The Royalo Vin

Under the Engine

There is a a giant misshapen figure with giant eyes and a drooling mouth. Its left eye rolls in circles and its right is bleached yellow. I moans softly, and than surges towards us. We scream, tripping over each other in a rush to get to the hatch. Dereak grunts as I elbow him in the face. I moan when he climbs the ladder too quickly and bear the brunt of him falling to the ground. As the blob charges towards us, I am finally out of the hatch. I pull Dereak up and quickly shut the hatch. We don't say a word as we dash down the hall into Dereak's room and shut the door quietly. I check the time, 4:47 am. Plenty of time to go back to my room, the captain and the employees will wake up at 7:00. I cock my head. "Okay, so what was that... thing?

"Your guess is as good as mine"

I yawn, after being woke up at 3 am in the morning, I am sleepy and exhausted. Dereak on the other hand, looks energized and ready to run a few kilometers. "Anyways, I need to get some more sleep after you decided it would be a good idea to look inside a hidden door at the dead of night."

"Hey, it was useful!"

"In the day maybe, but the middle of night?"

"Well, -

"I'm going to sleep."

***

I wake up to the sound of a knock.

"Hello?"

"Hello?"

"Hello?" The person exclaims.

"Hello! Are you in there!" This time, the shout is deafening.

"Yes, I'm in here, what is it?" I respond, annoyed.

"You are required in the captain's rooms."

"Now?"

"Yes"

"All right, I'll go."

"You will need an employee escort."

"Why?"

"He has changed his quarters."

"Okay"

I walk to the new rooms, the employee following close behind. Soon, we are at is new room. I enter, and she shuts the door, and than leaves. The room is small, there is a corner with a bed he must be on and a speaker. I turn the corner, no one is on there. I turn back to tell the employee he brought me to the wrong spot; but it's too late, I hear a click, the door is locked. The speaker blares captain's voice. "Are we all here? 3, 2, 1, testing!" "Ah, yes! We are!" I don't know how he deduced that. "Now, you may be wondering, why did I lock you two in these rooms? Well, if we save the questions until the end, this will be much easier. Okay, I will ask you just one question, and then you can each ask me one! Let's start. My first question, why was there a scream last night? 1, 2, 3, and mics on! Your answer?" I reply, "We were in bed, we never heard a thing." "Hmm, hmm!" He replies "A satisfactory answer! But is this true?" Your turn for questions, children." He knows we don't have any. He is just playing around. "Ah all right, I'll go again! Now, nice and simple, where you the ones making all the noise?" He must have cameras on us to catch if we look uncomfortable. I respond, "We were in our rooms, sleeping. We didn't hear a thing." "Really... Hmm..." "Now, it is your turn." "You know we don't have any, right?" I ask. "Yes, yes, I know." He responds. "So you are just questioning us." I say. "Yes, that's correct. Now, next question. If you were sleeping at night, than how come there were the clothes you were going to wear today strewn on the bed? I answer again. "I needed to go to the washroom." "Hmm... All right. This is enough for today, I expect you to be here tomorrow, to finish this interrogation." I sigh, "What's so important about a noise in the middle of the night anyway?" Now it's his turn to sound uncomfortable, "Disturbing the peace, of course... unknown noises are always bad." "All right." I say in response.

***

We head to the dining hall to eat a good breakfast of omelets, fruit, and bread. While eating, I decide to ask Dereak about what was happening. "Hey, what do you think that he was trying to get us to tell?"

"I don't know"

"Do you think he knows?"

"Maybe"

I hear a scream, it comes from the boiler room. I don't have a good feeling about this.

Then again, the boiler room is the only irregular place on ship.