Chapter 1: Between Time, Space, and Everything Else.

Excerpts from Coran’s Medical Logs:

The wounded sailors seemed less annoyed since the Atlantian feline visited the ship but their wounds are severe and are not healing normally. Their wounded bodies seem to be as disoriented as the mind of the crew now trapped in a timeless space pocket. Day and night blend one into the other with no direct sunlight, but the glow of the ships lights only. It had many losing track of time. Exhaustion has started showing within the ranks of the crew including myself and our captain. Using the pulse count of the Leviathan’s engine, we have reestablished a time measurement system to help the crew get rest while the captain has been meticulously examining the entire ship. Lockey’s Lemurian biology and psychology had her pushing herself harder than even she could survive without going a little mad forcing me to have her spend a night every few days in the infirmary to rest. As the ships doctor, I, Coran, could not allow our captain Lockey going mad while strictly forcing our crew to sleep in proper cycles. Best I define our present condition both physically and mentally since getting trapped in this null space.

Physical Status of the Leviathan’s Crew:

A quarter of the crew was injured prior to the rift from battles that had erupted in the harbour of Lemuria when the earthquake hit their city. Another half was assaulted by the dancing sword and scythe from the brothers Twin and Cor once we were sucked into the null space. This second round of wounds were much worse but none of the wounds seemed to be closing or healing at all since that moment. A handful should have died from their wounds but we have no deaths upon the ship so far including the ones wounded without any signs of improvement. Oddly this has not changed the moral nor the energy of our amazing crew. Physical exhaustion due to the lack of a proper day to night cycle is the next growing problem that we hope we can fix with the pulse counts of the Leviathan’s engine as a time piece.

Mental Status of the Leviathan’s Crew:

The emotional stress of floating in what can only be seen as nothingness has the crew tense daily. This has lead to many becoming mentally exhausted from this constant stress of the nothingness around us. The lack of a properly developed sleep patterns has not help alleviate this constant tension upon the crew. Nearly all the crew has been asking for sleeping aids because the tension has lead to insomnia, troubling dreams, and simply poor sleep. Issues like false visions, phantom voices, and odd sensations that our sailors cannot explain, has also risen which could be caused by the mental and physical exhaustion, the heightened level of stress, or something of this null space we presently travel within. I am still hoping that the engine pulse time piece will help reducing some of these mental issues plague our ship.

State of our Captain Lockey:

Our captain’s physical and mental resilience from her Lemurian heritage is being taxed by this mental stress affecting the whole crew. She is too often ignoring sleep even with our pulsing time piece functioning properly. I must note that since the feline’s visit she has been more closed to the crew including myself as she pours over schematics of the engine and every other device we have on board looking for a way out of this nothingness back into our own world. This action shows more than any of her few words to us that her ship and crew comes first and saving us outweighs her own health.

This devotion to all of us, though touching, must not be allowed to harm her. We, her devoted crew, will not let her sacrifice herself alone to save us and our ship. The longer we remain here the worse it will be on all of us making it a priority to all to support our captain and work together to save ourselves. Captain Lockey has been kept on a leash by the crew to assure she gets the rest she need by forcing her to spend a night, by force if needed, within the medical bay under a direct watchful gaze of myself personally.

Excerpts from the Captain’s Logs of the Leviathan:

I still do not fully understand what happened to dump us into this empty place even with the cat’s explanation. I have reviewed everything but without a reference point, we cannot simply open a rift back into our world. This has me ready to attempt simply opening a passage to one of the multiple ghost spaces detected by the Leviathan’s sensors. I call them ghosts because the reading I am seeing has them as foreign a place as where we now sit. I had once discussed with Melchia about the concept of multiple dimensional spaces existing beside our own. I had brought that subject up with him during one of his solo trips after he had established himself in Atlantis to explain the rift beasts we faced.

He had admitted to me that it was a possibility based only on how the many possible timelines exist at the same time nearly side by side. This minor revelation lead to a full night of discussions leading to the possibility of using our rift engine to jump between timelines and dimensions that existed butting along ours. The only problem he had mentions was finding a way to leave a beacon to show us the way back into our world. This was the event that I believe would eventually happen to show us the way back home. This hope had faded as more time passed in this nothingness seeing ghost dimensions, hearing whispers from the nothingness, seeing unreal visions of other ships passing within this space while not registering on our sensors. I could not ignore the affects staying was having upon my crew and needed to get them out of it.

This lead me to a very dangerous and risky plan of rifting into the next ghost dimensions that was compatible with our kind. I was not exactly sure I could accomplish this feat but had to risk it for my crew and ship. Too many foreign ghost worlds that I could not assure my crew’s survival had me holding back using the combination of the retrieval beam and engine rifting abilities so far. I waited and watched trying to find a pattern in the cycling ghosts dimensions, false visions, and whispers to find a path to take before my ship and crew truly succumbed to the madness of existing in nothingness.

Excerpts from the Leviathan’s Tactical Officer:

I, Demascus from the dark continent of the Africanas, sit in the main gunnery post with an empty log book sitting before me. I must admit that I went without harm during the conflict in the harbour of Lemuria nor during the animated weapons of the brothers upon the Leviathan. Coran, our ship’s doctor, suggested I logged my impressions to help me keep a tight hold on my sanity within this nowhere place. I must admit I doubted it would help which is why it took so long for me to put quill to paper.

So many oddity have been witness while in this nothingness while I continue targeting the phantasm that would appear like ephemeral things. My duty was to be ready to fire upon these things if they seemed to be turning to attack us. One of these had veered to cross at a point to nearly touch our hull which had me pulling the trigger to fire upon it. Our projectile glided through it without causing damage as if they did not touch. I tracked the projectile I fired hoping it would connect to this target where ever it truly existed. Nothing but seeing the projectile floating off into the nothingness we were sailing within.

I never bother firing again after this knowing it was a pointless action. Our helmsmen had started changing our course that felt pointless while these phantom things, that some appeared ship like, could not be touched nor touch us in this null space. I find myself wishing that our feline friend had stayed to explain what those things were or from where the whispers came from. We sailed avoiding to collide with the ghost ships while the captain decided how we will escape from this. I had no doubt in my mind and heart that she would find a way to return us to a friendly port. I did not take her silence around us a bad sign believing her mind was being consumed by thoughts of rescuing us from this place.

Wounds that did not heal, men and woman fatally wounded remaining alive, and the whispers had me more worried than I could admit to Coran or captain Lockey. I feared that those fatally injured would simply die once we entered back into reality. Losing any members of our crew at this time felt too dangerous to our moral or, maybe, just my own moral in following the captain for this long. Something about this ship had me seeing others in the world dying while we remained alive and younger than our true age. I had heard that this was normal in both Atlantis and Lemuria to seemingly live forever which could be why we who sail upon the Leviathan never appear to age.

I must note more about the whispers themselves since it is what seems the most directly affecting us in this place. I had tried speaking with Coran about it but he felt it was due to our physical and mental exhaustion more than a real risk but this does not sit well within my heart. The whispers are more than hearing half spoken words from the nothingness which could be an auditory illusion. I could track the whispers to a physical point even if nothing stood there. Secondly, the whispers seemed to be truly speaking to us and among themselves as well. From my research and discussion with my shipmates, it appeared to be less than a half dozen voices heard upon our ship.

Quick short warning, soft calming words, and, at time, simple advice whispered by these five distinct voices. It did feel like actual ghost riding on the Leviathan with us since they had only started once we crossed into this place. This was not a sign of potential madness growing within the crew, in my point of view. This was assistance from something that watched over us nearly protectively like the guardian angels of the Leviathan during its darkest moment.

“She is ready to make her move.” a whispering breath of a voice filled the space I sat within still writing while glancing through the sights of my weapon. The sudden lurch under me and tremors of the engine coming fully to life had me sitting more stiffly in my seat. I brought up the images of the front and back sections of my side of this ship readying to target anything that became real and could threaten this ship. At the edge on my restricted vision, I saw the space warping and shimmering while the helmsman lead us directly at this breach we had caused to manifest.

“Not the right trail but better than here.” a second voice whispered nearly in my right ear. I did not turn to look at what I knew would be empty space behind me. I froze as I felt hands upon my shoulder grasping them tightly prevent me from moving from my seat. “No target but land will be what you find.” that second voice added in the same quiet and personal whisper at my left ear.

“What are you?” I asked softly in a trembling voice. No answer came as the wave of the rifting space washed over me. I hazarded a glance at my shoulder to see a three fingered metallic hand holding onto me for but a shadow of a moment before it was gone. The grasp released me while no sound was heard in my enclosed post. Was that real or just another phantasm that showed I was touched with madness. My eyes returned to the viewing portals.

“Land to port side, captain!” I screamed into the communication tube beside my seat. I heard the verification sounding from the crow’s nest and the command to head for this piece of reality upon an oddly grey coloured sea. More comments about the oddness of the water and the blackish landmass that we sailed towards before our captain’s voice cut in to call for silence.