Even with her mighty engines in reverse, the ocean liner was pulled further and further into the canal. People were screaming in horrific gasps as they tried to escape the toppling buildings. But it seemed as if every time someone were to try to get out, each time someone escaped into safety, one would collapse, as if simultaneously. I couldn’t bear to watch people as they scramble up the ramps of falling brick buildings and clench the cracked window sills as they pull themselves up and run into them while they try to run inside and fight for the lives of loved ones and when that failed, they would each stumble down stairs onto safe grounds. The only problem was nothing was safe ground. As long as the boat kept moving, the town of Venice would slowly crumble into ruins.

Life on the boat wasn’t easy either. People everywhere were panicking, throwing their hands in the air and screaming as they gather their children and scoop up their belongings and head to the main deck. But what they don’t know is that there isn’t anywhere to run to. Every edge is the same. There’s walls and water surrounding us. Everywhere you looked, there were buildings crashing into each other, or into the water with a loud splash.

They think that I’m just some stupid crazy captain. They think I’m sitting here laughing and sitting back as the city falls, and helpless people get crushed by broken pieces of rock, when they choke on the rubble thrown into the air by the wind. They think that they will die as well, that this ship will sink. But they don’t know Ole Cass like I do. She’s strong. Nothing will bring her down. Not even the bridge that’s coming up with large semi-trucks carrying who knows what.

My past is unspoken. I won’t tell anyone that I’m not supposed to be free, that I’m supposed to be locked up into a mental hospital with the key thrown away. And no one will ever know the lessons I learned with my “friends,” Especially the one about learning to stop a ghost boat from ruining a perfectly good city.