Chapter 50
The Flying Dutchman had long been known as a ship of gloom. A vessel drenched in sorrow, shrouded in myth and misery. Its crew—if they could still be called that—were nothing more than fragments of who they once were, sailors and pirates who'd sold their souls to Davy Jones, only to become a part of the ship itself. Twisted bodies, barnacled faces, voices that groaned like rusted hinges—this was the crew Elias now stood among.
But everything changed the day Elias stepped aboard.
At first, they watched him with hollow eyes, expecting him to crumble. No one remained human on the Dutchman for long. But Elias? He laughed in the face of despair. Quite literally.
On his first morning aboard, he strolled the deck whistling a sea shanty so loud it echoed like mockery off the dark waves. When one of the crew tried to scare him with a guttural growl, Elias clapped the creature on the back and said, "If you wanted to frighten me, mate, you'd need a bit more tentacle and a lot less breath."
They didn't know what to make of him.
He gambled with them using coins he'd whittled from driftwood. He stole Davy Jones's pipe when the captain wasn't looking, smoked it, and put it back—backwards. He told stories at night that made even the oldest spirits chuckle through cracked mouths. He insulted everyone and made them laugh while doing it.
Within days, the Dutchman wasn't the same.
The groans and moans turned to quiet chuckles. The deck that once reeked of death now echoed with half-forgotten melodies and loud arguments over poker games that Elias always cheated in.
He climbed the sails barefoot, danced with the wind, and called Davy Jones "Grandpa Tentacle" to his face. Every time the old captain threatened to rip out his tongue, Elias grinned wider and asked, "Which one of your fishy hands you gonna use, eh?"
But there was more than chaos behind Elias's laughter. He saw something in the crew. Broken men, yes. But not dead. Not yet.
He spoke to them one by one. Learned their names. Remembered their stories. He gave the faceless souls aboard the Dutchman something they hadn't had in years—hope.
They didn't need to rot forever.
One night, he stood at the bow, staring into the misty sea, a grin on his lips and a mug of stolen rum in hand. A crewman—once a great sailor from Spain, now covered in coral and crustacean skin—walked up beside him.
"You're different," the man rasped.
"I get that a lot," Elias replied. "Especially from old lovers and angry bartenders."
"Why do you laugh so much? This place... it's not meant for joy."
Elias took a swig and tilted his head back, letting the wind comb through his hair. "Because if I don't, this ship will swallow me whole. I laugh to remind it—and all of you—that I'm still human."
The man didn't say anything more. But the next day, he started to hum a tune while scrubbing the deck.
Davy Jones noticed, of course. He watched Elias from the shadows, trying to understand him. This wasn't what was supposed to happen. The Dutchman was meant to crush spirits, not revive them.
But Elias wasn't like anyone else.
By the end of that week, Elias had organized a makeshift party on deck. There was no music but the pounding of boots and the rhythmic slam of hands on old barrels. Elias danced, twirling through the undead like he belonged. He even convinced the Kraken to spit out a barrel of actual rum from a wrecked ship it had swallowed.
As he raised a toast to the night sky, his voice rang clear:
"To freedom, lads—even in hell!"
And for once, hell didn't feel so cold.
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