THE HEARSE AND HIS GRIFFIN 13

Chapter 13
3 Days Later
Titanic’s whole hull was racked with pain. The salvagers had been at him for 3 days. Though he was in great pain, he was relived they were leaving the Queen Elizabeth and some of the other poor ghost ships alone. Titanic had realized along time back that the salvagers were doing more than just salvaging him. They were torturing him. They’d tear into him for a while, and then let him rest so he could heal for a bit just so he’d be conscious when they’d do it all over again. He could also tell by the way their cold, greedy eyes stared at him that they enjoyed their work. Why not, they had the most famous ship in the world as their prisoner. “There has to be some way out of this.” Titanic thought to himself. It was then that he heard a familiar voice say, “You never did have good luck with salvagers, did you, Titanic.” Titanic slowly turned his sad blue eyes upward as he saw an ocean liner heading right for him. He didn’t know what to do or say, he had no idea weather this ship was friend or foe. Once the sun shone on the ship, Titanic’s eyes widened in recognition as he asked, “Lusitania, is it really you?” Lusitania only smiled as he said, “Yes, Titanic, it’s me.” “They all said you’d been captured by salvagers.” Titanic weakly said. “I was.” Lusitania softly said, “But they set me free years ago.” “How’d you get them to do that?” Titanic asked. “I simply offered them something of more value.” Lusitania said. “What was that?” Titanic innocently asked as he cocked his bow to the side. “I offered them the most famous ship in the entire world.” Lusitania said as he gave Titanic a slick smile, “You.” The words struck Titanic like a sledgehammer; he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. Not only was he basically sold into bondage but it was by one of his own kind. The idea sickened him. Right then Titanic wanted nothing more than to break those ropes and tear into Lusitania for breaking one of the sacred code of ships, being to never betray one of your own breed. If there was one thing Titanic couldn’t stand it was treachery. “YOU DIRTY TRAITOR!” Titanic snarled, “HOW COULD YOU BREAK THE CODE AND BETRAY YOUR OWN KIND!” “THEY BETRAYED ME FIRST!” Lusitania snarled, “When you were first taken, there were round the clock search parties, one of which I was leading when I was taken.” Lusitania snorted in disgust as he then narrowed his eyes and said, “But you went free. I stayed their prisoner for years and no one ever attempted to look for me!” His hideous smile widened as he said, “So I figured that if you could trade my freedom for yours, I could do the same thing. Not so fun is it, shipwreck.” Titanic merely chuckled as he gave Lusitania a knowing smile and said, “You poor foolish ship, you think that you were abandoned and so you let your hate and bitterness for the salvagers cloud your judgment and in turn became their lapdog.” “TARKON! NEKA! ALTAMA!” Lusitania shouted the spell with great fury. Suddenly a thin chord of ice wrapped around parts of Titanic’s hull that would be considered his throat and started to pull very tightly, choking the old leviathan. “Bold words.” Lusitania sneered as he narrowed his eyes, causing the chord to tighten, starting a trickle of oil from where they were cutting into his brittle old hull, “I look forward to ramming them down your throat.” Lusitania then made the ice cord disappear and Titanic collapsed into the sea, the seawater pouring into his fresh wounds causing him great pain. Lusitania only chuckled as he slyly sailed away. Titanic stared up at the sky and said a silent prayer to Zoith…