"A lack of transparency results in distrust and a deep sense of insecurity."
~Dalai Lama
When we enter the lights are on, but as we wait for something to happen the lights start flickering. It reeks the odor of fish and salt making it almost unbearable to breath. Rust, mold, and spider webs can be found in every single, little corner. Broken chairs and tables are covered by at least one inch of dust. It was exactly like an old warehouse except for a spiral staircase that looked as if it would crumble any moment. Back when I was younger I was asked to describe a warehouse and my response was the following, “A warehouse is a big space to store items, big or small. It has a lot of room but it is limited. Warehouses are usually are old, deserted, and … I’d like to mention that if you are making a horror movie have the character trapped in the locked, dark, shrieking, warehouse.” Though no one shows it, we all can tell that not only was something fishy going on (and it wasn’t the rotten fish in the corner), but we were all scared.

There is no other option than to stay here until we could get help. We search and search so much, we go up and down the spiral. Nothing! No one! Yet somehow, I can sense the presence of someone here; someone hiding.

"It's easy to impress me. I don't need a fancy party to be happy. Just good friends, good food, and good laughs. I'm happy. I'm satisfied. I'm content."
~Maria Sharapova
I follow my instinct and yell to the sailors, “Everyone, Listen up! I know someone’s got to be here! I can feel it. Let’s split up… maybe the person’s hurt and needs our help,” I start, “One! Two! Three! Break!” We all go in different directions, searching and searching.
I don’t like searching. Yet I’m looking left, right, up, down, north, south, and every other direction when I hear a coughing high-pitched sound. This is a sound I was hoping not to hear when we split up.
A scream.
Was it of my crewmen or was it of the person I sensed? Either way, someone is gone; dead.

"Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness."
~Carl Jung
I’m following the direction of the cry for help, in the form of a screechy, high-pitched voice, when I see a group of my crew huddled around with a look of shock and fright on their faces. I push through and laying there in the middle of a pool of blood, with an opened slash going down from his right shoulder to his left hip is a motionless body. My eyes open wide as I realize what has happened. I touch the cold hard, and rough neck. It was not breathing… dead.
I couldn’t stop myself from letting out a tear. A tear lead to tears. Tears lead to crying. Crying lead to sobbing. Sobbing lead to weeping. What I see is an unbearable sight that I will never forget as long as I live. My comrade, buddy, partner, sidekick, best friend, and little brother, vice-captain Jimmy… is dead.

"A hungry soul will do anything for even a bite of food."
~zanze_writer
(Ten years earlier)
“There he is,” the store owner calls, “catch that thief!” A young poor child running for his life with cabbage in his hand. The store owner is big and buff, a real tough guy. The kid is really fast, but not fast enough; the store owner is slowly, yet steadily, catching up. The little boy’s legs were giving up on him. He is cornered. I wish I could help him but I’m only 12, a few years older than he is.
The store owner is going to beat the child, without the time to think, I jump in front and get a fist full of anger to the face. We are cornered at the end of a mountain-hill, but as I am punched, the power drove me off the edge.

"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall."
~Confucius
Unable to stop myself I go tumbling down. The twigs and trees scratching up my body, the dirt staining my clothes, the coldness of the water in a river I land in, is all making me suffer. I was already in a bad position! Left without my family, alone, with not a single soul to care for me or my wounds. In the distance I can hear a voice “No! Are you alright!” Though, there is another voice too, “That shabby kid got in my way and saved you, but no one, and nothing can help you now,” it yells laughing, “Woah! Hey! You! Where you going?”
With the sight, I barely still have, I can faintly see the child crawling through the trees and twigs, then running down the hill; running to me. I can hear the footsteps approaching me when I saw light. Was this the end? Was my tale already over?

"The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living."
~Marcus Tullius Cicero
(One week later)
I wake up and I’m lying in a bed made out of hay and a pillow filled with feathers. Standing there, looking straight at me, is a little boy. It seems as if I know this kid. He has dirty-blond hair and brownish-green eyes. There is a look of sorrow on his face. I start to shiver as I can feel something freezing me. Was I no more? Had I met my maker?
“Excuse-me are you alright old child?” the boy asked. Now I remember I had tumbled down falling through the thorns and stabbing twigs. On me was something cold, but it was not death; it was ice to heal my life-robbing wounds. Next to me lay a bowl of salad with the cabbage the child stole. I could just taste the sweet taste of luxurious vegetables. I even may have drooled.
“What’s your name?” I question the little boy.
“Jimmy”

"Loneliness is my least favorite thing about life. The thing that I'm most worried about is just being alone without anybody to care for or someone who will care for me."
~Anne Hathaway

(Present time)
The unacceptable sight forces me to lose consciousness and tumble over onto my comrades. The last thing I hear is a mob of voices coming from the crew, nervously crying for help: “No, Captain! Not you too! Please don’t leave us! I’m begging you! We can’t survive without you! Quickly put him down to rest!”
Now, all that I can see is dark. All that I can hear is my thought. Yet, all that I can remember is getting closer and closer to slipping away and taking a permanent vacation.
Jimmy…Jimmy…Jimmy…Jimmy…Jimmy… is gone… forever.

“I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.”
~ William Churchill
I’ve woken, yet, instead of being in a world of angels and happiness, I’m in the life-threatening lighthouse. It was dark, with a smell of salt and sweat what a horrible smell. Why couldn’t I have just been in the better place? Why must I stay in this, this, this, monstrous palace.
I was trapped. Unable to escape. No way out, from the darkness or the…
Murder.

"Here we are, trapped in the amber of the moment. There is no why."
Kurt Vonnegut
I let out everything that I have in my mind in the form of a cry, a shriek, a howl; I scream and run out to leave. Once I’m out on the porch I see the waves engulfing the lighthouse. It’s making me shiver; the piercing wind and the the sight of the waves. I flinch and sprint back in. There is madness everywhere I go! Nowhere to get a chance to stop and think. Only mayhem. I only have one question…
Should I…
… Escape the Lighthouse or the Storm?

"Everyone is slowly catching on to this one…"
~Jamie Bell
(Five hours later)
Five more of my sailor crew are gone.

One gone every hour.

I’m down to six, not including me.

What is this place?

We’ll die no matter where we go.

"Everyone wants to learn the same thing from painful situations: how to avoid repeating them."
Gary Zukav
(Five hours later)
Five more of my sailor crew are gone.

One gone every hour.

I’m down to one, not including me.

What is this place?

We’ll die no matter where we go.

“What can everyone do? Praise and blame. This is human virtue, this is human madness.”
~Friedrich Nietzsche
Someone is attacking us, a monster, with every chance it gets. Lurking through the shadows of the night it takes us out one by one. Is it one of my own or is it the person here. The one I sensed? The one that departed my men. The one that killed Jimmy. Whoever the murderer is he or she must have had a motive for attacking us in particular. Was it because we entered the lighthouse without permission? Maybe we trespassed on private property and it’s all my fault. I’m the one who led them into this death dungen and led them to their horrifying deaths!

"Sometimes it's the smallest decisions that can change your life forever.”
~Keri Russell
I decide to stay with my last sailor now that I understand the pattern. His name is Drake and he is the strongest, tallest, bravest of all, except me. Whoever the monster is, it is picking us off from most fragile, to unbreakable. So I decide along with Drake to stick together so that it will be two versus one. We are an unstoppable duo. My intelligence compliments his bravery and we are both strong enough to hit a one punch knock-out.
“My mind in paralyzed,” Drake whispers, “all our friends, no, family have been slaughtered right in front of us! This is chaos. All we wanted was to go for one last boating trip before returning to our family for the winter. Why?”
“Drake I understand you but let us stay focused on living and we can sort it out later.” I told him trying not to show panic in my voice. This is it. The time has come.

"Life was always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act.”
~Paulo Coelho
(One hour later)
We are waiting. Waiting for the murderer. Waiting to be attacked. Waiting.
We are ready, ready for the murderer. Ready to leave this madness. Ready.
I’m nervous. For what? I think you can guess. The time approaches for us to be our strongest. Our fastest. Our bravest. We wait and wait.

"I do like to shock and surprise people. When it's all in good fun, of course.”
~Ruth Warrick
Silent. Expecting to hear a noise. But nothing. No noise and no death. At least for now. As the minutes pass we let down our guard, little by little, until we are completely relaxed. Worrying less and less.
The sun has nearly come up, and I tentatively walk out to see if it is serene and the waves have calmed. Perfect, time to leave this world of madness. I get the boat ready to sail and call to Drake to get on the ship from the dock when I hear a boom and a shriek. I turn around and look behind me. My last one. Another slash, but on the back, straight down. Piled in a pool of blood was a man whom I trusted many times with my life. Crouching over the pale turning body of Drake was a short monster in the shape of a human.
An old man in which I recognise…

“The most important influence in my childhood was my father.”
~DeForest Kelley
“Dad?” I call in shock unable to wrap my mind around the surprise of a lifetime.

"Nothing is impossible, the word itself says 'I'm possible'!”
~Audrey Hepburn
My own father! How could he, he, he… be… alive? The fire! It burned… him! “IT’S IMPOSSIBLE! HOW? WHY?” I scream terrified.
He replies, “‘Nothing is impossible the word itself says I’m possible’ Isn’t that what you used to say?”

"The paradox is, I can't miss the good things about my father while he is alive, but I will of course miss him... when he is dead."
~Sandra Tsing Loh
(Sixteen years earlier)
A blazing fire starts from a prank. Kids burn a tree down and run but what they don’t expect is that one little tree to burn down a forest, which it does. At the time, with the city’s budget needing more money, almost NOTHING could take down the fire! The trees not only burn down the forest but, burn down its surrounding cities and villages, including ours.
My daddy was a natural born hero; he marches right into the fire to put it out, thought alone that is impossible. “You can do it Daddy!” I yell remembering to have faith in him “Nothing is impossible the word itself says I’m possible!”
He never came out.
Never.

"Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.”
~William James
(Present time)
“Who, what, where, why, when and how?” I scream, “How can you be alive! No my first question is why did you kill all my comrades?” I am shocked and unable to move. The only emotion I can feel is surprise tied into anger and suspicion.
“It was for your own good” he tells me. “I don’t like those people because they were too stupid to understand that if they separate they will die. Especially that first one, such a fragile boy it was. It must have been hard for you to be all these years with it. See I took extra weight off your back!”
There is a moment of silence, and then I whisper,“You’re not my dad.”
“YES I AM! My wife gave birth to you. I raised you! I am your father”
“My dad is, I meant was, a hero and many times put his life on the line to save someone. Anyone. Once he even sacrificed his life to take out a fire. That is not your character description; I will not believe that you are my dad, you…you…you imposturous monster!”

"We don't develop courage by being happy every day. We develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity."
~Barbara de Angelis
(One month later)
Dear Journal,
It’s very lonely without Jimmy around. I don’t have much to do! I sold my ship for money and yeah, that’s about it. I don’t know what I want to do with my life ,though,. I did meet a nice person today. Dirty blond hair and green eyes. As for my so called “Father” I haven’t seen him since he went to attack me. Believing every word I said he got angry and divide to stab me, but it was too late. I let go of the ropes tying together the post and the ship and the waves carried me away. I swear I could hear them say, “I’m sorry you had to go through all of this because I was in a bad mood. You’ve had enough pain, you do not need any more. Good bye! Hope I don’t see you soon in this area!” Those are the words it spoke. I must leave for I have a funeral to attend to.
Sincerely,
Me, but filled with sorrow.