Awakening

"Adventure"

That was my dream.

Ever since I was a child, I had wondered about what it was like outside my home, and due to the weather off the coast of my island, I had never gotten the chance to set sail and voyage to the far reaches of the Ten Great Seas. However, somehow and someway, I had mysteriously awoken on this empty and silent ship without any of my memories. . .

Aaron pondered the many thoughts that he was experiencing and slowly decided to walk out of the cabin to explore the small sloop further. He looked at the rotting ship, his gaze fixed on the suspiciously empty sails hanging from the mast, and he began to mutter silently to himself.

"How is this ship even supposed to move, and how did it get this far just floating on the currents? More importantly, how did I even get out here?"

As Aaron explored the ship, his gaze steadied on the helm of the boat. The helm was gilded in a dark metal unlike any he had seen before. It glistened with ruby-like crystals within each handle, and the centerpiece was adorned with what looked like ceremonial gold, as if it had been crafted by a master artisan for one of the Great Sea Kings.

He slowly reached out his hands towards the helm as if to steer the boat even without the sails; however, as he attempted to turn the helm yet it felt as if it were locked. No matter how hard or how soft he attempted to turn the helm, nothing changed. 

After trying to grab one of the many ropes on the deck and attach it to the handles of the helm, trying to pull turn it with as much force as he could muster, he eventually gave up and sat near the leftmost side of the boat, near a rusted, almost completely deteriorated iron cannon.

Aaron stared off into the foggy sea, pondering everything he had already learned and done.

Without warning, through the eerie silence, a sound was heard, a growl, or more specifically, the rumble of Aaron's empty stomach.

"Heh," Aaron chuckled as he flinched upon hearing an unusual sound in the silence of the sea.

"Let's see if I can remember the lessons that my father taught me about fishing, eh?"

As Aaron gradually got up to attempt to fish in this endless gray sea, he suddenly saw a fishing rod on the edge of the boat.

"Huh? I could've sworn that it wasn't there before…" Aaron suddenly muttered in disbelief that his problem was solved as quickly as that. No matter whether he was truly blind and had missed it originally, or whether some divine force had given him the fishing rod, he took it all the same, and after carefully examining it, he discovered an anomaly.

"There's no line?"

Without the line, fishing was impossible, so he looked around the boat in search of any wire that could be braided and turned into a line. He had thought that if he needed to, he could use himself as bait and jump into the water to attract some smaller fish before the true monsters appeared; however, due to Aaron not knowing the sea he was in, he decided against it.

Many of the ten great seas had devilish monsters lurking in the depths, with at least three-fourths of those monsters able to capsize even the largest galleons in seconds. 

This led to Aaron fearing for his life at every moment on his small sloop that could be a delicacy for some ancient sea terror that feasted on fifteen-year-old boys and ancient ships.

While looking for the line, he had entered the captain's cabin again and looked towards the ancient cabinet where he had gotten his memories, and he suddenly realized he had forgotten an important piece of information for no reason!

The piece of paper that he had knocked off the cabinet had fallen to the floor; it was submerged in a small puddle formed by a tiny leak in the floor. The paper, written in a mysterious language, had faded significantly, leading to only six words being legible to Aaron. These words, unlike the others, were written in the standard language of the Ten Seas, Nordic, and each had unique variations of the normal characters that he had learned from his mentor back at home. As he studied the words, he began to mumble the phrase to himself in disbelief,

"Awaken, Lost Ship of The Sea."

Loud groaning from the hull was heard, and the leak near the paper rapidly closed as if someone had put a plug on it. The long-deteriorated cabinet magically repaired itself with haste, removing all traces of wear and tear from what seemed like decades of damage. 

At the same moment, the ship lurched forward as making him lose his balance and fall.

Aaron stood back up and ran outside the cabin, banging his head on the doorframe on the way out, and what he saw astounded him.

"I-It's moving?"

The once barren masts were filled with illusory turquoise sails of flame, the helm was glowing a gentle cyan sparkle, with the ruby adornments shining with newly filled vigor. The seemingly once-silent and ruined ship had returned to working condition with just him uttering a single phrase.

"Magic?" Aaron wondered in shock, not knowing what he should do or how to control the once dormant ship.

He decided to try to steer the ship toward the West, his homeland, in hopes of finding a part of the sea he knew. However, when he came to the helm and tried to control it, a magical cyan light appeared before him, forming the shape of a small crab who was missing three of his many legs, yet they were replaced by tiny peg legs that were as cute as a small cuttlefish. 

The small creature looked up at Aaron and skittered towards the wheel, where he quickly vanished, seemingly inside the helm.

"Eh?" Aaron muttered before the confusion suddenly hit him.

"What just happened…?"