(Omar knelt among the burnt ash and black dirt of the ruined village. The dried blood and fresh tears on his face had merged into one. Hearing the old woman's words had struck a blow to his mind, tearing open the darkest, most agonizing page of his childhood. A blurry image of his real Abu and Ammi surfaced in his mind, and a long, heartbreaking flashback began to play before his hollow eyes...)
There was a time when this world didn't feel so dark and ruthless.
When I was very young, my real Abu was a merchant.
We had a small, but incredibly beautiful home, with a courtyard where Ammi always grew flowers.
There was a warmth in my Abu's voice that could chase away any fear in the night.
Whenever he returned from his long sea voyages, his clothes carried the scent of the salty ocean wind.
He would bring me new toys, strange glowing stones, and tales from another world.
"My brave lion,"
he would say, tossing me into the air.
"One day, you too will measure this entire world with your own footsteps!"
But then, one day...
he left on a new, long voyage across the sea for his trade.
As he left, he kissed my forehead, placed his warm palm against my cheek, and said,
"Omar, until I return, take care of your Ammi.
I will be back soon, with plenty of toys."
But he never returned.
Weeks turned into months.
Months slowly faded into years.
Waiting for his return,
my Ammi's (Kayala) eyes grew exhausted.
At night, I would hear her crying alone in her room, clutching Abu's old handkerchief.
Her smile, which once lit up the entire house, slowly vanished.
But the worst part was that the agony of this endless wait and loneliness hollowed her out from the inside.
She contracted an illness that no healer in the village could cure.
Fresh blood began to appear in her coughs.
Her face, which once glowed like the moon, turned entirely pale and lifeless.
Her hands constantly trembled, and her breath was always ragged.
"Ammi, you will get better, right?"
I would hug her, crying,
terrified that she too would leave me.
She would stroke my hair with her trembling, cold hands and offer a weak smile,
"My son... until your Abu is found,
even death cannot defeat me.
Your Abu will come...
I am sure of it."
Finally, when her condition worsened drastically and there was no other way to survive, she made a final decision.
Packing whatever little we had left, we decided to travel to Julfabaad City to search for Abu.
That was the last known destination where Abu's ship had gone to unload cargo.
We boarded a massive commercial ship bound for Julfabaad.
The vessel was enormous, built from heavy timber and iron.
The ship carried many others—merchants traveling to sell their goods, ordinary passengers, and a large, boisterous crew.
But from the very beginning of this journey, a strange, ominous feeling hung in the air.
The ocean water wasn't blue or green; it looked like thick, black poison.
The creaking sounds of the ship's wood sounded like the weeping of the dead.
"Tie the ropes securely, you fools!
The wind is changing!"
the First Mate shouted his orders across the deck.
"Captain," an old, experienced sailor approached the Captain, trembling.
"The color of the sky doesn't look right, sir.
There is absolutely no movement in the water...
and the birds have stopped flying in this direction.
Such a dead silence only falls when death is near.
We should change our course.
This 'Shadow Route' is not safe."
The Captain was an incredibly greedy, fat-bellied, and arrogant man.
He slammed the bottle of rum he was holding hard onto the wooden table.
"Don't speak out of turn, old man!
If we change our course,
it will take three extra days to reach Julfabaad,
and
I'll have to pay heavy border taxes.
This is my ship,
and I decide the route! Keep sailing straight!
I am steering this ship,
not some rotten superstition!"
The Captain knew exactly what dangers lurked on this maritime route,
but for the greed of a few coins,
he had traded our destinations and our lives.
On the third day of the voyage...
the sky suddenly turned pitch black.
In the middle of the day, the sun hid behind a thick, impenetrable darkness.
The ship's sails, which had been flapping in the wind, suddenly fell dead and hung limp.
The wind had completely died.
"Captain!!
Look ahead!
There... there is land!"
screamed a crew member perched on the mast, paralyzed by fear.
My Ammi and I stepped out of the cabin upon hearing the commotion.
Right in the middle of the ocean, where the maps indicated there should be nothing but miles of water, a massive, black island had emerged.
The island was so terrifyingly huge that our massive ship looked like a tiny toy in front of it.
The island was covered in green moss, the broken masts of ancient burnt ships, and centuries-old debris.
The Captain, drenched in sweat, fearfully pulled out his telescope.
He looked closely at the island.
Whatever he saw through that lens made his very soul tremble
. Suddenly, his hands began to shake violently, and the telescope slipped, crashing onto the wooden deck.
His face had turned as white as a sheet, as if there was no blood left in his body.
"T-Turn...
Turn the ship back now!!!"
the Captain screamed like a madman, his voice cracking.
"Cut all the ropes!!
That is not an island!!
MAY ALLAH HAVE MERCY!!
THAT IS NOT AN ISLAND!!!"
Before the crew could even comprehend his words, the black ocean water began to boil violently.
The massive bubbles rising from the depths were the heralds of an unimaginable storm.
The earth shook.
No... not the earth, the entire ocean shook.
That massive island...
suddenly began to rise.
Thousands of tons of water cascaded down from the "island" like a heavy waterfall.
And then, under that dark sky, right before our tearing eyes, the horrifying truth tore through the water and revealed itself.
It was no rock.
It was a demon.
'Saratan'.
The most ancient and terrifying monster of the Arabic seas.
A massive, mountain-sized Island Crab, measuring over fifty feet in length and width.
Its shell bore an entire false island, designed to deceive wandering ships.
Its legs were as thick as the pillars of an ancient palace.
As Saratan opened its rocky, moss-covered massive jaws, the silence of the ocean shattered into death.
GURRRRRR—
SCREEEEEEEEEECH!!!
The sound didn't belong to any ordinary beast.
It sounded as if thousands of tons of iron chains were being dragged simultaneously beneath a centuries-old ocean, carrying the terrifying pressure of boiling water and cracking boulders.
The vibration of that roar was so heavy and deafening that a physical shockwave was felt in the air, and the thick wooden planks of the ship began to splinter.
But the strange thing was, there was no hunger in that roar; there was an ancient pain and wrath, as if someone had made a grave mistake by waking it from its deep slumber and wounding it.
"AHHHH! MY EARS!!"
The crew member on the mast screamed, losing his balance and plummeting straight into the boiling sea below.
That demonic, ear-shattering roar from Saratan instantly ruptured the eardrums of more than half the crew standing on the deck.
People collapsed to the ground in terror and unbearable agony, streams of blood pouring from both ears, painting their faces red.
The roar was so dark and heavy, it felt as though the ocean itself was announcing their doom.
As Saratan fully emerged from the water, its two massive, glowing red eyes opened.
It didn't look at a single crew member on the ship.
Its terrifying gaze locked directly onto that fat, greedy Captain.
"AAMMI!!!"
I screamed in terror, clinging to my Ammi's chest.
Her entire body was trembling, but she shielded me in her embrace with such force, as if even death couldn't touch me.
"Save your lives!!!"
the First Mate screamed, turning to leap into the water, but just then, Saratan raised one of its massive, rocky claws into the air.
CRASH!!!
Saratan smashed that colossal claw directly onto the section of the ship where the Captain was standing.
Wood, iron, and the Captain's human body... everything was obliterated into dust in a single second.
The Captain couldn't even let out a scream; he was simply crushed out of existence beneath that giant rocky pincer.
Saratan didn't eat anyone; it didn't even touch another human.
But the sheer impact of that colossal claw and Saratan's movement
in the water generated such terrifying waves that the ship snapped into two pieces.
Thousands of gallons of water rushed violently into the vessel. Absolute chaos erupted.
People began to drown in the sea due to the sudden storm and the shattered ship.
Blinded by terror, no one even realized that Saratan hadn't attacked them at all!
They were merely dying in the tempest created by the monster's sheer weight.
Chapter End