(Prompt: North)
Machina’s Voyage.
The anniversary of the Allen Gallant’s disappearance passed quietly. Eight years ago, the most grand ship the small town had seen set sail into the Atlantic. At the helm of the ship, the esteemed Professor, Sebastion Machina set sail with one goal. North. For his whole career, the professor spearheaded nautical research, but always found himself stepping in someone else’s footprint. He could write about and cover hundreds of topics, but they would always be topics that someone else had discovered before him. He was no pioneer.
However, one subject that eluded everyone in the field was the great land up north. The arctic circle. This undocumented land had been deemed too hostile to explore. But the professor knew if he could bear the trip and report back what he found, he would indisputably be the first to have done so.
And so it was, on that fateful day, Professor Sebastion Machina set sail with an excavation crew. The journey was calculated to take about a month, with weather permitting. But a month turned into a year. A year into several. Eventually, the community stopped waiting for the ship’s return, leaving only a young boy standing at the docks. A young boy named Issac Machina. Issac knew something must’ve happened to his father, and begged the town’s head of office to go searching for him. As was expected though, no one paid any attention to the young boy’s plea. At most, they ran a short story in the paper in commemoration once a year. But these articles tarnished the late professor’s legacy, claiming he had gone mad with injured pride and abandoned his life to get his name on something. Issac couldn’t get the paper to stop printing the article, so Issac did what he could. He waited. He would bring his father’s book to the docks and wait. With each passing year, Issac sat, glaring at the horizon.
The rest of town might’ve moved on, Issac thought, flipping through the pages. But I will not forget!
Upon the eighth anniversary, the paper had stopped running its commemorations. Were it not for Issac sitting at the dock, there would be no evidence of the disappearance at all! But Issac wasn’t the young boy kicking his legs at the harbor anymore. With the inheritance his father had left him, he marched into the town office and declared he was buying a boat.
After taking a day to get his affairs in order and recruit dock-hands desperate enough for the money, Issac found himself on the same path towards the horizon.
“What if his ship crashed?” A deck hand asked as they set out. “How are we gonna find a man who could be rotting at the bottom of the sea?” It was a valid question, and one that Issac had asked himself many times over the years. His response was equally simple.
“We won’t.” Issac took this time to gather the crew and speak about the nature of this course. He stood on a small wooden box and spoke like an oriador.
“It is without a doubt my father is gone. But his legacy hinged on his last voyage. If we can find out what he discovered, his disappearance will not have been in vane!” Issac stepped down from the box with a thud. “Sure, say we find an old ship goudged on a set of rocks with a skeleton holding a quill, then we will know for sure of my father’s fate,” Issac remarked sarcastically. “But my heart does not ache for his absence, it aches for what came from his absence. If we can show the world that his final journey had reason beyond hubris, perhaps that ache in my heart will settle, too.”
Whether the crew on the ship believed in the message or not, they remained on the ship, maintaining the vessel as best they could.
As the ship went further and further north though, it became harder to keep it in pristine shape. Issac stayed in his quarters for most of the journey, reading the various books his father had written. What few times he did leave his quarters, the crew mostly kept to themselves. Until one night, Issac noticed the boat had gradually stopped moving. At first he thought the ship was navigating through ice, but when he ventured out to ask, he saw the crew all standing in a row, a dazed look plastered across each of their faces. He called out to them, but got no response. He stepped forward to address them, but stopped dead in his tracks. Just out of his hearing range, beyond the ship's bow, a small effeminate voice rang out. It sang a sweet melody that made Issac’s heart throb. Before he could listen any further though, Issac threw himself backwards through his door. To his horror, his crew had all fallen victim to a siren’s call. As quick as his body would go, he slammed the door shut and locked it. He then stuffed his fingers into his ears and grit his teeth. There was nothing more he could do. One by one, his crew marched off the edge of the boat, splashing into the icy water. As the crew found themselves submerged in the freezing cold, Issac felt his heart ice over too. This whole time, he had assumed his father made it to the north and simply fell to whatever he found. But there was no chance of that now. It was clear his father never made it to his destination, and had fallen victim to the siren’s tune.
For what seemed like an eternity, Issac sat with his ears plugged. The siren’s single voice had become a choir, calling out to him, pleading for him to join his crew. He could just barely hear them beyond his plugged ears, and pushed as deep as he could. But it seemed their voices were always just loud enough for him to hear. Perhaps Issac could’ve waited out the sirens, were it not for what happened next. A voice cut through the others and reached deep into his head. It wasn’t a pretty, effeminate voice like the rest. It was a deep, masculine voice that rang out. It was his father, the professor. Issac knew his father wasn’t really out there,but the siren’s curse had taken hold of him. All it took was a focused ear to catch the snare of a siren’s trap, and Issac had foolishly perked up when his ‘father’ called out to him.
He stood no chance. As he opened his door and stepped out onto the deck, the choir had become a stadium, all chanting and singing for Issac to jump down into the water. His crew’s voices had joined in as well. But out of all the voices, Issac focused on his father’s as he teetered on the edge of the boat. The moon and stars were gone, Issac was cast completely in darkness. The roaring waves of the ocean were near silent compared to the howling of the sirens. If the boat wasn’t in the middle of the ocean, one would think the roaring wind was shaking it back and forth.
With a shift in weight, Issac plunged into the darkness below.
Issac’s disappearance rang through the town more ferociously than his father’s. One sailor disappearing on a voyage was tragic, but nothing to glance at. But two? And a family no less? This caught people’s attention. After only a year, another group volunteered to go searching for the missing ship, like Issac before them. Then after THAT crew disappeared, another went out. After a few decades of this, it became a legend. Any hearty crew who wanted to cement their names in history could put down the money, hone their compass, and start the journey north.
Embarking on Machina’s voyage.