Masked ✔

Chapter twelve

    
chapter twelve
     
      
Madness was boiling up across the ship. When passing by crew members, they'd typically wave and smile. But it wasn't like that anymore. When passing by crew members, they'd hang their head and look down at the ground, avoiding all possible eye contact. The crew I once knew as excited and jolly became dark and unpleasant.

It was difficult to hold a proper conversation without being reminded of the intruder, who was completely loose on the ship.

How could have someone like Kristopher do this? He seemed so charming and nice - not cold hearted and bloodthirsty.

His deeds may have hurt all of us but they definitely scarred Ethan. Ethan was the most traumatized one out of all of us. His barely blinked, his eyes were red from being so sleep deprived. He kept mumbling to himself all the time. Ethan was going mad.

I stood beside him on the deck, watching the waves with him. It was a little cloudy so we couldn't see the sun. I had asked him to meet me there so we could talk a little. I hoped to relax... but that didn't work out too well.

"It's my fault - this is all my fault - we never would have met them if I hadn't - "

I couldn't listen anymore. Yes, everything was going wrong and only seemed to be getting worse but Ethan's attitude was only disturbing me further.

I took a deep breath and turned to the crazy man. I spoke with a stern voice to me sure he knew where I was getting at. "Ethan. Listen, I know. Bad things are going on but you can't get so hung up on it."

"That man killed a good friend of mine last night! You don't know what it's like to lose someone so close!" He raised his voice at me. When traumatized he was like a paranoid kitten but now - he was a lion and it was scaring me.

But when his final words reached me my expression twisted into a cold, hard glare and the most bitter of a frown. I bit down on the inside of my bottom lip. He hit a nerve and damn, did he hit it well.

"...What did you just say to me?" My tone went from quiet to loud in as matter of a few syllables. I wanted to slap him straight across the face right there and then. His expression said it was obvious he knew he had just messed up, and he messed up real bad.

"Don't you dare talk to me about losing someone close." My voice was low and threatening. I wanted him to fully understand. "You must have had a perfect childhood, Ethan, because this isn't nearly as bad as what I've suffered at a much younger age, I wasn't even ten! I watched my own mother get raped by filthy pirates! And that's not all - they killed her! Now don't you dare ever bring up losing someone again to me, not - "

Ethan pointed a finger directly into my chest and leaned closer, towering over me. His voice was low and intimidating. "I don't know if you've realized, little lady, but not everybody can take the same amount of pain."

I opened my mouth to say something but no words came out. Ethan was right and I had no idea how to argue back. I was speechless.

Seeing that I had nothing more to say, Ethan backed up away from me and took his leave without another word.

Even seconds after Ethan was out of my sight my body refused to move. I took in a deep breath and tried my best to turn around. It worked. My body gave in and I spun around to meet the eyes of a few guys. It was no other than my good friends, Jackson, Rubin, and Noah. Jackson and Rubin looked amused as if they had just watched a play while Noah looked surprised.

Of course, Jackson was the first one to break his trance. "Oohoohooo! Seems like a couple people aren't getting along too well!" He hollered and winked to Rubin, whom was beside him, and nudged Rubin's shoulder with his elbow.