather they’d been having for the month they’d been at sea. C-100’s bright orange sun shined brightly in the sky and the planet’s humid atmosphere refracted the sun’s light creating hundreds of tiny rainbows. The ocean looked like some rare gemstone, with the light blue of the shallow water and the deep reds and greens from the sentiment and plants. To the right of their ship, giant manta ray-like aliens fly gracefully above the ocean's surface, feeding on all the plankton that floated in the air. Mohan turned his gaze from the surroundings and looked back at the map. He adjusts the ship, turning it 5 degrees eastward. He then looks back at his friends. They were now singing a new sea shanty.

  “What will we do with a drunken sailor? What will we do with a drunken sailor? What will we do with a drunken sailor? Early in the morning!” They all sing giddily and loudly.

  Mohan continues to look as he thinks to himself. “Man it’s so good seeing everybody back together,” Mohan thinks to himself with a small smile as he thinks back to the conversation he had with Hibiki a couple of weeks ago on the night before they had to split up for all their missions. It was late at night, and Mohan had figured out that Hibiki always stayed up to write things down in his journal, not the field guide but a personal journal that Hibiki kept. Mohan sat at the downstairs table of their house in the alien village, doing some writing of his own. I mean, his life did make a pretty good story after all. Eventually, he heard the soft and sneaky steps of a cautious Hibiki, not wanting to wake anybody up. As Hibiki heads to his bag to grab his water pouch, Mohan speaks up.

  “Hey Hibiki,” Mohan says, causing him to flinch slightly before looking over at Mohan and sighing.

  “Oh hey Mohan, didn’t think you’d be up at this hour,” Hibiki says, rubbing his tired eyes before taking a sip from his water pouch.

  “Well I would say the same about you but we know that you stay up hella late,” Mohan says, both of them letting out a soft chuckle.

  “Well, I’ll see you around later than Mohan,” Hibiki says before he turns to leave.

  “Wait Hibiki, don’t leave yet,” Mohan says motioning for Hibiki to take a seat. Hibiki sits down in front of Mohan, who slides him a cup of Purple Berry Brew. “I figured that I might as well make you a cup, I mean from the looks of it you need it,” Mohan says with a chuckle, sitting up straighter.

  “So you were waiting for me huh?” Hibiki says, taking a sip of the drink. It was just as he remembered and felt like a warm blanket for his tired brain.

  “Well, not like I can wait for the morning,” Mohan replies.

  “Well true, we gotta do some missions for H??ü tomorrow morning,” Hibiki replies, taking another sip and letting out a content sigh. “You probably want to just apologize like everybody else right?” Hibiki asks, his voice having a sharp edge to it.

  “Well yes and no,” Mohan replies before continuing. “Obviously, I feel sorry for everything that happened but more than anything, I wanted to ask how you’re feeling. Don’t give me that ‘Im fine’ bullshit. We both know that a lot is going on up here,” Mohan says, tapping the side of his head.

  Hibiki exhales deeply and goes silent for a moment, collecting his thoughts before speaking. “Well I’m not entirely sure but I guess I think you guys think of me as a hypocrite,” Hibiki finally says.

  Mohan’s brow furrows in slight confusion. “A hypocrite? Why would we see you as that?” Mohan asks, leaning forward in his seat.

  “Well, me and Miku both withheld information for the same reason, we didn’t want to cause panic. I freaked out big time at her for it even when we both were doing the same shit,” Hibiki says, looking down at his drink.

  Mohan nods in understanding, pausing to think before speaking. “Well when you put it like that, then kind of but I think you are missing some big things. Firstly, Miku actively took the page from you and tried to hide what she knew from us. Secondly, you were completely ready to tell us about what you figured out,” Mohan explains.

  Hibiki nods. “Well, I guess you aren’t wrong,” Hibiki says, sighing heavily as he takes a big sip from his cup. “I just don’t get why you all freaked out on me! I mean Elena knew about it too and Miku was straight up hiding stuff from us and she probably still is!” Hibiki exclaims slamming his drink down.

  “I’m not entirely sure why but I can tell you one thing I am sure of, they didn’t mean for it to be flipped on you. Elena is a shy and nervous person who is slowly but surely opening up and Miku just doesn’t know basic social skills. I mean she's been stuck here for at least 30 years after all,” Mohan says with a sigh before continuing. “But that doesn’t make them turning on you justified but all we can do now is promise to better and move on. I already talked to everyone else and they all feel similarly. They feel terrible about what they said,” Mohan says, his voice low and gentle.

  Hibiki calmed down a bit at his words. “Really? Even Luh?” Hibiki asks softly, to which Mohan answers with a nod. “Well that's good . . . but I’m just not sure if I can trust them, especially Miku. What else could she be hiding from us!” Hibiki says, his voice rising once more.

  “I don’t think she is but you aren’t unjustified in thinking that. I think she is hiding some stuff from us but I have a feeling it’s something more personal. We should keep an eye on her but for now, we need her strength,” Mohan says, putting his hand on Hibiki’s shoulder. “But hey, even if Miku is untrustful, you still got the rest of us,” He says, smiling.

  Hibiki for the first time since the argument also smiles. “Ya, you’re right,” Hibiki replies.

  Mohan is snapped out of his trip to memory lane by Luh shaking him on the shoulder. “Huh? What's wrong?” Mohan asks, snapping out of it and looking at Luh who has a concerned look on her face.

  “Well, it seems we didn’t beat the storm,” Luh says pointing straight ahead where at least 1km from them, they could see the dark clouds and flashes of purple lightning of the monstrous typhoon.

  “Well shit, I thought we left early right?” Mohan asks.

  “We did, seems the storm got pushed here by some southbound winds,” Miku says with a sigh.

  “Now what? Can we stop by an island and wait it out?” Mohan asks.

  Miku shakes her head. “Nah the storm will probably take a few days or maybe even a week to move on, we can’t waste that much time,” She explains.

  “Then where to?” Mohan asks, his eyes scanning the map.

  “We only got one option really,” Luh says before pointing to an interior seaway that cut through part of the second continent which would allow them to get to the mountains where Miku’s ship supposedly lies. On the map, where the interior seaway was, “Here be Dragons” was written in ?D?t’s handwriting.

  “Didn’t Hibiki say that there’s probably some insane marine predators here?” Mohan says with a concerned look on his face.

  “He was basing his guesses off of Earth’s western interior seaway from the Cretaceous. Maybe it's different here?” Miku suggests, tilting her head.

  “I would agree with that if ?D?t didn’t fucking write ‘Here be Dragons’,” Mohan replies.

  “True but has he even been there?” Luh questions.

  Hibiki, who was listening to the conversation pitches in. “No, but his pet Alas Sapientiae(an intelligent flying alien, similar to a crow or parrot) said that it saw all sorts of giant marine life,” Hibiki says.

  “That’s just more reason to not go there, maybe we can go all the way around from the east?” Mohan suggests but Luh, Hibiki, and Miku shake their heads.

  “We didn’t pack enough food for that long of a trip, we’ll have to make a mad dash through the seaway. There’s plenty of islands so we should be able to stop at them occasionally in case anything aggressive chases us,” Hibiki says, which Luh and Miku agree to.

  Mohan nods reluctantly. “You ain’t wrong, Sea of Dragons, here we come!” Mohan says as he makes the ship turn hard to the east, towards the interior seaway.

  After about 30 minutes of sailing, they see the entrance to the interior seaway. To the right and left of the seaway was a giant swamp. The “trees” on this continent were very different from those of the one they came from. The trees on the continent they just came from looked like giant mushrooms, where they had thick towering stalks and giant flat disks on the top. Here, the trees had a giant network of roots that held up their short trunks like scaffolding. Instead of a giant singular leaf, they had a giant bulbous masses made up of leathery, scale-like skin. From the trees, they could see small sapphire-colored aliens that resembled squids or cephalopods, flying from tree to tree. One of them was shot down by a small harpoon, which came from a spiny camouflaged alien.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Whoa, dude this place is teeming with life!” Hibiki says with a huge smile, leaning over the ship’s side and looking around.

  “Ya, we gotta be careful though. There’s gonna be a bunch of predators too,” Elena says, as she begins to gather harpoons from the back of the ship.

  “And knowing this fucking planet, that predator is going to be Godzilla or some shit,” Abel says, as he helps Elena with harpoons.

  For a good while, it was smooth sailing. The sea creatures splashed and vocalized to one another. Suddenly, it all goes silent. The animals in the area had shut up and left. Miku, lowers the sails, causing the ship to slow considerably. The boat sails slowly and silently across the water like a deer creeping away from a wolf. As they crept across the water, all that could be heard was the splashing of small waves against the ship’s hull. No one dared to even breathe, for they didn’t want to attract the wrath of whatever had scared everything away. After a few moments of this silence, it was broken by something giant ramming into the ship. The entire ship nearly tipped over from this attack. Abel rushed over to the side of the ship and saw what looked like a giant arthropod-like alien. Abel grabs a harpoon and hurls it at the giant alien. The harpoon barely scratches its thick armor. Then the armor on its back peels open, revealing soft squishy flesh underneath. The flesh had hundreds of deep holes in it, from which smaller aliens crawled out. The smaller aliens swam towards the ship, and then all at the same time, their mouthpieces snapped, creating sonic bubbles that rocked the ship once more. Elena and Abel hurl harpoons at these aliens, hitting a few in the head, and instantly killing them. Others got hit in the body, which wasn’t enough to put them down. While all this was happening, Hibiki, Miku, and Luh quickly raised the sails and Mohan began steering them to a nearby island in the seaway. The big alien rammed the ship once more while the smaller aliens shot their bubbles, which nearly tipped the ship over, but the ship's sails caught the wind just in time, preventing the ship from tipping. The ship begins to speed off toward an island with the giant alien close behind it.

  “Shit shit shit, it's right on our ass!” Abel yells, the giant alien’s back visible above the water as it chases them.

  Just as it is about to reach them, a towering pair of colorful, bone-covered jaws jut out of the water, crunching down onto the arthropod alien, thrashing it violently before dragging it under. The water quickly turns black with the alien's blood just as the crew reaches the island.

  “Holy shit,” Abel breathes out, flopping down onto the sand of the beach.

  Mohan looked over the damage on the ship, which was minimal, and the ship's hull was still holding up well. “At least they didn’t destroy the ship,” he says with a sigh.

  Everyone gazes out at the sea, still seeing the giant beast, Hibiki can get a better look at it using his spyglass. The sea beast’s maw was made entirely of hard bone, which looked like it was painted, with the bone being red, blue, and green. Hibiki also got slight glances at its body, which was bulky and stout, and instead of scales, it had strange bone rings that looped into one another like chainmail armor. It had two giant fins, which had small claws at the end of it, and a long tail, not too dissimilar to that of an earth knife fish. The massive alien continued slowly crunching on the arthropod, shattering its armor like glass. “Well, looks like it will take a long time for it to finish that, lets get moving while it's distracted,” Hibiki says, putting his spyglass away.

  Everyone nods, quickly boarding the ship before setting sail once more. The ship quickly sails through the water, cutting through the small waves like a hot knife through butter. Barely even 10 minutes into their sail, they hear a loud bellow.

  “Huh, what’s that?” Abel asks, gripping his harpoon.

  “No clue but it sounds big,” Elena says, gripping her harpoon tightly. Hibiki and Luh quickly grab a harpoon as well. Miku’s arm splits into two as her sword slides out. Mohan looks around them. The waters were calm but it wasn’t like earlier when everything went silent as you still had the ambiance of the wildlife.

  “MOHAN GET US MOVING!” Miku yells, pointing at something to the left. Another bellow is heard and Mohan looks to the left and sees a small island speeding towards them.

  “OH SHIT!” Mohan exclaims, violently spinning the wheel of the ship, the ship turns slowly in a wide arc. The island crashes into the ship, luckily the ship doesn’t flip but the moving island crashing into the ship left a gaping hole in the hull. The ship was quickly taking water and began sinking. The island, which they could now see was a giant alien, moved backward preparing to ram into the ship once more.

  “WE CAN’T MOVE! WE GOTTA ABANDON SHIP!” Hibiki yells.

  “IF WE DO THAT, WE’LL GET TORN APART BY WHATEVER ELSE IS DOWN THERE!” Luh yells back. Miku quickly jumped off the boat, taking off her tunic and diving into the water. “MIKU! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Luh screams, looking over the railing. Meanwhile, Elena and Abel attempted to harpoon the beast but could not get a clear shot as it stayed completely submerged except for the island on its back.

  “I gotta do this or they all die,” Miku thinks to herself before swimming to the back of the ship and pushing against it. Just before the alien could ram into the ship again, Miku pushes the ship out of the way.

  “SO THAT’S WHERE SHE WENT,” Abel yells a wide grin on his face.

  Miku continued to push the boat with every drop of her essence, trying to keep it afloat until they reached an island only a couple hundred meters away. Miku’s heart thumped in her chest, once again she was terrified. She hated this feeling, she faced this sea on her own and without a boat but she was now scared, terrified even. Her lungs burned every second she was under the water, she couldn’t see much in the water and that only added to her mounting fear. The water was cold, dark, and rough. It reminded her of memories that she wanted to forget but couldn’t, she was designed that way after all. Miku quickly burst out of the water, her face wet with just not water but tears too. She looked to see the island was still so, so far away and she couldn’t bear to go back into that water. Even though she was above the water, her heart still raced as she looked up at her friends as they rushed on the deck, trying to stop the boat from sinking. She takes a deep breath and begins to push the boat. She was so close and she just had to get a bit further, she needed to work harder. Suddenly, Miku feels the ship crashing into the soft sand of the beach. Her acute ears pick up on every individual sand particle falling and tapping against the hull of the boat. She grins and begins swimming to the island. She stopped just as she was only a few meters away, her mind, against her will plunges her into the past.

  “Eva-001, come to the testing chambers,” a robotic voice blares from the speakers surrounding the playroom.

  A 10-year-old Miku groans, getting up from the corner where she was writing her journal. “How come none of them gotta do any fucking testing,” she grumbles to herself, looking at all the other kids, who stopped playing and stared at her. When she looked back they quickly looked away. She storms out of the room. She wonders why they kept calling her, she didn’t even do anything this time. Maybe it was just some surprise test? She hated the surprise tests, they were always so much harder than the normal ones - much more painful too. She had to do shit like fighting a bear or testing her regenerative abilities by chopping off limbs. The limb-chopping one was more of a punishment though. She had to take that test after she killed all 5 of her caretakers. Eventually, she reaches the testing room. As a kid, all she could see in this room was just its pure white walls and floors, the bright fluorescent light, and the various pieces of equipment. Now that she was older, her eyes noticed every minute detail. The very faded blood stains that covered the room, teeth, and full, pulled-out fingernails, hidden against the room’s white backdrop. Her ears picked up the slight fluorescent hum, which to her sounded like blaring static. In the center of it all, was the person she despised with every single atom in her body, Ms. Erina Hayes, or old sack of shit as she called her.

  “Ah Eva-001! How good it is to see you,” She says, like some cheery car salesman. The skin around her eyes wrinkled as she stared at Miku with a painted-on smile.

  “What do you want, ya old sack of shit,” Miku says, picking her ear with her pinky.

  Ms. Erina’s eye twitched slightly, taking a deep breath. “Well that is quite disrespectful young lady-” She starts, her soulless lecture being interrupted by Miku.

  “Don’t give me that, just get to the point,” She says, crossing her arms.

  Ms. Erina’s smile tightens before she gives a low nod and steps aside as 5 men, armed with the most advanced weaponry of the late 2040s, wheel in 5 tables. Each with the body of a child on it. She recognized them, but she didn’t bother to learn their numbers. The children were murdered violently, limbs broken and dislocated. Purple bruises dotted their body, making it so that their faces were completely unrecognizable.“Would you like to explain this?” Ms. Erina says, her voice dry and coarse. Crocodile tears line her eyes before breaking off into a tangent. “HOW COULD YOU DO THIS?! WHAT KIND OF MONSTER-” Ms. Erina yells, pointing a finger at her accusingly.

  Ms. Erina’s voice faded into the background for Miku. She focused on the bodies, all she could hear was the thumping of her heart in her ears and all she could feel was her stomach churning. She was no stranger to violence, after all, she killed caretakers but her caretakers weren’t human. They couldn’t be, she had seen all the terrible things they did to the other kids, especially how they took advantage of Eva-032, a particularly shy girl. In front of her right now were not the remains of monsters but of fellow children. The worst part was how they were killed, their mangled corpses were a one-to-one on what she did to her caretakers, down to the very placement of the bruises and even the angles that the bones were snapped at. With her photographic memory, it was like she was comparing both sets of corpses at the same time. And the poses matched.

  “I-I didn’t do this,” Miku finally choked out, it felt like she was coughing up a cactus.

  “Then who could’ve?!” Ms. Erina yells back in response. “The injuries here match exactly that of your caretakers, it couldn’t have been anyone else,” Ms. Erina states coldly.

  Miku couldn’t respond, she wanted to yell and scream at her but she didn’t know what she could say - how she could prove herself innocent. She looked down, like a child whose mother was scolding her for breaking an expensive vase.

  “Well Eva-001, you know this behavior is unacceptable. We have a different test for you in mind,” She says, strapping on her gas mask as the room is flooded with anesthetic gas. Miku’s body goes numb, she couldn’t move her small limbs even if she tried but she was still fully conscious and could still feel. Doctors came into the room, strapping her to a table as they grabbed their surgical tools. First, they opened her mouth and shoved a pill down her throat. Despite her choking, they continued to shove it down her throat, forcing her to swallow it. After she swallowed the pill, she noticed something, her healing factor was neutralized. Miku watched through her teared up eyes as the doctors got to work. Just before they cut open her arm, Miku could see the skin around Ms. Erina’s eyes crinkle just as they would when she smiled. For the next 16 hours, they removed parts of her arm, putting in mechanisms that would connect to her nerves, allowing her to control the mechanisms. It was a spring-lock mechanism that would push out a giant blade, which was a dark crimson and made of some tough organic material. Just as she was about to be freed from the staps, the memory shattered and she was tossed back into the real world. She couldn’t move her body but she saw Hibiki, slicing a limb off some alien. The limb he cut off split off into 5 little tentacles which spun while emitting hypnotic colors. The alien itself looked like a giant circle of teeth with 6 limbs, each with the same hypnotic colors. Miku could smell some strange pheromone in the water around her, it gave her the same psychedelic feeling she got when she accidentally drank raw Brochofungus syrup during her first year here. The alien screeched and quickly swam off after Hibiki had attacked it. Hibiki then picks up Miku and drags her to the beach. She sees everyone rush to her, their voices distant but understandable.

  “HOLY SHIT WHAT HAPPENED?!” Luh says, kneeling next to her and putting two fingers on Miku’s neck to check for a pulse. “She still has a pulse,” Luh says with a giant sigh of relief leaving her mouth.

  “Thank god,” Abel says, before holding a hand to help Miku up . . . which she doesn’t take. “Uh hey, Miku? You there?” He asks, waving his hand in front of her face.

  Miku tries to speak but it feels like her mouth is sealed shut so she instead tries morse code by blinking. “I . . . Can’t . . . Move . . .” Miku communicates through morse code.