"Well, that will solve your doubts, Lucas" Ron said with a smile on his face.

"In the face of any problem, you can always trust this old man"

"Now back to the siren's attack, what are the problems..." But before Ron could finish, he was interrupted by Lucas.

"Well, as he told you before, the affected sailors did not escape unscathed, the human brain can survive to some extent through its self-preservation mechanisms, but its rigidity prevents it from ignoring an obvious fact, such as chatting with siren"

"Since he can't ignore it, he simply hides it somewhere in his head and in certain situations the problem ends up resurfacing... Causing suicides to never stop"

"Really, there's no way?" Ron asked, scared for his crew.

"No, there isn't, but if you commit suicide at 100 years old or die earlier, it doesn't seem to affect you" Lucas replied calmly, as if he hadn't been infected by a siren.

"But that would happen if an experienced siren had touched you, the ones that attacked you were performing the ritual of the first hunt, which is why the most common thing is that they are more emotional than older sirens"

"Ah, I see, since they were younger, the effect is probably less severe, we're lucky this time so..." Ron commented, somewhat infected by the cabin boy's calm.

"No, no, on the contrary, being more emotional they may have sent some shit that affects the hunt, such as having redounded in a topic just out of curiosity or even worse having cried in front of a human being" Lucas interrupted calmly

"And that, translated to the mind of a human, is to have put more poison than necessary to make him want to jump overboard"

"That's why I said, that these suicides were the least serious cases, those who survived are even worse"

"I don't understand, what's worse than killing yourself?" Ron asked with some doubt of the words of the cabin boy, most of the boys who woke up were just a little dazed or depressed.

"That you kill the others..." Lucas answered calmly "That another you is born, that you develop some strange fetish, in short, all the survivors are potential murderers, rapists, and lunatics"

"But hey, at least we know that the captain, you and I, are still the same reliable sailors" Lucas said staring at Ron, who had already fallen into his trap a long time ago.

"This is pretty rough... But we have to hope that it's only a possibility, at least until we make port," Ron said, thinking about how he was going to deal with this problem.

"This first week is probably going to be the quietest, there's only going to be a few more suicides, but as the voyage gets longer, the chances of a sailor losing their mind are going to get higher."

"Why? It shouldn't be the other way around and this week be the hardest." Ron asked.

"Convincing yourself to change your life takes time, escaping or committing suicide takes less time" Lucas answered "When this week passes, you have to distinguish those who seem more suspicious"

"The two of us and the captain, we are the only ones safe from the madness"

Ron seemed to be quite worried, he was pacing the room, muttering under his breath, Lucas could only make out the words "Too many dead... Murmurs... Corruption of the sea..."