The Sea of Oblivion – The Grey Zone
Aboard The Floating Whisper
The fog outside wasn't just bad weather; it was alive. It pressed against the round porthole, trying to seep in and erase the letters Silas was writing.
Silas sat in his cabin, which smelled of old paper and engine oil. His left hand was bandaged, and his right hand gripped a metal quill, dipping it into a glass inkwell bolted to the table to withstand the ship's swaying.
"Day 412. Status: Critical. We reached the borders of Hollow Creek Island. The compass is spinning wildly, indicating magnetic interference... or something worse. Elyra is asleep, but her breathing is erratic. Yesterday, she forgot how to use a fork, but remembered how to slaughter a sea beast with a single strike. Muscle memory is the last thing to leave."
Silas closed the Anchor Log quietly. At that moment, he heard the creak of the bed behind him.
Silas froze. He didn't turn around immediately. Slowly, he reached for his cold cup of tea.
"Good morning, Elyra."
No response came. Instead, he felt the cold touch of metal against his neck. A sharp blade rested with deadly precision against his carotid artery.
A cold, emotionless female voice whispered, "You have three seconds to tell me why I shouldn't kill you, stranger."
Silas didn't blink. He didn't raise his hands in surrender. He took a sip of tea and spoke in a steady, calm voice, as if reading a bedtime story.
"Because I'm the only one who knows where the key to your music box is. And because you prefer your tea with honey, and I'm the only one with honey on this ship."
The sword stopped pressing. Silas turned slowly.
Elyra stood there, her violet eyes wide, gleaming with a mix of terror and hostility. She was trying to remember his face, squeezing her brain, but the fog in her mind was too thick.
She lowered the sword slowly, as if her body remembered him before her mind did.
"Silas?" she asked, her voice trembling. "Is... is that your name?"
Silas smiled, a sad but warm smile. "Well done. Today you remembered two minutes faster than yesterday."
Before they could finish, the vent in the ceiling popped open, and a ball of fur and metal dropped down.
"Alert! Alert! Smell of burnt oil! And stupid sound waves!"
It was Poggles, the mechanical lemur. He hopped onto the table, his lens-eyes zooming in and out. "Island close! Radars picking up (something) singing!"
"Singing?" Elyra frowned, the look of a warrior gradually returning to her face.
Silas grabbed his trench coat and his cane. "Looks like we have a mystery to solve before breakfast."
Hollow Creek – The Ship Graveyard
With a hydraulic groan like a whale's exhale, The Floating Whisper shifted into amphibious mode. Massive mechanical legs, resembling those of a crab, extended from its sides, dragging the ship to plant its claws into the muddy beach.
The place was bleak. Sunken ships half-buried in mud, and a foul-smelling yellow mist covering the ground.
"Stay sharp," Silas said, pressing a button on his cane, releasing a hidden blade at its tip.
Suddenly, the air vibrated.
WOOOOOOO—REEEEEEEE!
A terrifying wail, sounding like tortured souls, echoed through the wreckage.
Poggles jumped and clung to Elyra's leg. "Ghost! Real ghost this time! I'm sure! My battery is shivering!"
From the mist, a giant silhouette emerged. A skeleton draped in tattered rags, floating ten meters above the ground, its eyes glowing with a sick green light.
"Leaaaaaave..." The voice boomed, sounding as if it came from the bottom of a well. "This is the land of the dead... land of the plague..."
Elyra took a step back, hand on her sword. "Silas... I don't sense any life in it. Is it... magic?"
Silas adjusted his spectacles, tilting his head slightly, listening with intense focus. He wasn't looking at the monster; he was listening to the sound.
"Notice the pitch, Elyra," Silas muttered. "The scream repeats at the exact same audio frequency every seven seconds. Ghosts don't have a regular rhythm... but machines do."
Silas grinned, a sly look on his face. "It's not a ghost. It's a security system."
He then shouted at the monster: "Vox-4 model speakers! Haven't heard static this bad since the Steam Era!"
The "Ghost" froze for a moment, as if confused.
"Elyra," Silas said calmly. "The left leg of that skeleton. Cut it."
She didn't hesitate.
Elyra launched like an arrow. A silver flash cut through the fog.
CLANG!
It wasn't the sound of cutting bone, but the sound of severing metal.
The giant skeleton tilted and fell to the ground with a heavy, mechanical KRUMP, sending gears and wires flying. The green eyes went dark, the terrifying sound stopped, replaced by the sound of a choking engine.
Silas walked to the wreckage, poking the "Ghost's head" with his cane to reveal a small, empty cockpit with a remote receiver inside.
"Just as I expected. A puppet to scare away the curious."
"But why?" Elyra asked, wiping her blade. "Why go through all this trouble to protect a pile of junk?"
"Not junk..." Poggles whispered, picking up something shiny that fell from the puppet's wreck. It was a small glass vial containing glowing blue liquid.
Silas's eyes widened. "This is... pure fuel. Military-grade fuel."
He looked around, and suddenly realized the trick. The wrecked ships weren't a graveyard. They were camouflage. They were warehouses.
"Elyra! Poggles! Back to the ship immediately! This isn't a pirate hideout, this is a base for..."
He didn't finish his sentence.
A sharp whistle cut through the air from the center of the island. It wasn't a ghost scream this time. It was the sound of a mortar shell.
"Cover!"
BOOM!
The ground exploded in front of them, the blast force throwing them into the air. As Silas flew backward, he saw for a split second, through the smoke and fire, a flag rising over the highest hill on the island.
A black flag bearing a symbol he knew well from forbidden history books:
An open eye inside a broken gear.
"The Silent Horizon..." Silas whispered before hitting the ground and fading into black.