Sneaking in was a lot easier than he had expected. 

There wasn’t a furry welcome rug or floral arch, but for Farrows, with how the front bridge was left out casually unguarded, it almost felt like there was. One would think a pirate who was almost considered a legendary myth by most would have better security on her own ship.

Compared to other pirate vessels that Farrows had come across, ‘The Golden Skull’ was a bit of a disappointment. It was large, yes, but it looked weathered and a bit run-down. Small carpets of rotten wood didn’t go unnoticed, neither did the greasy lint-covered floors and fixable cracks along the walls. And when he stepped on, the jungle of barnacles below was hard to not notice.

Let’s hope the loot’s better than this…

As he crept his way past barrels of old ale and randomly placed wooden planks, he came to the realisation that this piratess was probably a bit exaggerated in her fame. While the crew was said to not be as interesting as the woman herself, most would think she had at least 20 pirates under her care. But from Farrows’ could easily count them on one hand. A dark-skinned girl who seemed to be a teenager, and an old frail man whose ethnicity was unclear. Besides them there was an even younger boy, with a smatter of freckles across his face and dark brown hair. He was mopping up the deck through constant coughing, sneezing and shivering. The other two were lazing around, and they might as well have been asleep. Their clothing didn’t seem to be of wealthy criminals, but of peasants who were barely holding it together. Like him. 

Farrows was starting to regret his choices. 

If this was seriously all there was to the Golden Skull, he was very misled by the stories, and more importantly, it could mean their treasures weren’t really treasures at all. At this point he half-expected being able to carry away one chest with a useless treasure map on it. 

Maybe I should just leave…

Regardless of his concerns, he moved onwards anyway. He didn’t want the uncertainty of possibly missing out on a goldmine to bother him later. He was still a kleptomaniac after all. 

Farrows’ black cloak provided him with great cover, and as he leapt past the main deck towards what seemed to be the entrance to the captain’s cabin. 

A large ornate door appeared before him, the only sign of luxury to be found anywhere on the ship. It was recently polished, but whoever was doing it seemed to have given up 3 quarters of the way through. 

This has to be it.

As he readied himself to break in, trying to time it right, he noticed an outline of something on the floor below him. A thin, almost camouflaged latch on the ground. 

His eyes widened.

It was a trapdoor. 

—

Dele was usually far more alert than this. When she first joined the Piratess’s crew, she couldn’t sleep. Her insomnia was something that had plagued her for months until her body let her drift off now and then. She began to slowly stop seeing sleep as a tempting but foolish activity, and starting to understand what a necessity it was.

However, every now and then, she still maintained remnants of it that allowed her to be a good lookout for the ship. There are nightmares that have her up for hours. 

The day Farrows slipped in must have been an off-day for her, since despite hearing the loud ‘thunk’ of the trapdoor open, feeling the impact of something climbing through and her drowsy eyes catching the ever-fleeting glimpse of something black, she continued to rest her back against the wall of the ship. Her instinct to investigate and neutralise the threat was soon betrayed by her tiredness. 

But that’s alright. The girl needed sleep. 

And it wasn’t worth her getting woken up by an ultimately harmless con-man.

—

Goddammit.

That was the first word that entered Farrows’ mind when he looked around the room. Room would be a bit of an overstatement though, it was more like an uninhabited, abandoned jail. In Farrows’ mind, the treasure was noticeably absent. 

If there was credit to give to the man, his greed never wavered, like a reverend’s faith in God.

He grumbled to himself as he marched through the tiny room, moving dusty and cobwebbed boxes hoping for anything even slightly of value. He combed through every inch of the room like a madman.

It took Farrows about 20 minutes to realise he was trapped within the room. He was naive for a while, mainly dead focused on finding any treasure and muttering curses and misogynistic comments about the captain of the ship. 

During the first 5 minutes, he was slumped in the corner of the room, giving himself a breather. He had almost escaped death that morning, or at least extreme body injuries. With the way those merchants and soldiers looked at him he could’ve lost a limb. 

By 10 minutes, he felt himself getting sleepy, and despite how exciting his trip to the infamous ‘Piratess’ Golden Skull’ was, he didn’t want to become an accidental stowaway.

He began to hoist himself up the ladder toward the trapdoor. He gritted his teeth a little when lines of sunlight peeked through the cracks and into his eyes.

Farrows timed himself according to the coughing and sneezing of the freckled boy mopping outside. Right at an especially loud sneeze, he slammed up the trapdoor with his elbow. 

It didn’t budge.

He groaned inwardly before trying again. 

5 minutes later, Farrows felt bruises forming on his elbows and knuckles. 

For a near-minute, Farrows wondered if he was stuck. However, by the end of the minute, denial won and he jumped down and grabbed a loose plank from the floor. 

He played around with the lock of the trapdoor with a loose toothpick of wood, he tried prying the door open, and each of these strategies ended with him pressing himself up the door somehow. One thought kept him going till the end. 

If I got in, I should be able to get out.

After 20 minutes, it wasn’t his lack of persistence that made Farrows realise that he was trapped in the room. It was the loud thumps of the Captain’s steel boots on deck, the shouting of orders above him. The swish of the sails being hoisted, the crew scattering around on board, and the worst of all…the gentle rock of the boat as it was pushed out to sea. 

Farrows’ face paled in horror. He swallowed a dry throat lump.

He was stuck.

—

Unsurprisingly, this was not Farrows’ first time as a stowaway. A man this devoid of gold and financial stability had no chance of paying the insanely high fee that let him travel so many places. 

What this was, however, was the first time he was an accidental and unwilling stowaway. His ego took a sizable hit as he could feel the ship being guided further and further away from the bay. He felt like just letting the ship take him until he managed to somehow eat his way through the trapdoor. 

As Farrows did, his mind began concocting a backup plane immediately. He would get out after the ship docked…whenever that was.

And while he decided on that, he had another backup backup plan.

See, while it was true that the plank was the worst case scenario, he still had to hedge his bets on something in case he got caught by the Captain. His opinion of her and her ship aside, he was not dying at sea. No matter what. 

And so Farrows does what he does best. 

He observes and listens to every word spoken from on deck. 

—

Soba took a deep breath, and smiled warmly at the scent of the sea. The ocean was soft that afternoon as it pushed the ship gently, in an almost playful manner. The heat was just the right amount for the day as the burning sun began to cool off a little.

The wind ruffled his floaty clothes in a way that made him look like an enigmatic red ghost from a distance. For a nice 2 seconds, it was completely silent and peaceful.

“Soba!” a voice called from behind him.

“Yes?”

Soba turned and looked down at his Captain.

“Dele is telling me she saw something on the ship,” Sela said, her eyes coloured with worry. “Did you see anything?”

“We just got on the ship.”

“I know but…” Sela sighed and rested a hand on her forehead. “We really can’t afford some idiot stowaway wandering around the ship. We almost took the last one with us to the Americas!”

“It could be a ghost,” Soba shrugged coolly.

“Don’t say things to scare me, Soba,” she grumbled. Her lips trembled slightly as her eyes skirted from side to side. “But…that could be a possibility.”

“It’s better to be safe than sorry,” Soba nodded. 

After following her for so long, he found that it was more fun to just let the Captain stew with her own strange imaginations without having to constantly try to relax her without success. 

She soon stormed off past him and Soba’s eyes followed her as she began climbing up the crow’s nest to reach Dele. No doubt wanting to interrogate the poor girl even further on what she saw. 

The Captain’s full of energy today…

Soba wondered for a moment on what she had just said and furrowed his eyebrows a little. They’d only been travelling for a little, but in that time they’ve never had a stowaway. A few close calls, but they usually caught them before they set sail.

If Dele was right, which she usually was, whoever this was must be smart. 

Or crazy.

His train of thought was interrupted by the sound of a sudden thump from below his feet, a few meters away from him. He blinked before staring down at the ground. 

He was joking but…

Maybe it is a ghost.

Soba smiled to himself a little and looked back up towards the crow’s nest.

I shouldn’t let the Captain’s strange fears affect me.