(№2.1)

You didn't think this was the end, did you now?

A myth never ends, friend, reader, it never stops existing in time or at least over history in general, as of course you can state a myth might be lost and gone and buried, as the people over centuries forgot to tell their descendants and they forgot to tell it to their children and children's children and so on, banished out of existence if not preserved on stone or protected papyrus similarly.

You thought the Ballad of the Skeleton Crew might be one of those lost sagas, a tale dispensed to the perilous hunting grounds, a story forgotten and exposed to the never-ending grounds of human failure and forgetfulness.

Maybe neglected, in human's ignorance, in pretending he must be the top-predator, standing above everything and every other species in the universe, the climbing apex, the glorifying sharp corner of a triangle.

Pathetic, I know.

At first, humanity had horribly paid for not seeing the majestic low shining ship coming close – but not too close – at a village or at any grand, prospering city, the crumbling outskirts of a faltering town, any residual dwellings breathing to pungent reality the hiss of life in one unfortunate second.

In fact, the humans were ever so generously granted hurricanes, cyclones or mysterious diseases popping out of nowhere, but anything was foretold by the Skeleton Crew.

They were filled with rage really, wanting to do more harm than good, the core of their live's bread which they did anyway but this time on righteous reason, perhaps destroying the world because of its changes, of never staying still or holding onto something precious as they were, purportedly failing to inform their grandchildren and generations to come still about a precarious Crew, coming to get them all. Erasure of history won't annul it automatically, and thus they'd be bound and trapped innocently just as their forth fathers, without expanded knowledge, without fearing loss and ruin, alas, what would perpetually fear and shake do to them but rapidly declining their lives and fraying their nerves? Knowing would do absolutely nothing for them, when it was too late and even if it wasn't; An oath eternal, is a creed promised.

Imagine the loveliest, most beautiful flower with radiant, enchanting blooms preserved forever into a cage of cold glass, truncated sudden from the forest, atwain ripped off its bed of fluffy moss and drops of refreshing rain, fed purified water and processed oxygen, eternally pretty and gorgeous, and always doomed, for her protections made her likely strong and vigorous, yet weak and meagre mutually, for never tranquillising and enriching nostrils with her sweet, fine scent or being pollinated by a bee or fly at the end of her days to carry more splendid flowers gifting to the future freeing smiles and calmness to anyone who passes. Ultimately decaying and passing away, the note of her fine perfumed scent transformed to smell bitter-sugary as her nostalgia of youth was, integrated in alacrity to give up her place for someone else, another flower, another hopeful seed, till no one remembered ever her short existence. Her spendings of idle days allayed mattered at any rate not, for when does plagued existence begin and hopeful life end?

The analogy was obvious and quite laughable. However, who were they to judge? What did they expect from humankind?

Eventually, they accepted the change reluctantly, being an invisible threat, the Foreteller of Death that nobody sees nor wanted to, really nothing after all beyond the light lurking in the shadows, to cross several towns and leave absolutely nothing behind, besides a ruined battlefield of incomprehensible slaughter.

It was proficient, being only an unknown phantom of something that once was admirable and feared to the same amount, perhaps going out here on a limb, they were quite worshipped, almost to the stead of gods one might add. Now being only the wraith, the core of ghost's stories, when villagers would gather together to tell them to themselves around a bonfire under the revealing moonlight, shocking and screaming, but laughing. Stories couldn't harm you, they kept repeating in fervent mantra, neither crawl out of the circled girdled frame, safely behind bars, it was only the essential monster of a man and the untamed animal that ought to.

Of course, currently they are the only ones to remember different times, times, when they ruled as the apex legend.

As we are to not know about the roots and their origins, truthfully not even the moon knew much about them and we ought to consider it lasted aeons longer before the prophecy of their attained existence, we can say it didn't begin in the enchanted, New World, but in the Old World, back in what we today mention as Europe, a place where mystery is nothing knew and stories are wept from moonlight and paranoia equally, several nautical miles away from the place that would honour them by burrowing their name.

In mediaeval times, far, far too early for people to think about the Earth and a World beyond theirs, accomplishments of the glorious times of the ancient world, long, oblonger ago when the Vikings originally sailed the Norths of America.

Back then, the fates of the people fared far worse than one could imagine ever now.

Back then, when magic and wonders were still real and as ubiquitous as rosy-fingered dawn and orange-blushing dusk, people see'd them as different types of things, perhaps not as imaginary as their neighbours in America will do, but nonetheless with some creativity, inspiration, in desperate cases spared even hope.

As the dark ship came, it didn't only warn the people of the Destruction following behind them, they brought it with themselves, they bestowed it willingly and with intent, purpose, unknown and arbitrary as it seemed regardless.

People rumoured among their crowds that they were in fact the cause, the real Bringer of Death. The Harbingers of Cruelty. The black squad, side of doom.

They had every right to think so, as when in deepest summer, once, at the Mediterranean Sea in Italy, the Ship was seen, albeit not only seen, unfortunately they were also heard by the romans, woken up in their sleep by divine melody and attracting rhythm, a symphony concocted under the garment of honeyed wine and gilt liquor, something responding from their within, their souls activated and brought to sound and hollow, echoing their thoughts and filling up with emotions, sensations of breathtaking depth, constructed out of stories of glass and light, foam made out of pearls and heavenly like gardens crowded with gardenias and love letters, sun and shadow, bathed in the moonlight, the width of uttermost meaning.

Smells only kings and queens were allowed to relish and have at it, it was like a spell, a trap and the bewitched villagers – like mice – couldn't withstand the gigantic, seductive piece of cheese right in front their greedy noses, lingering, a farce, a bait that would be most gladly accepted.

The huge conformity of the village – men, women, children alike – watched the calm, impressive ship in front of their cliffs and beaches, of style intricate and shape fabulous unparalleled to anything given breath and reason by a human hand yet, surrounded by magical blue light, spreading like a halo astray and thought it to be the most magnificent gift from the gods themselves. A conundrum to be found, the innuendo of bleak admiration in itself.

A sublime, perhaps monumental first show for Europe, certainly not their last epic concert, before the sweet, hungry darkness would claim their souls, as they sold and presented the villagers to the devil on a barren silver polished platter.

The citizens danced the whole night in awe, enjoying the show and the vibration of mystical sounds penetrating their skins, not feeling how the cold or dread was to fill their entire bodies, a last attempt of their conscience begging for rescue. The scattered smart afterwards would claim a last dying attempt of Jupiter to reach his people ineffectively and denied for sin had mingled with them that night, and temptation as she usually does, cannot be ignored at length by the feeble human condition.

Oh, how they didn't listen.

Or maybe they did and decided for opaque disregard.

As always, when it was time to hurry, the ship scurried straight on the horizon, opposed to the ken where light sleepily flickered and illuminated the young water in laved colours of humble morning, green-bluish yellow, softly mellow as goat's butter and perfectly blending in with the darkness, the people applauding spectacularly after their departure, feeling satisfaction and contentedness of the players mingling in the air.

The Skeleton Crew really was lecherous and hungering for any opportunity of dramatic exit they could grasp, craving the applause equally as what was to consequently follow, the exulting sighs and fatigue full yawns as aftermath appreciating.

They had no idea what they just encountered.

They had no idea what was to happen.

They were oblivious who had struck yet again and proven to be efficient.

Not that it would matter much more now.

The next morning, a boy too young to be stated as mature, safely yet afar from being a man, yet not anymore a child either, woke up with cold limbs, skin bumpy like a freshly plucked goose's ones and a feeling something wasn't right, but crooked. Bent. Warped. Wrong. Destroyed.

It resurfaced again, last night, the pleasantly plaguing memory of a feast, featured by a stranger's boat, coming in the middle of the night with these...tunes and these melodies, fair airs of newer times, glimpses of unprecedented heaven, entering his mind and whispering delectable things in his ears, lies.

He felt careless, in control, invincible, as everything could happen now to them, to his family, to his town and as a unit they'd fought it down like elated roman soldiers.

The mere souvenir of the previous night made his stomach feel sick, counteractive to his excitement and pairing him with chills running down his spine in delicate, daring ellipses.

How wrong he had been.

The boy tilted his head.

Every plant around him was burnt and crumbled to ash.

Only a fine form, a perfect circle, as round as inflated baby cheeks – where he had lain was spared, the bright green colour in this place of Death almost not looking appropriate, too emerald, too tender, even more saturated, too alive, not belonging to this desert here.

The boy stood up with horror in his eyes, turning and screaming as every tree was crumbled to dust, piles in greyish sad hues, ranking palms above him, gloomy, blackened leaves sadly fallen about and around like tears shed by the gods from heaven.

In contrast, the sky was dyed in that amazing blue colour you'd only see shortly after dawn neatly of clouds and reminiscent smoke, the sun only visible through small spaces in the bushes.

The blackened, scorched bushes. Falling apart as the wind calmly shook them.

And to his most startling conclusion, everyone was gone. He was all alone in a battlefield where fires had rummaged and engulfed every living. The walls of his dwelling, gone, spread with the wind astray, as he had not even a close grasp where he regained his horrid consciousness.

Everyone he loved was gone and even those who he duly despised, ridden off the face of earth for good.

His stomach dropped down his feet and cold sweat broke, all fired through his pumping, hectic heart, fluttering in fright and dread, as if the flames were somewhere hidden and waiting for him too, devouring him from the very inside.

The boy ran to the end of the cliff, but the Sea looked normal in the morning light, too perfect, too innocent, an immaculate mirror mimicking the endless azure colour of flawless sky, for the terror that had happened before dawn, him sleeping through like a newborn. A rocky sleep it was. And yet, and yet.

His hands mechanically massaged his head, trying to most likely rip every strand of brown, curly hair off his troubled head. He gulped his despair in quickening fashion, shuddering with suppressed tears and singed screams burning in his throat, yet none of which he could display.

Yet the tale was not over, not now.

He should better spare this precious water, for entire waterfalls he will weep, just wait.

According to cruel, gesturing intuition, he knew where he had to look. At the beach, right where Sea and Land met and their influence sufficed the most. Where abhorrent horror could more easily pass between the eyes of the watchful gods, for this was a new, exciting evil.

He didn't know how, but there he would apparently find the truth.

He was only an innocent boy and perhaps that's why they saw fit to make him the messenger of their crimes, why the Skeleton Crew spared him, someone who wasn't at all important, someone now to be burdened with the heaviest cargo there is to carry.

He raced and raced through the dead forest, attempting not to collapse as his heart aimed to become one with his ribs, daring for that rendered quite difficult to jump out and relieve him also to the cool pooling peace of the underworld, his cheeks reddened to keep pace, so fast and prudent not to crash with a rotten tree, a portion thereof the olden mediterranean forest still standing, bark solidified like magma shocked to lava, stinking of death and decay, eager to pass him the illness as well.

He reached the beach too soon, almost fully blinded by the rising sun and plunging in the peaky sand knee-first, for his shins simply couldn't support him no longer and trembling with intensity unmatched.

The boy had never been scourged by dread, not really. Hurt by his angered mother in the face of only the most dire misdemeanour, whereas untouched still of any agony to become his reality.

That's when he spotted the imposing cliffside, the bit he could not see, when standing right on top, the one he had peaked from to see the Sea and musing about its indifference. He had not looked to gaze at what was dangling from these rocketed walls.

He wished he wouldn't have looked still.

And yet and yet, perhaps he had gone mad immersed in oblivion.

He wished he would be dead and pulverised to finest face powder his mother used to avail in treating darling smudges, just like the blind and silent trees around him, witnesses with the incapability of mouthing to any other living soul.

It was awful, simply macabre, treaded, spun from his nightmare to turn to atrocious truth.

They left a message for him, these strangers, a message for all mankind.

He blinked a few times to realise and wished, he wouldn't have understood the picture, that he could continue to live in the sweet unknowing.

Knowledge was priced by his parents and teachers, a famed, important thing to crave and cultivate.

Everything had its limit and he could attest he found his, the extent he comfortably could yearn for.

All the people from the town were nailed on the colossal rock with obsidian spikes the size of fists, hiding in the darkness as horror always lurked there within, deposited at its place where it must. The details swam and blurred his view. He was thankful, for a glimpse sufficed a lifetime.

Horror demanded the victims, his friends and family to join the shadows, become saturnine fiends and to wait patiently in the dark like the dead did, to haunt the living.

Maybe it was for the better that he didn't behold all the details; Otherwise, he might die on the spot and couldn't be the one to live a miserable life in solitude, couldn't be the one to remember and tell everyone about it, wouldn't be the one to smart under rains of rancid memories gone bad, turning and steaming under the spell of terrible night paralyzation, about how his existence had been.

Blood, simply everywhere he gazed through hushed tears. The spikes ripped open skin, tore their bodies apart to let it be a grotesque image, the self-portrait of Death itself.

Something speaking for itself, mighty enough so it was clearly understood.

Limbs, grossly tangled together, heads decorating empty spaces where they could, cleanly severed.

Yet it was not quite casual. In the first moments of shock, the boy thought even to remember the form being something specific, something he had seen before, a depicted picture of something normally wholesome and pretty, now contorted to belong forever to the dark side.

A message from the painters to the outer world, saying they are coming, and if not coming they had already arrived, elevated from the abysm itself.

A few mutilated legs and arms lay motionless on the bottom of it, of the mere terror, the waves have yet to reach and clean the crime scene, crimson rocks and crimson sand carnation only furthermore.

The sweet dreams would beset and upset more than the nightmares of the field of corpses, arranged to this haunting image, with eyes gashing upon and nailed to their eye-brows, all staring down at him in the most tantalising manner of all time, some with mouths wide open to breathe a word about the quiet murderers, yet silenced by exactly those, their secret safe and untold.

In their religion, it was considered a disgrace to be born blind. Now in retrospect, opposed to experiencing shame or basest, jolting butchery, it didn't seem so vilely shameful after all.

After ten seconds, the boy started screaming so loud, he felt his lungs bursting and himself exploding in the sky, hopefully reaching heaven and achieving a whole recovery under Jupiter's and Juno's merciful eyes, perhaps being reunited with his family in the underworld, ridden of that abhorred image which inevitably more and more burned itself on his lenses, so he might never walk the earth and sail those water's a second without in raring tow.

Instead he was very much alive and should discover he wasn't the only one.

As he screamed, a woman at the end of the barbarity, forming a large column with other women, but with the difference of her bottom half to be missing, entrails pouring out of her gashing wound woke up, shook her head and tuned in with the yells, crying to the boy at the beach to help her, her remaining hand smeared with blood and other fluids, waving like crazy, even with her wrist being pinned to the rock.

A last trickling flame, actually dead around a ring of sleeping corpses.

That was too much for the boy.

The strangers had pinned them on the stone when they were still alive.

He couldn't exactly say who the woman was and if he'd had known her, if it was even his own mother or sister from that poised, thankful distance, but his frozen features observing only in horror and frozen to remain until final eradication, as soon, the weak hand sprinkled with blood went lifeless and the head of the woman along with it.

That was when the boy ran under cries and tears away from the village and once comforting familiarities, leaving his family behind, having only the death of the woman playing over and over in his head, a cruel reminder, accelerator for him to hasten should they follow him.

Another soul lost.

It was obvious that the Skeleton Crew only let him live to warn other villages, let one live to talk about their achievements and glory gained in the dirty art of bloodletting.

And eminent and crucial they soon were.

Everyone was whispering about the odd blue ship, who occupied it and from what Godforsaken spot said crew crawled out of. Why their respective gods didn't intervene and have them suffer at the claws of demons no one taught them to discern.

The boy who survived made it until Rome, to under his last breaths and tears told the story about the nameless Crew, the blue ship, the seducing music and the gruesomeness to invariably follow, screaming and telling the story over and over again, sensing how his heart was pierced numbly repeatedly, as if his village was to die over and over again with each revolting, wretched narration. Yelling and rasping the tale how his village was slaughtered in cold, ironic sadism, until his voice resembled mere the final guttural croaks of a crow exiting this plane, seconds before with maddening, pleading eyes, seeking and finding a fountain of wealthy splendour to drown himself under the gazes of the abundant worried citizens of Rome, not able to live with the encumbrance of what he'd seen, joining his family at last.