I never wanted to be stranded out at sea far away from Waknuk. I was with a group of sailors trying to explore beyond the Badlands but what would happen to us was something different, something almost like the very work of the Devil himself. It began the very second we left Waknuk but we didn’t really pay attention to it until it killed us, one by one.
As soon as we passed The Fringes, it hit us badly. Everyone gets a headache every now and then but the one that our captain had got was somewhat different. At first, he looked perfectly human. After that, he began speaking a language that none of us understood. It was as if the captain was possessed by a spirit of a mutant. Just before we went to the quarters, he fell to the floor and began frothing at the mouth like a dog I had once seen in the Fringes when I was a young lad. It was horrible and our captain was futile so we had to throw him overboard. Some of the sailors thought that it was a sign from God himself that we should turn back otherwise we would become like our captain. Whereas the rest of us believed that this could not be the work of God as it was too demonic.
When we got further into the Fringes, many of our men began getting similar headaches to the captain. We knew what was going to happen to them so we had to throw them overboard. There were only about 7 of us by the time all the others had died. I remember a young boy,about 14 years of age, who was terrified that he was the next to die.
I wanted to see what was beyond the Fringes. I believed that there was still a civilisation where everything was advanced in technology and there were no mutants. I thought there was a place where people could talk from far distances without seeing each other. We would’ve continued but we were running out of food and water so we had to turn around back towards Waknuk. One of our sailors began drinking seawater not knowing the effects of this. 3 others sailors died on board due to shock and fear of never seeing their family ever again. We were roughly 1 mile away from getting back to Waknuk when the sailor who had drank seawater became insane. He tried setting the ship on fire so we would go down with him when he died.
We never wanted to throw him overboard but there wasn’t any other option. Finally, our luck changed, we had exactly enough resources to get back to Waknuk without another person dying. As soon as we got back I was so excited and happy until I heard that my mother had died from a mutant attack. I had nothing left in Waknuk until I met your mother. The very next year you were born and named Charlie Axel.
React!