Reaching the Destination-1
When David was a young man, he made a concoction that he is colleagues called the Godzilla's breath. It was a drink that he made while cleaning his house. It all started when he was drinking with his friends. While drinking in his house, David suddenly glanced at the collections of empty liquor bottles that he had. Throughout the years, David would drink alcohol and store the empty bottle in his house so that he could later give them away for recycling or reusing.
And because of his laziness, the bottle collection became bigger and bigger. When David saw his bottle collection, he started to think that he should probably get rid of them. And so 3 weeks later, he finally decided that he would throw all the bottles away. But while cleaning the bottles, he noticed that some of the bottles had a tiny amount of alcohol left in them.
There was hardly one-milliliter alcohol left in those bottles. Seeing the alcohol left in the bottle, David had a crazy idea. He then brought a big jug and started dumping all the alcohol left in those bottles. And soon a concoction was made in a jug which was a combination of different types of alcohol mixed together in random proportions.
David was young at that time. And seeing the blackish-red concoction he thought that he should not waste precious alcohol. So he decided he would drink it…
Long story short, David invited all of his friends that day to witness him drinking the Godzilla's breath. And after chugging that concoction like it was orange juice, David was hospitalized. He was sick for more than 3 weeks and he was finally discharged from the hospital in the 4th week.
Those 3 weeks were like torture for David. He vomited most of the time, his head felt as though it will be split open any second, and worst of all his pee burned as though his penis had become a flame thrower…
Since that day David never drank another sip of alcohol in his life. But when he broke the seal stone with his hands, the power of stone was somehow able to compress all the worst things about that incident and somehow made David experience all the 3 weeks of torture in 6 hours.
David could not remember what happened in those 6 hours, but he does remember the feeling of being torn apart. As soon as he broke the stone, he felt like small bugs started entering his muscles. The bugs were drilling every little part of the body to get in. And as they got in, they started making tiny tunnels in his body parts and were constantly moving in and out.
The sheer pain caused by this process made David scream at top of his lungs. But the pain increased over time. After an hour or so, he didn't even have the energy to scream. All that he could do is suffer until death comes to him…
***
When David regain consciousness, the worst was behind him. He could feel that he was lying in some sort of warm liquid. He wanted to move his body, but he didn't have the energy to do so. After lying in the liquid for a while, David slightly opened his eyes.
When he opened his eyes, he saw that he was in some sort of antique tub. He was lying naked in what looked like water straight from a sewer. He slowly moved his head around and it was then he saw that he was in a room. The room looked well furnished and reminded him of a room that he once saw in Victorian-era drama.
There was a small tea table in the middle of the room. The legs were the table was intricately carved. The table looked well-polished and sturdy. Around the table, there were a few chairs that looked like they were also made with extreme care. Then there was this king-size bed at the other end of the room that looked like something straight out of an old victorian era serial.
As David looked at the room, he couldn't make sense of the fact of why or what is he doing here? He wanted to get up and investigate this room, but he didn't have any energy to do so. It was then suddenly the door of the room was flung open and a man walked inside. David immediately recognized the man as the first mate of The Lady, George…
George came into the room and was headed toward David to check on him. But when he saw that David's eyes were open and he was looking straight at him, George instantly sprinted towards the tub.
"Ahhhh…." David groaned out of the discomfort that he was feeling when George came around.
George quickly ran up to him and checked his pulse. Seeing movement in his eyes, George sighed with relief. Then he got up and ran out of the room. Soon the room's door burst open again and Captain Duffy walked in. He then came straight towards David and checked his vitals as well.
After his checkup, Duffy then pulled David out of the tub. He then cleaned him up and fed him some blue color potion from a small bottle. After that, David lost consciousness again….
****
When David regained consciousness again, he saw that was lying on a very comfortable makeshift bed on the floor. This time he was feeling quite well from before, so he sat up straight on his bed. Then he looked around and found out that he was in the same room as before.
He was still feeling very uncomfortable. His body felt as though someone had forcefully taken out a big slab of meat from his body. And then reattached it again. His head was still spinning and he was also feeling that he was about to throw up.
"You should rest. It would be good for you." Came a voice from behind. David recognized the voice as it belonged to Captain Duffy. With great effort, David turned around and saw that Captain Duffy was lying on a sofa with a bottle of alcohol in his hands.
"What happened?" David asked Captain with great effort.
"We in the world of awakened one called this process, The cleansing. When a person gets awakened, mana starts seeping into the body. The mana enters the body through some small holes in the body called nodes. When it enters the body, it starts flushing out the impurities that are filled in these nodes. This whole process is called the cleansing." Captain Duffy said while lying on the sofa.
"That would explain… why it was so painful," David said in a dull voice.
"Yeah, it is very painful. Which brings me to another question…" said Captain while sitting up straight on the sofa…
"Why did you hide the fact that you are a Siberian?" Captain Duffy said.
Hearing this David smiled and said, "You never asked."
"Fair enough, here drink this…" Captain Duffy said while coming towards David.
David then saw that Captain Duffy had a small bottle in his hands that contained a blood-red color liquid inside. The liquid was a little bit dense and gave the feeling that it was red wine.
"What is this?" David asked as he saw the bottle.
"It is a potion that will help you recover. And hopefully the next time you will wake up, you will be filled with energy." Captain Duffy said.
David's mind was numb currently, so he didn't argue with Captain and drank the whole thing. Then he slowly laid down in his bed again and fell asleep again…
When Captain saw David feel asleep again, he took his bottle of rum and went to his bed. While lying on the bed various thoughts started racing in Captain's mind.
He started remembering the night when he met the duo of women and a child that wanted to go to Guda Island. Duffy wasn't able to see the face of the woman as she had her face covered with a veil. But she was a rich woman. She gave Duffy a bag full of platinum coins to take her and the boy to the island.
To this day, that was the biggest haul that Captain Duffy had ever made. And also till this day, he could not forget how ferocious that woman was. He still remembers it clearly to this day, that woman when became angry, and the atmosphere of the ship became heavy.
Most of the crew lost consciousness while the people who didn't lose their consciousness were barely standing…
And most importantly, Captain Duffy, a Rank-9 awakened one, the most feared man in the seas peed his pants when he saw the woman's eyes. The cat-like red eyes of the woman still haunt him to this day.
Captain didn't know for sure whether David was the same boy from 5 years ago. But his gut was telling him that he is indeed the same boy that accompanied that woman at that time…