The corridor was significantly darker, and that's how Slade liked it. Windows blocked and taped, lights lowered, allowing the green walls to give off a gloomy feel spiked with an atmosphere of unease. The air was thick and smelled of mildew and a rich earthy deepness. Rose took a tentative step down a side corridor and instantly heard the visceral squeak of Slade's chair. 

Followed by a metallic, labored growl of a voice that shot out from the end of the corridor “How many are you?” Slade’s voice cut through the air like a saw. 

“Uh… Just me, Rose… here for a checkup before the next raid” Rose’s voice was coy and slack as she twiddled fingers behind her back, staring down at her own feet. 

“Ah… come in child” Slade's voice wheezed as the squeaking grew lighter. 

Hesitantly the girl softly pattered her way down the long, dank hallway, passing by numerous locked and deviously barricaded doors as the girl continued her way down winding side corridors to the infirmary at the center of the Med deck. Stopping just shy of the blue filled main room, she waited by the frame, until Slade's grunt of approval signaled her to enter. The room in which Rose begrudgingly found herself in was very low, wide and egregiously lit. Numerous nefarious machines, some appearing almost tortuous in nature, were neatly placed all about the floor, next to sickly metal cabinets and tables covered in instruments and healing equipment, that shone under the scattered and very select spotlights. The walls were crowded by a multitude of hospital beds, stalls, and gurneys all placed in crowded but neat grouped patterns. 

At the very center sat Slade, his limbless form strapped to a thin electric wheelchair of the man’s own design, his skin almost completely wrapped in sheer clean cloth, and his face fixed with a breathing mask that aided in both survival and speech, completely connected by a mass of tubing attached to the back of his chair. 

"Come, sit child" the labored voice rang out like a shrill bell, nodding painfully to a small stool that sat just feet in front of him. Shuffling Rose made her way to the red pedestal, placing herself upon it neatly. "So, is that right? You'll be joining the rest of the crew on their next raid" Slade said as he wheeled right up next to Rose, who responded with an instinctive flinch. "Just promise me you'll be careful" his voice wheezed, as he raised his right stump towards the girl, they sat like that for a little while, Rose wondering if she was supposed to do something. 

Until suddenly an ethereal limb slowly and begrudgingly sprouted itself from Slade's ruined stump, a semitransparent blue swirling arm manifested in the air as it reached and reached, touching the awe struck and mildly confused Rose on her forehead, with a cold concise pinpoint. She sat perfectly still, as Slade closed his eyes and nodded slightly. 

"Hmmmmmm… it seems like you sprained your left ankle yesterday, no cracks or fissures, heartbeat and breathing all correct, well other than the sprain you're as healthy as can be, more importantly you’re all good to go kiddo" Slade said, as the arm dissipated, and Rose physically shut her agape jaw. 

"How..." Rose managed, but Slade cut her off, "I'm the doctor, it's my job to know every little thing," he said with a half-lidded wink as he wheeled away to a small desk in the darkest corner of the room. 

"Run along now" the mechanical voice continued "I appreciate the company, but I do not work with others' eyes around", and with that Rose jumped up and quickly made her way back to the stairwell once again. Kicking and skipping back up the multiple levels. Rose’s progress was only impeded by a strange and familiar skittering sound down one of the unused crew levels, but the teen shrugged it off as a trick of the light or something, and continued on her way, back into the warm sweet sun of the upper deck, it was noon now and she was painfully hungry. 

          “Everyone eat up” boomed the sun beaten captain “were passing by Devil’s teeth on the way to West Salazar, so I want everyone at the top of their game”. As soon as their lunch, consisting of a vast array of sky fish and ship-grown vegetables (all different types), was finished, Rose was filled with a weird and abrupt sense of mild nausea right as Nan, one of the cooks' helpers, arrived on deck to lounge with the rest of the crew. He was a taller boy about the same age as her, with deep tanned skin, light red eyes, black hair, and an always smirking smile plastered across his face. The two had grown up together, after being liberated from different raids that had taken place around the same time, they had always been almost inseparable best friends for the longest time, well up until recently. Nan had been so busy as of late, learning to cook, and setting out on small sky-skiff runs to collect salvage and various food goods, that they hadn’t had any time to really just talk. 

Plus, as of the recent months she had been getting a weird nauseating feeling just at the sight of him, almost like she was nervous or afraid or something, but she brushed that thought off as just a fluke. Rose sat on her usual perch of barrels near the center mast and watched as Nan made his way around the crew, jostling all the way to where she was sitting. The young man leaned against the large center and crossed his arms, just as Rose felt her skin flush. 

“Busy week huh? I guess raid prep is always like this, although I haven’t seen so many headless chickens before” the boy sighed smirking as he shook his head with a hidden little laugh. 

Rose sat quietly staring at the floor, feeling even sicker than usual. 

“Did you like the food? I caught the sky fish myself, all thanks to you showing me how to use the skiff” pausing Nan looked at Rose intently “Hey uh Rose? Are you ok? You look even worse than usual”. 

The girl was hunched over on the barrels, her head spinning, her skin sweating profusely, the whole world and sky swirling at once. 

“Hey! Rose'' just as Nan shouted those words, the world went black for the redhead as she fell forwards, face hammering into the deck. 

“Hey! Hey! Someone get Slade!” Rose’s crumpled form slumped on the deck as Nan tried desperately to wake her, cradling the girl’s body in his arms as everyone rushed over, they all followed as her limp frame was whisked away to the silent infirmary. A few hours later as the sun started to set, Slade broke the news to everyone, there was nothing wrong with her, as far as he could tell, yet she did not wake, she did not stir. The crew tried to lay their worries to rest as they scrambled to get the ship ready for the journey past Devil’s teeth, the storming remains of a shattered mesa, treacherous to all ships.

          Rose’s mind was clouded, dark then light, as flashes of sky and rain filled her unconscious psyche. The girl’s body shivered in the hospital bed, machines beeped, and she tossed and turned uncontrollably, eyes clamped shut. Everything swirled and moved, like a mass of churning insects, even her skin. Rose no longer knew what was real or fake, what was dreams and what was reality. The sky warped, the moon was present within her room, and her nose steadily bled. Turmoil set in as the young girl battled with her mysterious ailment.

          Above deck, it had been two days since Rose’s condition had set in, but there was no time to worry, a storm raged, as the blackened sky soaked the galleon in a monsoon, torrents of rain battered the crew, who struggled to keep their footing on the rolling ship. Shouts were thrown, lines were tossed, and the wood creaked in pain. 

Deadeye bellowed “We got too close! We’re being pulled into the teeth, brace yourselves” he removed his eyepatch, red eye shining as he struggled with the rest of the crew, all trying their best to keep the ship in the sky as the storm that swirled around Devil’s teeth found purchase.

 Angie shouted from the helm “We’re going down!” and with that, the massive ornate galleon was flung into the jagged spires of Devil's Teeth, all while Rose tossed and turned with the storm above.

Chapter 3: The Devil’s Mouth.

      Birds chirped, no wind blew, and the smell of damp earth permeated the air. A massive galleon sky-ship laid fractured in half. The bowles of its hull spilled along the jagged earth. Rubble, cargo, and ship remnants strewn across, bits and pieces scattered around the vicinity. The mess at the base of the wreck started to shift gradually, numerous forms started to emerge from the destruction. The first figure to emerge, a tall man with a glowing red flame of an eye staggering to stand, he made his way to the other moving forms, pulling rubble with his one remaining arm.

 Angie emerged almost untouched, the gray dust and metal flecks falling from her beautiful form, as she assisted the captain, cutting through rubble and sheets of metal with her divine white saber. Tala crawled out from the wreck of her hanger, shoving aside bits of sky-skiff and tools, blood pooling at her feet, shards sticking out of her arms, hurriedly she limped her way to the other two. 

The next to emerge was Nan, the ash settling to make his curled hair a silvery color as he frantically understood the situation, beginning to sift through the pile rapidly, “Hey! Hey!” he called out continually “where is Rose?!” wading through the rubble he made his way to the wounded captain who lay slumped against a shard of metal. 

Nan’s eyes welled up at the state of their captain laying in his billowing coat and in a pool of his own blood, he tied strips of cloth around the shredded stump where his right arm used to be, while Tala and Angie attended to him, wiping the blood from his face, Tala began to heat up a strip of metal. “Nan go find her, you don’t want to see this” wincing the engineer began to carve a makeshift brand as Nan sprinted back into the fray.

          It was dark, Rose did not know if she was still dreaming, or if the lights simply went out. She couldn't remember anything at all but as she tried to move, every inch of her body was a chorus of screaming pain. Reaching an arm out she pierced the solid darkness and was met with a blinding light, the girl gasped, crawling through a mouth of rubble, her clothes filled with holes, crimson streaming from some unseen wound on her head, and her hair a tangled orange mess. 

Nan spotted a crawling form and ran as fast as he could, stumbling and tripping over sharp metal chunks and discarded cargo. 

“Rose!” he called out making his way over to her, taking her hand to help her up, he pushed his fingers into her cheeks and looked into her eyes intently, as she felt her skin become hot. 

“You don’t seem to be that injured '' he gave her a slight hug around the shoulders, “how are you feeling? Rose? Rose?'' His words were lost on her as the girl's eyes finally surveyed the scene in front of them, she dropped to her knees, face in a horrific mask of shock as she took in the destroyed form of the galleon, their home. 

Nan held her shoulders and patted her back “hey hey, you're ok and that's all that matters” she started to shake as she heard his words, breathing quickly and sharply as panic set in. But he continued to hold her until finally she stood again, head hung, they both stood, until a shocked choking forced them back to reality. 

          Nan looked over Rose’s shoulder, his eyes growing in shock as he placed his hand over the girls eyes. Gulping loudly “don’t turn around Rose, go to the captain behind me” spoke Nan softly “now”, “but Nan” Rose cut in “NOW” shouted Nan “and promise me you won’t look back”. 

Sullenly and hurriedly Rose hung her head and sprinted through the rubble to the forms of the Captain and the rest of the surviving crew. The girl let out a shocked scream at the sight of the captain, his right arm completely gone, the bleeding stopped now as Tala latched searing staples over the wound, nearby Angie held the butt of a discarded fli rifle in the man’s mouth. Rose ran up, wrapping her arms around the captain’s good arm as tears cut through the dirt on her cheeks, kneeling she held on as the two women looked at eachother and went back to tending. 

“Ha Ha!” Deadeye forced out a massive chuckle, looking better already he sat up to the protests of those around him, it had been a few hours, Nan had not shown up, nobody else had emerged and the captain's arm was cauterized and stapled shut. 

“I’m ok girl calm yourself” he said patting Rose on the head “gonna take alot more than that to kill me, sad that my mark is gone now though” he said looking at the remains of his right arm, where his own red geometric symbol used to be. 

Rose sniffled and sat cross legged from them, “who knew my mechanic would make such a good doctor” Deadeye chuckled as Tala shot him a death glare, before sliding onto a ruined crate, sore from pure exhaustion. 

Angie stood on a small spire of steel, gazing out across the wreck, in the setting sun light, purples and oranges danced across the shards strewn about. 

“Hey what’s that” called out Angie as a small explosion sent showers of sky steel raining into the air just a short distance from the disheveled party. From the explosion emerged Slade, completely untouched, still in his chair, he wheeled himself over rubble and earth. The party watched in shock as the broken doctor made his way over, unharmed and unphased. 

“I was beginning to think I was the only one left, or that everyone forgot about me,'' chuckled Slade, which everyone found rather unusual, none of them ever recalling Slade laughing before. 

“Hey I see Nan, he has a bag of something” Angie called out as she jumped down from her spire. The boy trudged into their survivor circle, as Deadeye lit a cigar with the help of his second in command. 

Nan’s face was pale and gaunt, it looked like he had just seen a ghost, and the sack he hauled was vaguely human in shape. Shuffling Nan sat next to the captain and locked eyes with him, leaning in as he whispered into the older man's ear. They whispered and nodded for what seemed like an eternity. Tala went in search of gear and salvage. Angie laid down on the ruins of some cloth and cots that she had cobbled together, and Rose laid with her, still feeling the fatigue of her previous sickness. Slade sat watch, only his eyes visible through the grimace of his mask, all the while the two continued to whisper.