These were the first three stories I wrote about my character Julia Rayos. They’re ultimately three chapters of a single arc, but I first wrote & published them in January 2016, February 2016, and February 2017, respectively. (Yes, that abrupt cliffhanger “left you in suspense” for a year…) Now, four years later, I’m re-publishing them here together, with some minor editing.
Spoiler warning: In the future, something like the events of this story will be canon — and better written — and many plot elements will inevitably be the same. The main reason it’s now “noncanonical” is that I have a different, better view of the personalities, history, and relationship of these characters.
“That fool wanted more than this map is worth,” I said. “Go to the center of ‘Milo’s Triangle’? Wow, who would’ve thought that that was where the fabled Captain Milo the Unyielding would have left his treasure…” Not that any of my previous research had led me to believe otherwise.
“Right you are ma’am,” said my first mate, Peter Sweeterson. A good man, loyal to a fault. He was the only one I trusted with my true reasons for seeking Milo’s treasure. “But don’t you think we could have spared his family? I mean—”
“No, Pete, we’ve been over this. A pirate can’t afford to lose their vicious reputation. Just one sign of weakness and the crew will be back on their ‘no woman is fit to lead us’ crap. If people don’t shake in their boots when they hear the name ‘Captain Julia Rayos’, I’m not doing my job. Come on, let’s keep going.” A shame he’s so damn moral — he’ll never make it in this business.
“Yes ma’am.” We kept rowing.
There have always been weird superstitions about Milo’s Triangle. Some sailors carried a pig to toss over the side whenever they passed through. Others prayed twice on cloudy days. The most cautious pirates just avoided the whole triangle. But if you paid enough attention to the rumors, you’d notice that only those charting a course through the center of the triangle never made it out. This attention, I had paid.
After weeks of waiting in port, finally the weather was calm enough — and the crew in enough of a gold-frenzy that they forgot their fears — for us to begin. A day of sailing and we got our ship The Good Riddance within eyeshot of an island approximately in the center of the triangle. Leaving a trustworthy skeleton crew on the ship, the rest of us took to the rowboats and were rowing our way over to the island.
“Really, this whole expedition is going too well,” I observed. “I expected to meet with one of Milo’s traps by now. He surely—” A loud crack interrupted my thoughts. One of the lead rowboats was abruptly crushed. (Pete and I were at the back of the pack. Why should I needlessly risk my life to the inevitable dangers here?)
“Did you see what that was!?” Pete shouted. I hadn’t; my focus had been on the island itself. “It was an oc—” He didn’t need to finish the word. Another punctuating crack and I saw it. A squid the size of a house. A giant eye in a giant head poking out of the water, it had one of its suckered limbs wrapped around another splintering rowboat.
“Don’t just sit there, shoot it!” I shouted at my frightened crew. My flintlock pistol was already in my hand, and I took a shot at the beast — even though I was certainly too far to get any decent accuracy on the thing. I lead by example.
They followed suit and after a chorus of gunshots, somebody hit the thing’s eye and it submerged. “I don’t think it’s done,” I said to Pete, my eyes still scanning the water. “If half the reports of missing ships are true, there must be a whole population of these things living around the island.”
Pete caught the meaning. “But captain we can’t even hope to fight one of them! What can we …” Pausing, he formed a plan and began shouting to everyone left alive, “Alright you lily-livered rantallions! There is only ONE chance for survival! We can’t lead that beast back to the ship, so we’ve got to get to the island!” Clever Petey.
Getting back to rowing on the double, I checked on my crew. All’s well but for one scaredy-cat boat trying to make its way back to the ship. “Wait,” I said to Pete. I reloaded my pistol and took aim — certainly within distance. I shot and that fool Ingemar Johansson collapsed into the ocean, capsizing his boat and tipping his rowing partner Sancho Cruz in as well. They had it coming.
“Cowardice will continue to be rewarded with death,” I shouted. Pete handed me his pistol, I took aim and rewarded Cruz with death.
We got back to rowing for our lives.
Astonishingly, nothing else happened over the course of getting to the island. Maybe there was just the one monster and we actually managed to scare it off? Unlikely.
Still, we made it to shore. Pulling the seven remaining boats up onto the short beach, we began making our way into the jungle.
The foliage was thick and we took a three column approach. At the front, a row of three men chopping with machetes to make a path. Behind them, four more rows with the second-to-last just Pete and myself. Can’t be too careful.
There was little of interest in the bush. No signs of civilization — not too surprising given that Milo did his business here over a hundred years ago. I started thinking about how he could have trained the giant squid to attack any ship that came near.
Perhaps lining the bottoms of all kinds of boats with fish? What could such a large creature have as a natural diet anyway? Maybe whales. How long do squid normally live? And a giant one? Do bigger whales live longer than smaller ones? It only seems natural, but I don’t know. Are they even smart enough to be trained? Smart enough to pass on that training to their offspring? Maybe I’m overthinking it and this is the natural behavior of giant squid. Maybe Milo just happened to find an especially violent cluster of squid and put his treasure here. That somewhat detracts from his legacy if true. Hmm. What?
Oh, word had come from the front that an unnatural stone structure has been spotted. Time for action!
It was a small stone temple, now covered in vines and underbrush from the jungle around it. The pale tan sandstone stood in stark contrast with the green of the plant life. Where did they even get this stone from?
We entered the structure to find it was just a small square room, empty except for—
“A chest!” exclaimed Kaden Everett. His oafishness cannot be overstated.
It appeared to be locked, but that was no serious deterrent. We could easily crack it open back on the ship. I was getting the feeling that this was too easy. Again.
“Wait! Don’t move it yet! We need to check for traps!” I shouted, but it was too late. Kaden and his twin brother Aiden — Did their parents have no imagination? — had lifted the chest at either end and released some kind of pressure plate hidden under the object of fascination.
The immediate consequence of their foolishness was the release of several large axes swinging down from the ceiling. The Everett brothers didn’t make it. It’s unfortunate, really; now who is going to carry the chest?
The more important consequence was the series of explosions outside. Sounding like the lighting of so many oil lamps, the jungle was struck into a blazing fire.
I ordered two men to carry the chest, and we begin making our way back out, through the burning forest. While the plentiful plant-matter and whale oil (where had Milo gotten so much damn fuel?) raged in flames around us, we were relatively safe on the path. We had fortuitously cut a wide enough swath of plant debris on the way in that there was little trouble on the way out.
Going in single file, we survivors (along with the chest that was the whole point) rushed back to the rowboats. Near the shoreline, a man was struck down by the falling, fiery debris. I couldn’t believe I’d lost half my men on this goddamn expedition.
“Come on!” I said, motioning to the rowboats. Only eleven of us remained. Pete and I loaded the chest into our boat and everybody shoved off.
Not fifty feet out, a tentacle burst out of the water, wrapping around a boat. The squid yanked down, splintering the wood and killing everyone inside.
Fortunately, there was no one inside. Wary that the explosions might attract the squid’s attention, I had the crew cram in so that we had three boats of three men, alongside Pete and me with the treasure chest. This allowed for three decoy rowboats, rigged to move along with us by lengths of rope. The trap worked and down went the decoy.
The crew whooped and hollered! Finally something going right! I almost couldn’t believe it myself!
We continued rowing with the decoys attached loosely between occupied rowboats. One more decoy was crushed. This had been some amazing luck!
Finally, the ship was nearing. I was rowing at the edge of my seat. In a story, this is where the mother squid — ten times bigger than the last! — would emerge and crush The Good Riddance right before my eyes. This is where all hope would be lost and we would be forced to return to the burning island, to die.
Fortunately, this was no story.
We made it to the ship. My skeleton crew didn’t abandon me after the squid attacks nor upon seeing the island burst into flames. Well, ‘Antsy’ LaMonte had wanted to, but cooler heads prevailed. And shot LaMonte. Just like I would have wanted. I shouldn’t have left him back here, in retrospect.
As I set a course back to port, Pete took to the task of opening the chest. It cracked easily enough and with a few strikes of a big hammer, it was open.
Gold. So much gold that it would easily pay for replacements of the ten men I’d lost. So much gold that even Greedy Joe was satisfied with his share. Gold — and a few trinkets.
The trinkets — a map, a bottle of rum (as is tradition), a small black drinking glass, and the Arenquerojo, a fabled device with which Captain Milo was claimed to commune with the dead! I recognized it at once and rushed to bring Pete into the captain’s chambers.
First, glancing at the map, I saw it was of Milo’s now-burnt island. It detailed the location and activation of the fire traps. Useless.
Pete sniffed at the rum, perhaps he will make a decent pirate yet. He had been level-headed throughout the day, even in the face of disaster. Yes, I should acquire him a ship and a crew of his own with today’s earnings.
But — the Arenquerojo! In all the tales of Captain Milo’s exploits, he always had some magic or other, but the most common was his ability to summon the spirits of the dead! Now, if true this would be extremely valuable in itself, but I had a specific use.
The device is that of a whistle, carved from the bone of a whale. To use it, you just whistle while thinking of the name or face of the dead person you want to communicate with, supposedly. It was said to have a lot of power — you didn’t even need to know a person’s whole name to summon them.
“Okay, Pete, I’m going to try to summon the spirit of Captain Milo himself!” I thought about everything I knew about Captain Milo the Unyielding, and blew the whistle.
As the tone reverberated through my cabin, Pete took a celebratory drink of rum from the black-stone glass the bottle had come with.
Nothing happened. “What the hell!” I said, annoyed. “If the goddamn Arenquerojo is a fake, how am I ever going to ask Milo how to get to Atlantis!?”
“Atlantis?” Pete’s voice sounded off-pitch. “I may not be Milo, but I happen to know a thing or two about Atlantis.”
“What the devil are you talking about Pete?” I replied. This was no time for jokes. But maybe he had… Well, it was worth a try. I continued, “Or whoever you are.”
He smiled. “You catch on quick. Sorry about your friend, I’m Nick.” He extended one hand to shake mine, while the other threw back the rest of his drink of rum. “And I’ll be glad to help you get to Atlantis, for a price.”
I took his hand to shake it. The entity calling itself ‘Nick’ now in control of my first mate Pete’s body started to pocket the black stone shotglass.
That shotglass. Pete drank from it when he became Nick. Nick had said ‘Sorry about your friend.’ He had killed and replaced Pete. Fuck.
I yanked downwards with my right hand, pulling Nick down to the floor and knocking the shotglass out of his hand. Simultaneously, I unholstered my flintlock pistol and shot with my left hand.
The speed of the moment and my right-handedness reduced my accuracy. The bullet hit Nick’s shoulder and he writhed in pain on the floor. As I reloaded, Nick reached back for the shotglass.
Interesting. I stepped on his reaching hand, looked him in the eye, and shot him again. This time, my aim was true.
He looked dead. Pete looked dead. Fuck.
Okay, I needed to calm myself. I sat in my chair and reloaded my pistol, thinking about what to do.
If this ‘Nick’ and his shotglass function as they seem to, he’ll be able to possess the body of anyone who drinks from it. Still, there’s no use being unsafe. I used a handkerchief to pick up the shotglass and set it on my desk.
But what if he really does know how to get to Atlantis? I certainly can’t trust him. And this magic seems far too dangerous to just set it upon the world. If he can possess one person and then use them to forcibly possess other people, he could become an army in a day.
His only limit is that there’s only the one shotglass. If every possessed person just needed to touch someone to possess them too — then there would be no hope. He would spread like a plague and Nick would have killed everyone by now. I shouldn’t have even shaken his hand. Small blessings.
Still, Atlantis… I’m going to have to find the limits of his power, but at any rate, I can’t pass this opportunity up. This is why I went looking for Milo’s treasure in the first place.
Okay. So what am I going to tell the crew?
“Bad news!” I announced to my gathered crewmen. “There is some foul spirit embodied in this shotglass, and it possessed Pete so I had to shoot him.” I held the glass up in a gloved hand.
Murmurs in the crowd, and a few shouts. “Destroy it!” “Toss it overboard!” “Burn the body!”
I raised my other hand to hold for silence, “Yes, we should probably do these things! But the spirit claims to know where an even greater treasure lies.” That got their attention. “But in order to find out more, we’re going to have to sacrifice someone to it.”
I looked at Young Stef, one of our cabinboys. The greed of the crew overcame their (admittedly weak) moral principles and they moved to grab him. “What!? No!” the boy yelled, and he started scrambling away. Of course, I chose him to be the sacrifice because he would be easy to force into this arrangement.
A few of the men finally grabbed him and, despite his struggling, tied him to the main-mast with a length of rope. Now we could begin!
First, I touched the empty shotglass to the boy’s exposed hand, then his cheek, then his lips. No reaction. I tipped the glass back as if he was drinking the air. Still no reaction.
I filled the shotglass from my freshwater flask and repeated the tests. Nothing happened until the water actually entered his mouth.
“And I’ll — what.” said the boy, off-pitch and clearly disoriented. It seemed that the special rum was not a critical component of the ritual. It could have gone either way as far as I was concerned.
The boy — Nick — examined his self and his surroundings. A boy of thirteen years, tied to a mast, immobilized by coils of rope. (Of course, I chose Young Stef so that Nick would be easy to overpower.) Surrounded by the dozen remaining crewmen and me.
“So… Young Nick.” I said, somewhat uncertain as to what would happen next. “You wanted to strike a deal before. How about we do things my way.”
“Young?!” he said. (Is that really what he’s focusing on?) “You could not imagine the centuries I have lived.” Well, that was a useful fact. And an emotional trigger to be used at my leisure. He sure seems human.
“Quiet boy, that is irrelevant to the situation. Tell me how to get to Atlantis.” I tried to keep him off balance. He came onto my ship with an air of power, and I would do well to retake the frame for myself.
He looked amused. “Let me guess, you’re Julia Rayos.” How could he…?
“Ah, so you can read the minds of those you possess,” I responded.
“No, I’ve just heard of you before.”
A lie? Perhaps, but this whole thing was confusing. — He was trying to throw me off balance! I decided it was time to do a little experimentation.
“Bind his mouth,” I said to the crew, “and grab Young Ridley. We need another sacrifice.”
With Young Ridley similarly bound to the fore-mast, out of earshot from the now-turned-Nick Young Stef, it was time to see what that shotglass could do. (Wow, I am going to need some new cabinboys after all this…)
First, I told Stef-Nick a partial phrase, “‘Only those unprepared.’ Remember that and if you tell it to me over there, I’ll untie you.” He obviously could not respond.
Next, I said to Young Ridley, “‘For madness’ Remember that,” and forced him to drink from the shotglass.
“And I’ll — what.” said the boy, off-pitch and clearly disoriented. Good. But it could still be an act.
“The phrase I just told you, what was it?”
“What? Oh god no!” So Ridley-Nick didn’t know anything that Stef-Nick learned since he possessed Stef. That made some kind of sense. And further, he didn’t know what I told Young Ridley before he drank. Maybe Nick really had heard of me?
“I’m going to tell you another phrase. If you can remember it, I’ll untie you. ‘Suffer from it.‘” I forced Ridley-Nick to drink, but he seemed to want it. This magic was most peculiar.
The boy didn’t say anything this time, off-pitch or otherwise.
“The phrase I just told you, what was it?” I repeated.
“‘Suffer from it.‘” he replied. Good. That meant he didn’t overwrite himself when he drank a second time. This was making more and more sense.
I shot the boy. It would be downright dangerous to allow more copies of Nick than I needed.
Finally, I unbound Stef-Nick’s mouth and he drank willingly. “The phrase I just told you, what was it?” I said for a third time.
“‘Only those unprepared suffer from it,‘” he answered with false cheer. “But I’d appreciate it if you didn’t treat me like—” I replaced the rope in his mouth. I needed to think about what this meant.
‘Only those unprepared for madness suffer from it.’ One of my only memories of my real father was him reminding himself of this when I was a kid. It has always stuck with me. Dealing with Nick and his magic shotglass, I’m starting to see what it means.
He doesn’t keep the specific knowledge from the bodies he possesses. And he can only remember the memories he creates from the selfsame body he’s in. Unless he drinks again from his shotglass — that copies himself back onto the glass. And then, if he drinks and there were other saved memories from himself in another body, he obtains those as well. This is how it seems anyway.
I had expected that when Stef-Nick drank after Ridley-Nick drank a second time, the first would just be replaced. But because Stef-Nick was able to give two parts of the phrase, he must have kept both memories. Somehow, the record of Nick held in the shotglass is able to experience the memories of multiple branching selves. I don’t think I can imagine what that feels like.
Still, this fact makes the shotglass and Nick far more dangerous than I thought. This means that if he ever does possess an army of bodies, he’ll not only be able to work together in parallel (because there’s no conflict-of-interest since they can all re-merge at the end), but as long as he has the shotglass, he’ll never forget anything any of his copies have done! He’s too powerful to let free in the world!
Agh! I don’t even know if he really does know anything about Atlantis!
I ungagged the one still-living Nick and ask him again how to get to Atlantis.
“Do you happen to know where, umm, ‘Puerto Rico’ is?” He said. He pronounced it like he had never spoken español before, despite talking fluently this whole time! Maybe he can’t acquire specific information from those he possesses, but does keep some general background knowledge like language and motor functions? How does that work?
“Puerto Rico? Of course I do! That’s where we’re sailing right now. Our home port is in San Juan!” I wanted to give him enough information that he’ll reciprocate with something useful. But there’s no way the fabled lost city of Atlantis is anywhere near Puerto Rico…
“How very convenient,” he muttered to himself. “Well, if you really want to get to Atlantis, you’re going to have to stay on course… and untie me.”
“Sure,” I said amiably, “we’ll be there in about a day if the winds stay favorable. And I’ll certainly untie you when we get there. I hope you don’t mind that I’ll hold on to your little shotglass as we go.”
“Well, I wouldn’t expect anything less from the infamous Captain Julia Rayos.” He’s just trying to butter me up!
“Enough,” I barked. “Cut the flattery. What’s the plan? How do we get to Atlantis?”
He was only slightly taken aback. “Alright alright. I won’t leave you in suspense. What we need to do is
We made it to port faster than expected, the wind in our favor. Even the gods wanted Nick and me to succeed in our quest, it seemed.
I untied the man — the boy — now with the mind of Nick, that apparently-human entity embodied from a small, black-stone drinking glass. I had the shotglass in a pouch at my waist.
I didn’t trust him. That much was clear between us. But Nick had accepted that I would keep my pistol aimed at him while he lead us based on what little he knew about Atlantis.
As we debarked back onto dry land, my men entered the town. They were filled with the urge to lavishly spend gold that only those who’ve survived horrors can know. I expected many of them would not return to my ship. That was fine; if I truly managed to find Atlantis, I wasn’t going to return either.
Still, my vague promise of further treasure on this current venture had kept me one of my crewmen — Greedy Joe, of course. He would be richly rewarded if we end up finding anything, I assured him. It served my purposes to have another pistol pointed at Nick.
As we three merry pirates walked through the town, some passersby stood and gawked at us. A grown man and woman, following a young boy while holding our flintlocks at the ready. I would be amused too, if Nick hadn’t been leading us in circles.
“You’re stalling for time, boy,” I called him out. “Which building is it already?”
“I told you, I don’t know what it looks like!” said Nick, agitated. “All I know is that it’s an old church.”
“Wut ‘bout dat un?” said Joe. His missing tongue could make it hard to understand him sometimes, but he got the point across.
“No, that’s just a pile of rubble,” replied Nick after a glance, but—
“Wait,” I said, “There are pieces of stained glass shattered around the stone. This might be it!”
Indeed it seemed to have been a church at one point. Not much remained of it now, but after moving some bricks we unearthed a standing wooden doorframe. This is what Nick claimed we needed, but there’s no door.
“Let’s just grab a door from the next building over,” I said. I was a pirate captain, after all. Nick and I unhinged the door from someone’s house next-door — Ha! — and carried it over to the church’s doorframe.
When Nick finished re-setting the hinges in place, I took the handle and opened the door.
This was all Nick said we had to do — just open up a door in this specific doorframe. It seemed like utter nonsense for this to actually do anything, but here I was dealing with someone who kept his soul in a drinking glass. A small drinking glass! So I was open to the idea of magic doors.
Nothing happened. Well, the door opened, but there was nothing on the other side but the rest of the ruined church. This little pissant was messing with me.
“Boy!” I shouted as I re-draw my pistol. “Your chances are up!”
“Wait!” he cried out. He seemed nervous, but I still couldn’t tell if he was even scared of dying. “Maybe it needs to be me who does it?” he said without confidence. Still, it would be silly to give up without trying something so simple.
He opened the door, my pistol a foot away from the back of his head and—
What the hell.
It felt like it took me a year to wrap my head around what I was seeing. Nick had opened a door to a long, poorly lit hallway in the middle of this rubble. A hallway that was only visible through that doorframe itself. From every other angle, there was nothing there.
I walked a full circuit around the structure. Standing on the other side, it looked like Nick had simply failed to move the door.
“Wut?” said Joe. I motioned for him to walk around to see what had happened. “Wut da ‘ell.”
If Nick had reacted, I failed to notice in my stupor. “Nick,” I said, “is this what you were expecting to happen?”
He shrugged in response, seeming preoccupied. He was standing just beyond the doorway, on the inside of this impossible hallway. I pondered at his condition. Is he in shock? Is it somehow harmful to stand in this new space? What would happen if he closed the door while inside? Is Nick the only one who could open it back up? What if he tries to escape in there? Oh.
“Not so fast, Nick my boy,” I patted the pouch at my waist. “Don’t forget, I’ve still got your little shotglass. Why don’t we all just keep advancing into the unknown.” I motioned for Joe to move through the doorframe.
As we took a few steps into the hall, I looked back out to the mundane world. There’s not much left for me there any more. I closed the first door and looked around at the new myriad of doors around me.
A long hall, full of doors. Doors of different sizes and shapes, colors and designs, all somehow fitting in with the bleak white floor and walls that made up this strange place. Peeking out through one of the nearby doors, I saw the inside of a large house; a mansion maybe. I suppose all of these doors must exist somewhere in the real world and this space just connects them… How does it do that? More importantly, who could have made it and are they still here?
We began moving down the hall, only to discover that it split in two at a Y-shaped intersection of similar hallways.
“Which way?” I asked Nick. His job as guide had only just begun.
“Let me think for a second,” he replied. He closed his eyes and started doing some kind of mental calculation. Just how much does he know about this place?… “Here!” he stated, pointing towards the left-angling hall. Well, we might as well.
This hall continued the same pattern as the one we started with — many random seeming doors spaced regularly on either side. After another short walk, we came to another intersection. Nick again decided that we should go left.
This hall continued the same pattern — doors, and eventually another intersection. Nick said to go left.
This hall was the same — more doors, then an intersection. Left again.
This hall. Doors. Intersection. Left. I’ve had enough.
“Nick, stop! This is ridiculous!” I said, stopping our movement at the intersection. “There’s nothing here but doors!”
“We’ll come to it, I’m sure.” he said with exasperation. “I’ll know the door when I see it and we definitely haven’t passed it yet… And I won’t tell you what the door looks like. I’m not stupid.”
“Well look, let’s try going right this time,” I said and started taking the right-angling branch of the hall. Nick looked resigned to this apparently horrid fate, but he followed Joe and me. If Nick had a reason to not go right, it must not have been very compelling.
The right hallway began much the same as the rest of this peculiar space. As we walked, however, the incessant doors gave way to wide windows stretching from floor to ceiling. They seemed to be a way to look at the adjacent path and didn’t show much of anything. We kept walking, now opting for the rightward branch at each intersection.
Abruptly after several intersections, some of the windows were showing real-seeming locations. Tables outside an urban cafe, bustling with customers; a crowded university lecture hall; a circus performance with jugglers and acrobats. How strange. Perhaps these windows looked at different parts of the mundane world just as the doors acted as portals there? What was this place?
But mostly the windows showed us further parts of the bleak hallways we wandered through, even some showing still further windows. All devoid of life, too. I supposed it was a good thing we hadn’t run into whoever uses this—
Ah. Through this window we could see some foul, faceless man-shaped monster. It stood in another part of the maze and waved through another series of windows at a man, also here somewhere. It was hard to see him through that many panes of magic glass, but he looked kind of familiar. Before I could quite tell how I knew him, he exited through a door of his own. I wonder what happened there…
“Well, I guess we’re not actually alone in here.” I said to Nick and Joe, but apparently I was the only one looking through that particular window. My companions had continued walking and stopped a few more windows down, almost to the next intersection. “What are you looking at?” I asked as I caught up.
“Tho muck goud,” Joe whispered, as if the sight has brought his entire existence to culmination. I saw what he meant as I too gazed transfixed through this window.
So much gold. There was a room, somewhere in the world, with gold coins in piles taller than the mainmast on any ship I’ve ever seen. Mountains of silver bars, jewel-studded crowns, and ornate goblets. It must be the treasury of some king halfway across a distant continent — the great secret riches of the world. And we had a window into it.
Joe had always been a loyal crewman, at least insofar as being in my crew made him rich. But his greed was insatiable — caused, it seemed to me, by the persistent delusion that mere money would give him a good life in this world.
So I wasn’t really that surprised when Joe rushed around the next corner (to the left) and started frantically opening doors to see if there was a way into this treasure trove.
As I began to call out for him to stop wasting his energy, I saw something move in the treasure room. It was Joe. He had run in and started filling his knapsack with treasure… But I could still hear the slamming of doors from him down the hall. Curious.
I rushed over to see what was happening at the doors, and sure enough Joe was still going down the line, opening, peeking, and slamming each door in turn. But when I returned to the window, Joe was there too, examining each item to maximize the wealth he could carry in his pack. Very curious.
Some kind of massive lizard entered the scene. With a reddish body easily the size of a typical merchant vessel (ignoring its masts), and a mouth full of vicious-looking teeth, the beast seemed to smell its way towards Joe as he arranged his pack.
A great disquiet filled my body as the lizard snapped its jaws down on Joe’s head and neck, leaving the rest of his body to flail onto the floor. At that moment, I heard the Joe still at the doors make a sound of joy, “Agha!” and hurry in through the door to the treasure vault.
I raced to where he had been and looked through the door he had discovered. I could see the scene as it had begun. Joe, beginning to fill his knapsack with gold and jewels.
I moved to stop him — to save him — but Nick gave me a look of caution. “Wait,” he said, “we already know what will happen to him.” And indeed, the same scene played out again. Joe stuffed more riches into his bag, then the giant lizard appeared. I looked away, and heard the sickening crunch that through the window I had only seen before. I turned back to the door and saw the creature notice our presence through the open door. I hurriedly closed it and backed away.
Nick looked at me for a moment, paused, then said, “Let’s keep going.”
We kept going. Choosing left or right at each intersection like a drunk man stumbling down the street, we kept going. Nick was still looking out for the door, and I was still looking out for Nick to try something. At least when the windows weren’t too distracting.
“I recognize those trees,” I said as I walked. “That’s Milo’s island, where we found your shotglass.”
“Oh?” replied Nick. “Was it on fire at the time?”
I said nothing. A different window displayed a scene at one of the intersections of this labyrinth. It was Nick and me standing in front of one of the doors, and down the other corridor I could see that same image of Milo’s burning forest.
“That’s the door!” Nick exclaimed, “It must be right around the next corner — Julia, we’ve done it! This image must be from the near future, just like the treasure room one!”
As I mentally rotated the image to figure out where the door was in relation to us, something began to happen. The Nick and Julia in the image were facing each other, talking, but now Nick turned around and I raised my pistol, pointing it at the back of his head. She — me, apparently in the future — had it drawn from the start, I realized then.
I drew my pistol myself and told Nick not to try anything. He spoke calmly, “It’s a self-fulfilling prophesy. We just have to re-enact it once we get to the door.” Very well.
In the image, I saw myself extract Nick’s shotglass from my pouch and hand it to him. He fills it from his water flask and drinks. Then a moment later I shoot him.
“Re-enact it, huh?” I said. “Why should I give you what you want?”
Nick looked frustrated. “Look, dying isn’t the same thing to me as it is for you. I just want to get to Atlantis, same as you, and if you use my shotglass on someone else once you’ve gone through, that’s just the same to me. As long as I drink just before dying here, anyway. Will you do that for me?”
“I think I’m forced to do this part of it,” I said, watching future-self pick the shotglass back up and wave in the general direction of the viewport. “Come on, let’s get this process started.” The Julia in the window started to go through the door; I guess I’m bound by fate now.
“You’re sure this is the right door?”
“Positive. Light blue carved with a seven pointed star. We haven’t seen anything like this one so far.”
“Great, now turn around, boy.”
“Sure. Hand me my glass.”
He drank from it. I shot him.
As I recovered the shotglass and replaced it in my pouch, I almost forgot to wave at my past self. I briefly considered not waving, but… I’m so close to Atlantis. I really shouldn’t mess with Time for no reason… I waved at the blank wall in the direction the window was showing from.
At long last, I stepped through the—
“Wait.” A voice called out from somewhere in the hall.
I stopped in my tracks.
“Give me the stone glass.” As I turned from the door to look, the source of the voice was revealed. A tall, well-dressed man with dark hair in contrast to the pale horns protruding from his skull. He carried a worn black case.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because if you don’t, I’ll take your soul.”
Oh. “And if I do?”
“Then I’ll let you go to Atlantis,” said the Devil with a smirk.
“Sure,” I said as I absently tossed the thing to him, “be careful not to drink from it.”
He stared at me, his mouth agape. “What? Just like that?”
I ignored him. I had been sidelined and distracted for too long. I am Julia Rayos, and the Devil himself couldn’t stop me now.
It was finally time to see where I came from.
At long last, I stepped through the door and into Atlantis.