The stairwell swallowed Lily whole, each step groaning under her weight like the ship itself resisted her intrusion. Her phone's flashlight flickered, casting jagged shadows on walls streaked with salt and mold. The whispers coiled around her, colder than the air, guiding her deeper into the stench of rot and rusted metal.
At the bottom, a warped door hung ajar. Beyond it, the cargo hold stretched into blackness, its silence broken by the drip-drip of water and the creak of shifting timbers. Crates loomed like tombstones, one split open to spill gold bars stamped 1690.
Lily crouched, brushing her fingers over an ingot. It was cold, heavier than it looked, its surface etched with the Marchand crest: a ship encircled by serpentine waves. A draft whistled through the hold, carrying her grandmother's voice: "The ledger… Find the ledger."
She followed the sound to a rusted trunk beneath a collapsed beam. Inside, wrapped in oilcloth, lay a leather-bound book. The cover was embossed with the same crest, its pages swollen with seawater. She carefully peeled them apart, her breath fogging in the dim light.
October 12, 1690
Wind: Gale-force ESE. Cargo restless. Finalized terms with the Debtor today. Gold flows, but my soul aches. The first payment is due in 47 years. May God forgive me.
June 7, 1832
Cécile refused to surrender her son. The Debtor's wrath is stirring. I warned her—defiance drowns the bloodline. She laughed. May the sea have mercy.
October 31, 1983
Élodie has hidden the heir. The chain holds, but the Debtor's patience wanes. Annihilation looms. I pray she knows what she's done.
Lily's hands trembled. The entries blurred as her phone's battery faltered—10%. Shadows thickened. She turned, sensing movement in the periphery of her vision.
A figure stood at the far end of the hold, silhouetted against the dim glow of a swaying lantern. Tall, broad-shouldered, his coat encrusted with barnacles that clicked like bones as he shifted. The captain.
"You shouldn't be here," he rumbled, his voice a subterranean growl.
Lily stumbled back, clutching the ledger. The captain advanced, his boots leaving wet prints that evaporated instantly. His face remained shrouded in shadow, but his locket glinted—an older, more ornate twin to hers, its chain thick and corroded but unbroken.
"Give. It. Back."
She bolted, ducking between crates as the hold erupted in chaos. Ghostly crewmen materialized, their forms translucent and dripping, voices overlapping in a cacophony of drowned pleas. "Don't let it take you!" "The chain—keep it whole!"
Her phone died.
Darkness pressed in. Lily froze, her back against a crate, the ledger pressed to her chest. The captain's footsteps echoed, closer now.
A cold hand gripped her wrist.
She stifled a scream as Élodie's spectral face materialized inches from her own, seaweed tangled in her hair. "The brig," her grandmother whispered, voice fraying. "He's in the brig."
The hold fell silent.
When Lily opened her eyes, she was alone.