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Valerine – Episode 1: Pirates.
I woke up frustrated to my yelling alarm and forced myself out of bed while also heaving a sigh of relief knowing that there was a holiday the next day. Even with all the work I had left to finish, at least I would be able to sleep in a little late and wear warm clothes. The school forbade me from wearing my winter uniform as it was not November yet. The headmistress had made a comment about how absurd it was that I was feeling cold enough to wear winter garments already when all other students still insisted that air conditioning remained on during classes. It was torture for me.
After taking an awfully cold shower, I had to take a while
to rub myself violently to warm myself. After getting dressed, I went
outside and prepared breakfast for myself. By the time I was done eating, Mom came outside and was relieved to see that I wasn’t late. She sat down to make
breakfast for herself too while I had to rush back to my room because I had
forgotten to pack my bag.
My room was a mess so I had to rummage through piles of
stuff to find the things I needed. Before leaving, I did not forget to kiss my
teddy bear Cori goodbye. He was my only
friend and the only thing I had with myself to remind me of my sweet
grandmother who had passed away three years ago, leaving me to live alone in a
family that had fallen out of love. My parents were divorced but still had to
awkwardly meet each other because their business was built by both of them
together and so both had to continue
running it. It was hard enough for them to separate amicably. For a very long
time, they forcibly stayed in their toxic marriage just for the sake of their
business as they believed there was no point in separation if they were to
continue working together anyway. Needless to say, my childhood was pretty
traumatic.
By the time I got back out, Mom was already done with her
breakfast and was ready with the car keys to drop me off. There was barely any
network signal available in the area from which we had to pass to get to my
school. Hence, while stuck in the daily traffic, I would occupy myself with
adding finishing some of my homework or pending work or would listen to
whatever songs would play on the radio since my phone somehow never had
enough storage to download any music. Generally, I would wait till the daily
news has passed and ignore it. However, this time, the news caught my attention
with one word “Pirates”. Sadly I had missed whatever they had said and asked my
mom to repeat it. My mom focused on her driving and shrugged it off saying that
local sailors and fishermen claim that they have spotted and met pirates on the
nearest sea-side. Then she scowled, clearly not believing the fact herself. I
decided to look up the news on my phone but sighed as I realised that my
internet was of course, down.
By the time we were at school, the news had already gotten
out of my mind. I hugged my mom goodbye and hurried off. I was a little bit
late but was relieved when the first bell rang only after I reached my
classroom’s door. I sat myself down on a very uncomfortable middle seat as all
the other ones were taken. It was also directly under an extremely noisy
ceiling fan which did no good job. Everyone was chattering about different
things as we all waited for our teacher.
I took out my books and picked up my phone to put it on silent mode when
the internet suddenly refreshed and showed me the result of my last search. I
was about to close it but the absurd number of pictures and articles covering
it made me stop to take a brief overview. The pictures were indeed of the seaside nearest
Throughout the regular lesson, I wondered if the news was
actually true when there were so many blogs and channels covering it. Hence,
after the period was over, I immediately pulled my phone back out and began
scrolling. All pictures were of the same ship. It turned out that there were a
lot of antiques found on it including old devices which were no longer in use,
fine dish where, old-fashioned clothing, and a lot more peculiar stuff. The ship
itself was one which was fairly new in its build but was made in the same way
ancient, labour-operated ships were made, without a single sign of modern
technology on board. The sailors who saw the ship enter the shore claimed that
it appeared out of nowhere and overtook their own ship. Apparently, authorities
had started investigating that area to check if the items found are stolen or
not and more importantly, if they are of any historical importance.
I felt my interest in the news fade away as I read about the
claims of spectators. They grew more and more unrealistic with a lot of them
claiming that the ship had appeared from a lightning flash and the crew on
board were witches, that they had found items used to perform voodoo magic and
witchcraft, etc. I scoffed, deciding that the news was fake after all.
“You are looking at that too?” my bench mate asked, catching
a glimpse of my screen. I forced a giggle “Yeah. I thought it was real at
first, but then the made-up story became more and more conspicuous with each
line I read”
To my least expectation, my bench mate commented “It is
real!” She must have understood which part of the news I found unrealistic and
said “Ignore the part of those sailors’ stories. People who stay detached from
land and drink so much will naturally have the tendency to not be able to tell
apart reality and their imagination or understand the intelligence of the
common man against the ubiquitous fantasies they weave to entertain themselves.
The ship is indeed real and so is everything found on board of it. One of our
seniors, whose father is an authority investigating this case confirmed it.”
“I see” I replied in agreement. Realising the high
possibility of that happening. I made a suggestion if this was a marketing
strategy undertaken by a business that was opening a historical-themed cruise ship.
My friend shrugged and agreed with me for a moment but then questioned why the
authorities were involved if that were the case. That part muddled me as well.
“That isn’t even all.” She continued “The crew which was
claimed to be seen has mysteriously gone missing. There has also been an
increase in the trading of gold and antiques. People who have taken some of the
valuables from the ship have been selling them off.”
“That’s not nice!” I remarked “They should everyone who is
currently selling off gold into questioning! What if the assets actually have historical
significance or are stolen?”
She agreed again and our conversation had to be cut short
because the next class was to begin shortly afterward.
The rest of the day passed normally. During the lunch break,
several of us discussed the news again for a short while in repetitive remarks,
questioning debates and our own theories. However, the topic slowly died down
by the end of the day. I discussed it with
mom by after school as well but she shrugged it off with the same theory as me:
that it was all a collective business strategy for either the media or the
potential cruise line business trying to make a profit and that there was no
proper proof of any increase in gold trade or sightings of any strange looking
people.
That was the end of the news for a while. It completely got
out of my head for the next two months to come as I got busy preparing for the
session's final term examinations. Winter break soon fell in. On one of these
days, I suddenly started hearing loud noises coming from my room’s balcony. One
day I went there to check it out and it turned out that we were having new
neighbours shifting in. My balcony overlooked a small portion of the parking lot,
the grassy driveway at the front of our building's next wing. The new neighbours were moving into the home parallel to ours. I could see from the open door of
their balcony, which was directly in front of mine, furniture being moved in.
One part of me felt disappointed that I would no longer be
able to stand on my balcony without the anxiety of being watched and another
part felt…a sort of…a strange feeling of relief and…excitement.
TO BE CONTINUED...
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