On a fishing boat floating and steadily being pushed through it's sails on a seemingly endless black ocean, a boy in a dull red scarf sprawled out across the floor dozing off.
Naren was finally able to relax a little now that they were on a real ship. Even still he had a special place for the raft he originally built to set sail in the first place.
At the edge of the ship, Vera was gazing at the dark murky waters below.
She couldn't believe just how calm it was now. Just a day ago they were fighting for their lives, the sea almost killing them. But now, it was like that never happened.
However, there was something a little more pressing on her mind.
"Why had I decided to go on this voyage?"
Vera grumbled as her face smudged against the railing of the ship.
——————————————————————
THE PREVIOUS DAY.
Vera stood in the shed that Jan took her. Waves crashing and banging against the already rocking walls.
Just a couple dozen meters away Naren was fighting for his life against a carapaced beast, but here she was given the choice to leave it all behind.
Vera hesitated, her words jumbling in her mouth, but she didn't know why. Instead of thinking about it, she clenched her fists and spoke.
"The...the key..."
Jan jutted in, his voice whimsy despite the typhoon beating on the walls:
"Though there's one more thing. If you leave the boy behind, you won't be able to go to the Tomb of Atlas...ever. I'll make it a contract between us."
Vera closed her mouth, her eyes narrowing on the man before her. At first she feared him, but now there was a feeling deeper than fear swelling inside her. Something more primal. As his dark eyes stared at her she could feel her body screaming at her run...But no matter what it wouldn't listen.
Vera pursed her lips. Of course she would still pick the key.
Of course, there was no reason for her to go back to Atlas. She's never wanted to go in the first place. There should be nothing compelling her to even think of this choice.
A faint memory flashed before her eyes: Her mother smiling as she spoke to Vera — But the words weren't there. No matter how hard Vera tried to remember, she could never figure out what her mother wanted to tell her.
Then in the next moment, her mother vanished. Swallowed up by a deep guttural void.
Vera blinked and she was back face to face with Jan. That ages ago.
So why is she having second thoughts now?
"What...what if we slay the beast without Naren becoming a shaman?"
Jan smiled.
"Hoho...Well I can see why you wouldn't, I heard it's the most excruciating pain a witch can feel...Creating a shaman that is."
"Sir...What if we manage?"
"How greedy...Well then I supposed you'll be able to take the key and go to the Tomb of Atlas as well."
After that, thanks to the hint Vera had received about the Scuttleback's weakness from Jan, they were just barely able to slay the beast.
But now she was regretting everything.
It's not like she even wanted to go to Atlas originally. In fact, she was quite sure the only reason she blurted that silly desire to Naren was because she got swept up in the moment.
Yet, for some reason here she was. Struggling to figure out the words her mother wanted to tell her before she disappeared. And here she was, on the way to the place she swore to never return to.
As Vera's mind was running rampant with thoughts, Naren snuck up on her from behind.
"Boo!"
"Eep!"
Vera closed her mouth and stood up straight, stiffened and panicked. However, when she realized it was just Naren she loosened up a bit.
"Oh, it is only you, Naren."
"Haha...What're you doing here?"
"None of your concern, Naren."
Naren stretched, letting out a deep yawn before he leaned against the ship's railing. Staring off into the open expanse that filled the horizon. A deep layer of fogging beginning to form.
He scowled a little as his ears picked up on a peculiar sound, like rapid waters before he turned his attention back on Vera. His eye's narrowing on her.
"Say, you never told me where the Tomb of Atlas was...did you?"
Vera sighed as she filed away all the troublesome thoughts that had been burdening her. She didn't know just why she was doing all of it. But she did know one thing: This might be her only chance.
"The Tomb of Atlas..."
Vera went on to explain what she had heard about the Tomb of Atlas ever since she'd run away after that day. The day she lost her mother.
The Tomb of Atlas was the name of a city. A city in a country called Gaia. It was a prosperous place at first. One with a lot of trading ports and many domestic products of it's own. So much so that the royal family of Gaia even lived there.
However, one day the land tore apart. Grabbing Atlas and swallowing it into the ground hole. That was the last Vera had remembered of the great city. After that her memory was hazy...Bits and pieces that eventually led her to the Sergeant.
Suddenly Vera grew quiet in the middle of her story, causing Naren to jut in annoyed:
"What's the hold up. It was gettin to the good part."
Vera shifted in her stance.
"Uhm...Boris...Boris told me when I asked."
Boris hadn't heard about Gaia, which was odd to Vera, but he did hear about Atlas. Atlas was what they all referred to as the living hell. The reason was simple because it existed in...
"Naren are you paying attention?!"
Vera scowled as she watched Naren hold his ears tight with both hands.
He spoke through gritted teeth.
"It's...so loud.."
By now, the veil of fog had all but consumed their vision. The ship continuing to float along with no trouble though.
Vera opened her mouth to scold Naren before she began hearing something strange. The loud rummaging sound of rapids.
She tried narrowing her eyes, looking through the fog, but wasn't able to see anything.
That was until she realized something.
"Naren, there is no wind...How is our ship continuing it's movement?"
"Huh?! What'd you say?!"
Naren's words muffled by the increased sounds of rushing water. The noise continuing to grow louder and louder. Overtaking everything else.
Naren grimaced as he stomped his legs in frustration. His ears hurting behind belief.
Then...The fog disappeared.
——————————
Somewhere on the black sea, sailed a massive military ship. Armed and reinforced for war it seemed. On it, a hulking women with eyebags as deep as bruises was sitting on a lawn chair while it stormed. her eyes fully shut, but somehow it felt to all the passengers like she could still see all of them.
The woman had long coarse wavy brown hair in braids. She wore a sleeping mask raised above her forehead and a long sleeved nightgown—evidently white in the past, now grey—with lace at the collar and cuffs. On top of it was a fur coat.
As comfortable as she was seated, a heavy storm was undergoing the ship. Tilting and splashing, as the passenger on board flew from side to side.
Then a stray piece of paper landed on the woman, somehow dry despite the rain. She picked it up, finally opening her eyes, to read it. Her green eyes, surveying each of the crudely written letters:
Name: Naren
Rank: Private
Enlistment Date: May 12, 1300 A.G.
Fable: Reflections
Spite: Always Forgotten
The woman was stuck on that last line she read. Always forgotten. Then at the fable atop of it: Reflection. The combination was what struck her.
"So the witch has a curse. How terrifying."
The woman stuffed it into her pocket, before getting up. Muttering to herself: "Hope I never meet that bastard."
A soldier waddled up the woman, saluting with two fingers.
"Captain! What do we do!"
"Just go an bunker down. Who told you all to run around out here like cattle?"
The soldier looked a bit embarrassed before running off with the woman's orders, trying to hold his ground through the storm as he ran for the lower deck.
The captain however, edged closer to the railing, looking off into the sea.
There in front of her the ocean disappeared.
For as far as the horizon stretched, there was nothing but an endless stretch of open air.
In the middle of the dark infinite ocean was a hole that spanned several tens of thousands of kilometers across. A circular hole cut out cleanly leaving an endless waterfall of black continuously pouring into a void with no bottom.
She took a deep breath and cheered up.
"The most talented Aspirant in our generation, sentenced to hell...You ready princess?"
Beside the captain, a couple meters away, a girl was tending to soldier who had a mop handle jutting out of his hand from the recent shockwave.
The girl had dark-blue almost black hair with a purple flower in her hair. A white pea-coat blowing around in the wind revealing her sky-blue dress underneath.
As she looked up, her pitch-black eyes reflected nothing, instead all attention went to the supple smile on her soft face.
"Don't worry Elara."
—————————————
Within the impossible hole, kilometers away, a boy with a crimson scarf was falling to his death while a little girl clung onto him.
"SHRIMPY...DO SOMETHING!"
On May 12th, 1300 years after Grimm, almost a thousand men and women vanished from the face of the world, all in the same place.
No wreckage. No bodies. Instead, they all fell through the world, all the way to where hell should've been.
History had a name for this.
A freak phenomena that would happen ritualistically each year without fail.
The Tomb of Atlas.