Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 4-7 2019 | Page 58

lead his ship...I give you my ship, my chest and my love. Be strong.” He choked out, giving my hand one last squeeze
as he breathed his last breath and journeyed far, far away from us.
All those tedious jobs, random session of learning, those were his ways of fathering me. All those times I
thought he was making fun at me, no he was building me up to be a captain. And now that I understand that, I had no
chance to appreciate it, after all he is gone.
Father? How is that possible, the abandoned orphan had someone who cared about him? Why didn’t he tell
me? Why didn't he come back for me? Why did he abandon me? Why did he take me under his wing, on his ship after
all these years?
Captain? How is that possible, the wannabe crewmember having his dreams become a reality? Leading his own
very crew?
And from that moment I swore I will lead it well.
But for countless nights and days, I have failed this crew by leading them to infinite traps and dead ends.
Moreover, months passed upon this incident and yet- You are my son, you are my son.
Why can’t I get these words out of my head? Why can’t I be the bloody captain that leads everyone to success
like I should?
I can feel everyone’s disappointment in me. Wasn’t the captain's son supposed to be some great hero?
Worse of all, I could feel his blow of defeat on me. My father, I can sense his disappointment in me. Letting a
deep sigh overcome me, I laid down in the captain’s quarters, his quarters, trying to get my head over the looming issue
of where Harrizona is. Waving my hands in front of me, a poor attempt to clear my thoughts, I dropped them to my
side.
Ow. I felt something hard hit my left hand. Darn treasure chest…
I picked up the object and held it up close to my face for further inspection. It was a simple wooden box,
surrounding the keyhole was two golden dragons, guarding it.
Feeling something engraved on the bottom of the chest, I flipped it upside down for more probing.
The answers you seek are nearer than you think, the skeleton you pursue is closer than you expect.
What. It would kill him to give me specifics, wouldn't it?
At this moment my mate, Youngjia, decided to come bursting in. It would kill him to knock for once.
“The weather just doesn't seem to get better these days been dark for ages...What you got there?”
I wordlessly passed the chest to him still indulging in thought.
He read the engraving aloud, “Blimey, what do you think that means?”
Shrug.
“The skeleton that could mean the key to this” he gestured to the box, completely disregarding my reluctance
to talk, “closer than you expect, you’d think the captain might have given you something before and hid the key
there?”
I jolted up at that. The compass! I immediately opened the drawer, rummaging through it finding the captain’s
gift to me, feeling pleased with myself that I didn't chuck the thing out to the sea years ago. When my hand came in
contact with it, holding it up for Youngjia to look.
“He gave me this when I first took up mapping duty, said to treasure it and would find it to be the key to all
my problems one day.” I informed him of its origin.
His eyes lit up that, “He’s totally hinting at you, open it up!”
Retrieving a screwdriver from my bedside table, I flipped the compass and unscrewed it. I always thought it as
odd that the compass had screws behind.
As the last screw came unturned, I chucked the cover away, unable to contain my excitement.
Empty. There was nothing inside. I felt the disappointment taking over again.
“The cover!” Youngjia exclaimed.
My eyes lit up again, both of us racing to where I had chucked the cover to and stuck to the back of the cover
was a skeleton key. Youngjia snatched the key out of my hand and raced back to the chest, the anticipation nearly
killing him.
Just as he was about to turn the key, I hollered out, “Wait! We should bring it up to the deck to open it in
front of everyone” He paused, “Okay.”
“Go! GO! GO! Meeting time!”
“Captain called an emergency meeting!”
“Urgent! Get down to the meeting room”
“MEETING TIME! GO!”
In an unbelievable amount of time, Youngjia had rallied the crew onto the deck. They were all looking at me
eagerly, eyes full of expectation of a breakthrough.