As the frigid hall shrouds the air with suspense, Kaya is in utter disbelief at her ability; so reliable, so precise, yet unable to process a clear thought from Malik.
Like the static from a broken television: obnoxious, endless, almost alive.
"Malik . . . what are you thinking about?"
Kaya blurts as Malik blankly stares at her with his bright grey eyes of an unearthly hue, like that of a ghoul.
The cold atmosphere suffocates Kaya as she itches for an answer. It presses against her skin not with temperature, but with pressure.
The pressure that coils around your ribs like a python until you forget how to breathe.
Liars, killers, psychopaths. Kaya had catalogued all the inexcusable evil she'd seen, yet nothing prepared her for the flood of thoughts spilling from Malik's mind.
"Nothing . . . What's up with you, Kaya?"
Malik asks worriedly as his eyes widen into a mirage of two storms of grey.
"It's like a thousand-page book with scrambled letters all about. There's no spine. No end."
Was all Kaya could fabricate in her thoughts at that moment.
He is unwritten.
"Kaya?"
Malik repeats her name as she drowns in her own confusion.
He lays a hand on her shoulder and shakes her back into consciousness.
"You good?"
Malik asks frantically as she had spent what felt like eons before responding.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm good, don't worry. It's just that . . . I wonder—Malik, are you human?"
Kaya asserts her statement after being unchained from the grasp of true bewilderment.
"Welp, I've got two eyes, a nose, arms, legs, I don't see how I couldn't be."
Malik teases her ridiculous question.
Kaya gulps as she is still uncertain whether to be afraid of Malik or not.
"I must've phrased it wrong. The question is, do you feel human?"
She corrects herself.
"In a physical sense, yeah, I'd say so, but if we're talking mental . . ."
He pauses.
"I'm as real as what my mind makes me to be . . ."
Her own thoughts were all that entered her psyche, once usually so coherent, now smudged like the letters on a wet paperback dropped in the rain. Illegible.
His steadiness raises suspicion in her, as if he knows something is not ordinary about himself, but has already accepted it. Does he want someone to accept him?
Kaya replies with a forced, weak laugh.
Thoughts rush Kaya's brain as the echo of Malik's paradoxical mind whispers in the back of her head while she recollects herself.
She knows he isn't lying. It's like he knows something is not normal, but he isn't aware of the extent of it.
"Reading your mind is like a maze with no start or end. It just goes."
Kaya replies heartfully.
"You're right, Kaya." Malik nods. "It's like my own memories aren't mine. And a voice tries to correct every word I say."
Malik tilts his ink-dark eyebrows and looks down in shame, expecting ridicule.
Kaya softens, her confusion melting into empathy.
"It's okay, Malik." She lays her hand on his arm to assure him.
"That's why I watch the ocean. It makes sense to me. The waves, crashing and building again, that is music to me."
He turns, his eyes guide themselves to the ominous door of the extra room at the end of the second-floor hall, the one that hums to you when you draw too much attention to it.
"My father hides something from me in that room. I know he does."
Kaya stares as well.
"If there's an answer to what I am—No, to what we all are, then that's the place to start."
Darting his pointer finger at the intimidating lock, which demands a phrase to be spoken.
Malik takes a leading step as he turns to face Kaya.
"You coming?"
She nods firmly, like a soldier entering enemy grounds.
The two march up each creaking step on the stairs.
Nevertheless, one must face what's in front of them, not what they have passed. Like a friend that waves goodbye at their train stop, the stairwells are nowhere to be seen.
This is our destination.
Only to be confronted by the wonder of industrialized reinforced steel that shines bright enough to glimmer in your eyes.
"So this is it up close and personal, huh? Talk about overkill." Kaya comments on the door's exaggerated appearance.
Malik, staring at her with a daring look, shifts focus right back onto the door, as if it turned his head for him like a jealous spouse.
It didn't hum like machinery. It breathed.
As if the door itself resented being ignored.
"You know how to open this behemoth?"
Kaya asks.
"No . . . no, not really. Hell, I've never seen Dad step foot near this damn thing, not even a phrase."
Malik ponders upon the endless possible combinations of words needed to unlock it.
Malik sticks his hand out, inching his fingertips to graze the stern steel to perhaps gain a recollection of a memory to get a clue.
"Maybe if I just-"
"Wouldn't do that if I were you, man. Ya know how the Cap is."
A voice echoes to Malik as he turns his head sharply to the left.
"Kamil?"
"Who else?"
Kamil laughs as he strolls near the door.
Tall, olive-skinned, wearing a black tank top, his upper body is shrouded with tribal tattoos. A snake tattoo glides across his chest, along with a frog charm hanging from his neck.
He has short hazel hair with slight stubble, tired, almost dead-like brown eyes.
"Hah! We were looking for you, man!"
Malik cheers.
Malik and Kaya walk towards Kamil and rest their arms on freshly chopped zig-zag wooden arm bars on the second floor as they glance down to the ballroom etiquette of the first floor.
"Good thing you didn't touch that damn thing. Coulda sent off a signal or something and caused all sorta hellfire."
Kamil looks at Malik with a friendly smirk, he plays the charm on his neck like it were a pet.
"Yeah . . . Where were you?"
Kamil snickers.
"Ah, I was in my room taking a nap. You know this by now, I'm never awake! Cap's always on my ass about that."
Kamil pauses and notices Kaya to the left of Malik, staring at the light glistening in her dark brown eyes.
He bumps elbows with Malik with a grin resembling Cyrus and inquires, "So who's your pretty lady-friend on your left?"
Malik laughs.
"Ha! That's Kaya. She's part of the crew now, she's great. I think she'll love Amaya, don't you think?"
"They'll be like bread n' butter. Welcome to the family, Kaya."
Kamil sneers innocently.
He puts his hand out, and she obliges by giving a firm handshake that speaks respect.
"Nice to meet you, Kamil. I'm glad to be part of the family."
She grins, simultaneously activating her eyes.
She hones into Kamil's thoughts and narrows down what she can hear.
Frogs of all things.
Cackling, she blurts, "You're thinking about frogs?"
Kamil gives a puzzled look, then instantly replies, "Well, yeah, I love those jumping little critters."
Kaya exhales and lets her guard down. Her instinct is to use her eyes on people she has just met, a force of habit from trust issues that overload her mind.
She giggles.
"Not to judge, but I think cats are better by a long shot."
"Ahh, to each their own. You got your kitties, I got my hopping buddies."
Kaya adds, "Forgive me for being nosy, but who's this Amaya girl?"
Kamil's eyes widen, holding in laughter as he keeps his composure.
"Meanest person on the ship, she'll tear you apart limb from limb 'cause you're fresh meat." He lets out a little laugh.
The wooden door behind them next to the giant encoded room creaks open like the thriller of a horror movie.
"So what's this about the meanest person on the ship, huh?"
With her left hand on her hip and her other on the door, she stands with dark green eyes and glasses atop them.
Standing at an average height with long, wood-like brown straight hair and a striking look with white skin. Her long white trench coat being most distinctive.
Kamil flinches like a fool, whilst Malik and Kaya stare at him, chuckling.
"Well, I . . . uh—"
"Blah, blah, don't really care."
Amaya interrupts with a tired, monotone voice as she greets Kaya and Malik with a glance.
She inspects Malik and gives a daring glance from head to toe. Amaya narrows her eyes at Malik with unexpected precision.
"Now just wait a damn minute . . ."
Stepping closer with her arms crossed, "Malik, when in the hell did you get taller than me? It hasn't even been that long since I-"
She pauses.
He rapidly blinks.
"Since you . . . what?"
Her eyebrows raise and her expression hardens.
"Forget it. You used to be down to my shoulder, now I got to crane my neck to look up to you."
"Hah. That's funny to say . . . 'hasn't been that long'. Didn't you meet him when he joined the crew?" Kaya asked.
Amaya's eyes slide from Malik to Kaya, her pupils traveling in a blink. Not hostile, but calculating.
"I joined this crew nine years ago. I've seen that boy before he even grew a full set of teeth."
Malik chuckles.
"Kaya, you didn't know? I was raised on deck."
"Yep. And somehow, he isn't the most immature. That award goes to those two other bastards, Lias and Zayne."
Amaya remarks.
"Wow, I didn't know you were raised here, Malik. Were there other crew here before everyone?"
Malik opens his mouth, but Amaya answers first, casually but with a worried undertone.
"Yeah . . . there were others."
She frowns with a shrug and adds, "Good folks. Didn't stick around, though."
Kamil leans on the wooden railing, joining the conversation.
"Some transferred, some retired . . ." He gives a playful smirk "Some got chewed up and spat out by the ocean, you know how it goes."
Malik gives a faint smile that doesn't correspond with his eyes.
"Let's just say, the sea doesn't forget, but people do. It should stay that way."
Kaya narrows her eyes, viewing the main deck that holds a thousand untold stories.
The way they responded . . . it doesn't sit right with me. Seems like they don't want to lie, but they want to avoid pouring salt on a wound.
Amaya exhales, "Some chapters aren't meant to be re-read, Kaya dear."
Kamil nods.
Kaya looks at Malik, who is leaning on the rail without anything to say. If he has a hundred lives' worth of memories wandering in his brain, then he wouldn't want to remember those.
She notices Malik glancing towards that large door.
Her eyes follow his gaze like an arrow, the light flickering on its steel surface, begging to uncover its mysteries.
"So . . . frogs, am I right?"
Kamil jokes to lighten the mood.
The others laugh lightly, and it seems as if a force has pulled them back into the present.
However, in Kaya's case, what pulled her was a question.
Like all possible questions at sea.
They are patient.
They are drifting.
Until the tide reveals what is truly under it.