Knock* ... *Knock*

"Is that you, Dima?" The captain asked, writing in his black notebook what happened that day.

"Yes...can I come in?" Dima asked, somewhat impatiently.

"Yes... don't leave the door open" The captain answered, without looking up.

Dima entered the captain's quarters to find Wiliam behind her desk, writing as if nothing had happened on deck a few minutes ago.

"How are the boys...?" Asked Wiliam somewhat annoyed.

"I'll spare you words... it's all gone to shit, Wiliam, unless you have some trick up your sleeve or we kill Ricardo, but if we do, everything will go to shit too" Dima answered with even more concern.

"You're too nervous..." The captain answered, raising his head from his black notebook, to see Dima trembling with fever and nerves.

"... But the ritual?..." Dima said with even more impatience, as she looked at her mangled arms and the bandages dripping yellowish pus and blood from how bad it was.

"The ritual is going according to plan..." Wiliam replied, continuing with the writing, not paying any more attention to Dima's dying state.

"I don't understand...you told me to give orders to break the sailors' morale... But with what happened on deck today... These guys could make the trip back with a smile on their face, Wiliam. .. Don't underestimate the god of the lost!" Dima said, while she trembled with fever and her voice was covered with her tears, for having failed.

"Yes, true sailors willing to travel to the end of the world... as I said, the ritual is going according to plan, if they survive, let them do it with their own sweat, blood and effort, as I did in my days as a sailor, This sea is for those who do not give up and humans were not born with that right, we only pretend to have it". Wiliam replied quietly, taking a bottle of bluish liquid from his desk, the bottle was very finely decorated and the size of a thimble, so it was very small.

"You can take this and leave alive, but you can never achieve what you want" Said the captain leaning the bottle on the edge of the table, so that Dima could take it, without waiting for his decision Wiliam continued writing in his diary.

Dima looked at the jar on the table for a few minutes before speaking.

"If I die and the others don't die, what happens? Don't lie to me Wiliam, I'm about to die, I want to know the truth before making a decision" Dima said looking at the captain who kept ignoring his look, using the diary of him as an excuse.

"If you died as a sailor would, on board the ship, then the same thing would happen to you as the rest of the crew who have already died on this ship and you could navigate in the spiritual world..." answered William, looking at his black notebook.

"If the others die, then we could go sailing when the last man on the ship dies, if not you would be in limbo until that happened and your spirit body would sail on the waters around the ship…"

"That's why you heard the voices of the deceased during the ritual…" Wiliam added, to give more solidity to his words.

"Is that why Lucas encouraged Ricardo?" Dima asked with some doubt, he preferred that the big brother was really still alive and had helped them.

"Yes, that's why the water around the ship is protected by the deceased, that's why we always fish so much, that's why we take things out of the sea that we shouldn't take, and that's why murmurs can't affect the ship... But there are limits, getting into above a city populated by mermaids is a very good limit, but Lucas saved us… and we got out alive, as we always do" Wiliam replied.

"I'm sure you are a man who owes nothing in this world, Dima, but if someone who does not wish to sail those waters finds out about this, he would simply die and we will not be able to take him sailing with us..."

"That's why I always ask every sailor on this ship, 'Do you have any outstanding debt in this life?' forgotten and most confuse the question with something else". Wiliam added with some disgust, for him, it was cowardice to forget about that sea.

"And why not stop asking?" Dima asked if she was going to bet her life on this man, she was not going to leave a detail without asking.

"Because it's part of the ritual, the ritual is basically to be a real sailor by Tusha's standards, if you manage to seduce her, she will open the doors for you and allow you to be one of her sailors... You already did it Dima, you just have to wait a bit and you will be one of the sailors of the goddess of the sea, we will still be alive, but otherwise ... But if you fail to seduce her everything goes to shit, that's why there is the rule of relics and objects, using them we away from the state of purity that she seeks, the officers and captain must be pure on the sacrificial ship"

"And why kill Calix and Taras? ... Wasn't it better to let them be part of the crew in the afterlife?" Dima asked with many doubts, she still remembers inserting the lupine through Taras's nose while crying.

"Because Ron was hesitant...and without Ron in the spirit world, I'd rather not go either... Without a captain, the ship wouldn't sail, everyone would die in vain... Their lack of confidence killed them, they must have understood the question, they must have been true sailors and believe in your captain". Said the captain without hesitation, his heart could not afford to doubt, since many dead swam under his ship.

"Ron doesn't know about the sacrifice? How the hell didn't he find out after all this time?" Said Dima with some anger, Calix and Taras were her companions for many years, her pirate blood was cold, but even hotter than the captain's

"Doubt... But you don't know... Two different states in the human mind, if you know which sea we're headed for and that you're going to die in the process, all the original members knew it". The captain answered slowly, thinking about his words as if afraid to speak more..

"So, Dima, what is your decision? You can go, you just have to take the bottle, but as a first officer you are denied access to the spirit world... at least keeping your consciousness. Your other option is to stay and die as a sailor, I won't tell you the benefits because there aren't any… You're just going to navigate the spirit world until you accomplish the goals of all the dead" Wiliam commented, getting up and handing the bottle into Dima's hand.

Dima took the bottle with his sick hands and asked: "If we don't all die on this trip, how long can I be stuck in limbo?"

"One trip, you're lucky" answered Wiliam, returning to his seat to continue writing in his black notebook

"One Miserable trip? There are dead that must have spent almost 60 years lowered the ship... why are you so sure this time? " Dima asked doubtfully, but from the captain's tone it seemed that he wasn't lying.

"They don't mind waiting for the dead, they even helped us stay alive on more than one occasion, but it seems we already have enough sailors to make Tusha impatient. Did you notice the anomalies in the water?... Tusha wants her Sailors... We wouldn't have made it to port if it weren't for sirens, what an irony, right?"

"It seems that one of the sirens realized our final destination and managed to get Tusha to let us reach port to take the merman back to land... If we manage to reach port and set sail again the ship will sink, and the captain always sinks with the ship... maybe Ana will join us" Said the captain with a smile.

"Now get out of my cabin, Dima, whatever decision you make, do it in private, I'm not interested... If you stay, throw the bottle away, where I'm going only hope will make us sail"