A giant hunk made of white reinforced metal and several large carpentry work built into it, was humming a low hum to the tune of the sea.
This is the ferry from Rentilaco to Central Monite. A miracle of work created by the time and effort of hundreds of people.
There were ten different entry gangplanks for the ferry. And Naph was approaching the one he was assigned.
His ride was covered in a white carpeted cloth with three duffle bags on top of it. He looked quite reckless as a first time novice to travel on a ship.
One duffle bag in the front seat, and the other two in the back seat. Those two had a set way to be as if held together by force. Maybe they were tied together.
Naph approached the ticket checker for the gangplank 4. "Excuse me sir, but do you happen to know where should I park my ride?"
He pointed to the white clothed ride. The ticket checker looked at it, and requested, "if you raise the cloth then I will be able to assess the situation better."
The man's age reflected through his speech. Naph followed, asking a follow up.
He was curious, "what does the word assess mean?"
The ticket checker saw the front of the ride under the cloth as raised by Naph, and replied in an affirmative tone.
"The word means to check and examine something and reach upon a conclusion. As for your ride, it is a four wheeler. Is this one of the newer invention? Or you made it?"
Naph nodded, "Yes, sir. I did."
His lie accepted as truth. The ticket checker extended his right hand, waiting.
Naph was confused, so he high-fived it.
The ticket checker looked up from the list in his other hand, and stared dead into the boy. "Really? First timer?"
Anaphol scratched his head a little. In a small voice, he relayed, "yes."
Shaking his head, the ticket checker told him, "show me your ticket. I will then be able to tell where you were assigned on buying and where we could put you if you wanted to change."
"I can change my seat?"
"Yes you can. Do you want to?"
"Uh, yeah. Can my room or seat or whatever it is, to be closer to where my ride is. I am still working on it, so just want to make sure it doesn't get wrecked during travel." Naph gave an apologetic look.
The ticket checker taking Naph's ticket saw the name. Under his breath he read it, "Anaphol."
The ticket checker's back gave out a cold sweat for he realized what the proclamations meant.
He stumbled, "uh, yeah. Um, let me—let me ask my coworker."
Naph cut in, "Sir, do you happen to have a library on board or anything related to anything westward beyond the Island of Monite?"
The ticket checker's black hair gained beads of perspiration. He considered, 'could he? Is he? No, at most the name won't be wrong.'
He nodded and went up the gangplank to ask another ticket checker in sight. Both of them seeing the ticket holder name didn't want to get out of sight. There weren't any raised voices.
Yet that section of the deck felt the nervousness of the crewmates.
The earlier ticket checker came back a three minutes later on the dot. Naph watched them both during this while.
He could have scared the entire section of the people more. His choice was to get his death declaration be used well before people realize he had not died.
Naph remembered a little detail while the ticket checker came to him. He had tossed around the entire journey of this morning. The last thing he remembered was a shadow.
It was descending but couldn't. Whose was it? Why was it descending on him and his ride back in Sevenren's plateau slope?
He believed it may have been someone from the Rentilaco, but the platoon deployment happened in front of him an hour later. So who was that shadow?
Shaking off those thoughts he asked the ticket checker again, "will you please repeat that? I didn't quite hear you over the crowd."
The crowd was lesser on the gangplank 4. But who was to question the one that had just sabotaged the entire nation into a war against three different countries?
The ticket checker politely reiterated, "sir, just go to the gangplank 10 and put your ride in the section way inside. It is the part used for passenger brought wagons and vehicles, there are also a few rooms there. My coworker is bringing the information if there is any allotted passengers there who would like to exchange their room with your double bedroom and hall included compartment."
Another ticket checker came running down the gangway. "Yes, yes. There is one. There is…one." He was nearly out of breath, his greenish black hair caressed in the wind.
Naph concluded the conversation, "thank you, sirs. I will go through the gangplank 10 and wait for you near my ride. May this ferry take us all home!"
He ended it right there and walked further in, cutting through the line that was climbing the gangplank 4.
He crossed the same way the gangplank 5 to 9. No crewmate objected to his movement, while the crowd entering or leaving the ferry showed a bit of anger and restraint.
But who wanted to fight a teen who smelled of death. Not too much, just enough.
'You still haven't even started rotting! And those hooligans that attacked us. So sad, they died to my least preparation.' He quipped within his mind to Bulwark.
He so wanted to say aloud his humour. But he needed to act quirky, and novice. 'Can't give them the idea I know who are tracking me. Stay Anaphol, stay.'
Bantering his way in through the gangplank 10. He arrived in the passenger allotted wagon and vehicle storage area. He spotted a few frantically talking crewmates.
Approaching them, "Sirs, a good day to you! I am Anaphol. Please will you help me with parking this bad boy somewhere nice."
He needed people to know he was alive. Don Extea was no fool. He had his ways of knowing what went about. And Naph was well aware of that.
Extea had congratulated him on the same caestre hunt that led Naph to Rentilaco. He hadn't shared much of the information but Extea may have figured out what Naph was hunting based on where his next rumoured location was.
Naph was leaving enough breadcrumbs for not only his pursuers but Don Extea too. He needed to let him know he was alive. And Naph didn't know if Extea was.
His ability to have any belief was rendered useless against the realization that existed inside him. A simple one, that the world is filled with the dead and death.
The crewmates had helped Naph tie the mechanical ride well without ever lifting the white tarp. And as Naph had figured out, the crew was agitated because everyone was slowly realizing who was on board.
A ticket checker from one of the gangplanks he recognized came running and jumping over stairs and pipes in the way.
"Uh, huh. Sir, sir. The family has been relocated. Don't worry they are very happy, they were a family of four happy to help. I am here to escort you to the room allotted now to you Sir Anaphol." He rambled fast.
Naph patted him on the arm as he requested, "you guys can call me Naph. It's a nickname by someone dear to me."
That dear one's face sabotaged his thoughts.
He knew who that was, but that one couldn't help not now.
Not ever.
Exhaling, Naph went along with the newly arrived ticket checker. The uniforms of the ticket checkers were different from the normal crewmates. 'Possibly to make it easier to locate them,' he used this as a thought to correct himself back on his plan.
He couldn't once again leave the headless corpse of Bulwark alone. Last time he did a few hours ago, a few birds have been circulating above her eyeing to snatch her flesh apart.
A jolting sound rumbled through the hallway. Naph and the crewmates looked back at the section where Naph's ride was parked.
The jolt's reminder and hint at who Naph was. It hinted well at who he was to the crewmates if they were clueless before. All looked in the direction it came.
The same place where possibly the sound came from. Naph's plan hadn't been sabotaged, just expanded.
"I think I should check on my ride once again, and after all how long does it even take to cross the strait?" He smiled at the crewmates.
"Sure, sir. I'll just send someone to take a look at your room and also I'll tell you what your room is. If you hand me the ticket I'll write it down on it too." The ticket checker cut in.
Naph took the ticket and was about to cut in.
The ticket checker gently took the ticket before Naph's words came out, and continued scribbling and repeating, "sir, your room is 1006. It is within this hallway. There will always be someone right above the same stairs I descended from," he pointed to it.
Continuing, "if anything else is required sir, please don't hesitate to call upon any one of us."
The ticket checker went away as fast as he came. Ending the meeting right then.
'These people sure love their efficiency.' Naph confirmed.
His place by his dead passenger a better place than any on the ferry offered. For sabotage in a crowded place needs to be selected by the ambushed.