In the belly of that forsaken alley, there I lay—a fragile heap of fur and bone, discarded like yesterday’s trash, abandoned and left to rot. The stench of decay clung to the air. The living mingled with the dead. Some of my siblings were already stiff with the chill of death, their tiny bodies rigid in their final repose. Others, who were less fortunate, writhed under the assault of worms and maggots, their misery prolonged by the cruel hand of fate. And there, among them, I… I was a pitiful creature, trembling on the very precipice of oblivion.

  A hand reached down, gentle was its touch and plucked me from the muck as if I were some treasure buried in the mire. I was bathed in warm waters that washed away the filth of the world and the vermin that sought to devour me. Once I was cleaned, dried, and brushed, my carers would remark in awe that each strand of my fur resembled a golden thread, banded and interwoven in shades of the earth—cinnamon, tawny, and fawn—blending together, much like the undulating dunes beneath a blazing sun.

  They cradled me tenderly, holding me close in their arms or settling me in a cozy box lined with soft blankets. My empty belly was filled with the warmth of sweet milk, and with each drop, the life that had nearly escaped me was coaxed back, breath by breath.

  Aboard the NOAH 1 ship, my place was not among the ranks of those who command or navigate the vast seas. No, my duty was of a gentler sort, though no less important. I was to bring solace to the weary, to comfort the brokenhearted, to be a balm for the soul in a world where such comforts were as scarce as a sailor's star in a storm.

  And so, from the filth, I was reborn—not merely to live, but to serve, to be a small, warm light in the cold darkness that so often surrounds us. They christened me–Page–a name fit for a service animal. In my simple existence, I found a purpose far greater than myself, for in the quiet company of those who suffered, I became their lifeline, their hope in a world that had forgotten the meaning of the word.

  Despite my best efforts, not everyone could be saved from the depths of their own despair. When such tragedies unfolded, they didn’t pass by like fleeting shadows of clouds; instead, they lodged deep within me, cutting through me like a sword. Failure was no small burden—it clung to me like a leaden anchor, dragging me into dark waters that threatened to engulf me for weeks on end.

  Sarah Kelping from Suite 4, a mother of three children and the wife of a lost sea scavenger, approached me with a bowl of mashed tuna.

  I’d been in the sitting room, listening to the faint sounds of her tucking the children into bed. When she stepped out of their room, I couldn’t help but notice something unusual. She wore her emerald green dress, the one she’d worn the day she last saw her husband, and her hair was carefully pinned up in a bun.

  By this hour, she was usually in her nightgown, a flowing robe loosely tied around her. Her long brown hair, typically pinned up in a tight bun during the day, would be undone, cascading softly down her back. After putting the children to sleep, she’d pause to give me a little treat before retiring to her room. Was she going out? To meet a friend for a rare evening stroll? Or would she join the birthday celebration in the ballroom, where voices and laughter echoed through the ship?

  She knelt beside me, resting her chin on her knee, a faint smile touching her lips but never reaching her tired brown eyes. I sensed her sorrow, though it was not something that could be measured by touch, smell, or sight. I felt it more keenly than I could describe—an ache, a tightening of the chest that made each breath a struggle against the invisible chains of melancholy.

  The tuna’s familiar and tempting scent reached my nostrils, yet I found no joy in it. What was once a delight to my senses now felt like an impossible task. My appetite had shrunk in the face of the sorrow that permeated the room. As I nibbled at the offering, each bite a struggle, a somber realization settled over me: there was nothing more I could do to ease her pain.

  No matter how many times I nuzzled my head against her hand or licked her cheek with gentle affection, even the soothing rumble of my purr—once a balm for troubled hearts—seemed powerless against the depth of her grief.

  The only solace I could offer her was to follow her, silently, to the promenade deck. A handful of figures roamed the deck, savoring the cool serenity of the night, their footsteps barely more than whispers. Meanwhile, within the warm confines of the ship, others were enjoying themselves, their laughter rising in boisterous bursts, a cheer of camaraderie mingling with the resonant clatter of pint glasses colliding in shared toasts.

  As she drew closer to the ship's rail, I took a step back, a sense of impending doom rising within me. Something was terribly wrong. Disaster was waiting just beyond the edge.

  She gripped the rail, her knuckles white against the iron, and with a final, haunting smile cast in my direction, she vaulted over the edge. In an instant, she vanished into the abyss, leaving me alone in the stillness of the night. Screams mingled with the roar of the waves as a small crowd ran toward the rail where Sarah had stood moments before.

  Sarah's three children—Sam, aged eight, Joe, twelve, and Anne, ten—lay in their beds, their cheeks still flushed with the warmth of life. At a glance, they seemed to be just simply asleep, the soft rise and fall of breath only just missing from their small, still forms. But as I drew closer, the awful truth revealed itself: they were gone.

  Only hours earlier, I had played with them in the playroom reserved for the children of NOAH 1. Sam had darted about, giggling as he made me chase after a stick with a fake mouse tethered to it by a string. Joe, full of boyish energy, had engaged in a spirited game of pickleball with another boy his age, while Anne, ever the quiet observer, sat on the sidelines with a book in hand, occasionally turning a page. That was today—now, as I stared at their lifeless forms, it felt like a memory from a lifetime ago.

  Captain Francis, accompanied by petty officer Alan and a steward, gently lifted me from where I lay on Joe’s chest and passed me to Alan, a dark-haired young woman who often fed me and allowed me to call her suite my own and sleep beside her on her bed. Then, Francis ordered the steward to fetch the doctor and the body bags, for the children's bodies would soon need to be removed, and the suite sealed off.

  The news of Mrs. Kelping’s fatal jump reached the captain quickly. The lively celebration in the ballroom faltered, confusion rippling through the crowd before falling into shocked stillness.

  “Why rob the children of life?” Francis said softly, his voice breaking, his hand over his bearded face. “Sarah committed a damnable act. Such selfishness—it’s unthinkable.”

  He stood motionless by one of the children's beds, staring down at the body in stunned disbelief, while Alan lowered herself into a chair, gently settling me onto her lap.

  “She left a note,” Alan replied quietly, lifting a folded letter from the desk, her other arm cradling me.

  “Read it.”

  I peered at the letter, curious to know of Sarah’s final thoughts. The paper was not fashioned from the bark of trees, as in the days of old—trees had long since vanished from our desolate world. Instead, the note was crafted from the stretched and dried skin of fish, and the words upon it had been inscribed in the deep black of squid ink, applied with the sharpened tip of a fishbone.

  Alan began to read the letter, her hands trembling slightly, her voice faltering as she tried to keep her composure:

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  To whoever finds this letter,

  Seven hundred days have passed since the day Louis and his scavenger crew were due to return home. I know the rule of thumb states that after three years, a scavenger crew or anyone else lost at sea can be safely presumed dead.

  They may very well return at any moment between now and then, for it’s possible for scavengers to lose their way in this vast, volatile sea world—so unforgiving, so hostile to us all! But that knowledge offers little comfort to a wife and her children. I had hoped the pain would ease with time, that each day might bring a sliver of peace. But I was wrong. It grows more unbearable, the weight of it sinking my soul deeper and deeper into nothingness. I often wonder if there’s a bottom to this despair, or if I’ll continue to fall forever.

  Please extend my gratitude to Officer Alan, who offered us some comfort by sharing an epic poem she had learned as a child. It was the tale of a man who, after ten years of battle as a soldier, became lost at sea and found himself swept into strange and wondrous adventures as he sought his way home. Meanwhile, his wife and son waited faithfully for his return, the wife fending off suitors as she remained true to her one and only.

  After twenty long years, the family was finally reunited. This story captivated the children, lifting their spirits, and, for a brief time, it eased my own worries, allowing me to imagine that my Louis, too, was out there, battling through his own adventures and finding his way back to us.

  But that is just a stupid fantasy, not reality. I can’t go on like this—I can’t wait another year for Captain Francis to officially declare my husband and his crew dead. The awful truth I can no longer deny is that my Louis is gone. Pretending otherwise, feeding my children the false hope that their father might someday return—I can’t do it anymore. Each time I lie to them, it breaks my heart a little more, until there’s almost nothing left of it. And so I’ve made my decision: if Louis cannot come home to us, then we will go to him. We’ll be reunited, one way or another.

  Yours truly,

  Sarah Kelping

  Alan placed the letter back on the desk, her face etched with the seriousness of what she had just read. Francis turned away, but the slight tremor in his shoulders betrayed him, his head bowed in silence. After a long pause, he inhaled deeply and ordered Alan to search the room.

  “What am I looking for, sir?” she asked.

  “Whatever she used to—to put the children to sleep,” he replied. “It doesn’t look like she suffocated them with a pillow or strangled them. They appear to have gone quietly, as if they simply went to sleep, tucking themselves in for the night. At least, that’s what I like to believe.”

  “That’s a comforting thought, sir. I also think that's what happened to them.”

  I knew at once what he meant. The moment we had entered the bedroom, I caught an unfamiliar scent—a sweet foreign aroma, lingering in the air like a wispy cloud. Leaping from Alan’s lap, I circled the room, my tail swaying from side to side as I let the scent guide me, the gears in my mind turning.

  I hopped onto a chair by the desk, where three plates, dotted with crumbs from slices of bread the kids had enjoyed for dessert, lay abandoned. Beside them were three empty glasses, their rims still clinging to the sweet-smelling residue of a drink.

  Yet, the aroma that had caught my attention wasn’t coming from there. It was wafting from somewhere else in the room. I inhaled deeply, trying to trace its source. It drew me to the trash bin nestled in the shadowy corner of the room. I rose up on my hind legs and braced my front paws against the bin, pressing it until it toppled over spilling its contents onto the floor.

  It’s in here! I called to Alan, though I knew my words fell silent between us, lost in the chasm of our differing species and the languages that danced just beyond our reach. But, in that moment, she grasped what my actions conveyed.

  She knelt beside the overturned bin, her hands sifting through the jumble of broken fishbone quills and crumpled dried fish-skin papers. Amidst the debris, she discovered it—a small brown bottle, no larger than a thumb, along with its cork.

  She brought the vial to her nose and took a tentative sniff, her eyebrows knitting together in confusion as she tried to decipher the unfamiliar scent. I had reacted similarly when we first entered the room. I had caught a whiff of it from the children’s partially opened mouths, but I had been too much in shock over their passing to truly comprehend its significance.

  “Captain, I think this is it,” she said, handing the vial to him. He took it, bringing it to his nose for a brief, cautious sniff.

  “Have the doctor examine it,” he ordered. “And find out where Sarah might have acquired it.”

  “What should I do once I discover who sold her the poison?”

  “Bring them in for questioning. There's a strong chance they could be charged as an accomplice to murder.”

  “I'll get on it, sir.”

  Alan bent down, her fingers gently scratching behind my ears, sending a delightful shiver through my body.

  “Good boy, Page,” she murmured. “I suppose I’ll take you along. You’re proving to be quite the partner in this investigation.”

  Her touch, warm and reassuring, set my nerves tingling, while her words swelled my heart with pride. I was more than ready to follow her, eager to assist in any way I could, and to help bring closure for Mrs. Kelping and her family. It was, I knew, the very least I could do.

  When the ship's only doctor, Willis, arrived, his eyes were wide with disbelief, as if the very marrow of his bones had turned to ice. With a visible effort, he shook himself free from the grip of that initial shock, his face hardening as he moved toward the small, lifeless forms to confirm that there was no life in them.

  The room was suffused with the unbearable stillness of death, broken only by the soft rustling of the dark green kelp sheets as the steward began to unfurl them, preparing to shroud the bodies. But then, something flickered in the corner of my vision. Across the room, Joe and Anne stood in their long pajamas, pale figures bathed in an ethereal light. Of course, no human could see them—only I possessed that sight. It must be some innate ability of my kind, a gift that allowed me to peer beyond the veil of the material world into realms unseen by human eyes.

  Joe and Anne's faces were tinged with sorrow, mourning their short lives. There was a serene peace about them, however; a quiet acceptance of their fate. But Sam was not among them. His absence sent a jolt through me, a sudden, undeniable realization. My heart quickened, and with a sudden burst of urgency, I leapt onto the foot of little Sam’s bed, crying out, desperate to make the steward stop before it was too late.

  The steward attempted to swat me off the bed, but I stood my ground. I climbed onto Sam’s chest, hissing fiercely, my back arched in defiance. My paw shot out, claws unsheathed and poised to strike, a clear warning to the steward that I wouldn’t be moved so easily.

  "Out of my way, Page," the steward barked.

  But Alan stepped forward, her voice calm yet commanding, like a captain steadying the helm in a storm. "Wait!" she interjected, her face flashing with conviction. "He’s trying to tell us something." Her gaze shifted to the surgeon. “Check his vitals once more, if you please.”

  Dr. Willis, though skeptical, moved with the seriousness of a man who had witnessed too much to dismiss even the faintest hope. His brow furrowed, deep lines carving his face like furrows in the earth. He approached the boy's bedside. Leaning in, he placed his ear near Sam’s mouth, listening intently for the faintest breath, that fragile thread binding life to flesh. Next, he reached for his stethoscope and placed it over the boy’s heart.

  For a heartbeat, there was nothing, only the heavy silence of a room holding its breath. Then, Dr. Willis sprang up, a tremor in his voice as he announced, “The boy—he’s still alive!”

  Francis gathered Sam into his arms, cradling the boy with a tenderness that belied his usual stern demeanor, and rushed from the cabin with Dr. Willis running at his side. Alan and the steward remained behind, wrapping the other bodies in the dark kelp sheets.

  I bolted after the captain and the surgeon, my paws barely touching the cold metal floors as I raced down the winding corridors, darting left and right, then down the steps, my heart pounding in time with the heavy footfalls behind me. Captain Francis was breathing hard, clutching Sam tightly, as though by sheer force of will he could keep the boy tethered to life.

  At last, we reached the infirmary. Francis gently laid Sam down on a bed, his hands lingering for a moment before Dr. Willis stepped in, barking orders to the nurse. She set up the oxygen tank and prepared the intravenous line. This might be their last chance to pull the boy back from the abyss.

  After a few agonizing minutes, I leapt onto the foot of the bed, waiting for any sign of life. Then, at last, he began to stir, and his eyelids fluttered open, a faint spark of life rekindling in his gaze.

  . I’ll be sending out announcements there.

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