Chapter 20 - Sneaky Message

For the first few days, Scarlet was happy living in her room. She could sleep late and sleep in with nobody bothering her. Her mother would always bring meals to her door and leave them there. There was minimal communication between mother and daughter too.

Initially, Scarlet was worried that it might all be a ploy to make her let her guard down. The girl would always lock her windows and barricade her door before she slept, afraid of the punishments to come. However, after three days of similar treatment, Scarlet was convinced that her parents simply didn't want to let her outside. Her suspicions were confirmed when she overheard them talking while in the toilet one day.

For normal children who hated school, this would probably be the best thing that could happen to them. Scarlet even had a computer in her room and a short full of books. Living like a pet might do some damage to her pride and mental health but not her overall well-being. Thus, Scarlet decided that she will work on the Grand Plan alone while waiting for Alex and Jasper to find a way so that they could resume operations. Just because the circ.u.mstances have changed, it doesn't mean that the goal has changed as well. For Scarlet who was more eager than ever to get out of the invisible cage, the captivity only served to fuel the fire in her.

The computer she had in her room was slightly better than the one in the librarians' office. Scarlet stretched before she pulled her chair in for a more comfortable posture. Now would probably be a good time to update the Human Observation Journal, but the girl suddenly didn't know how to go about doing it. Apart from the useless neighbours who thought that the Liu's were secretly robots in human skin sent by the government to spy on them, there weren't any other interesting people to write about.

After the screen appeared, Scarlet typed her usual greeting before staring at the blank page. It was a word doc.u.ment that Scarlet would always delete after each writing session. She didn't trust the blog to not lose her draft and she didn't trust anyone to not find her word doc.u.ment. Even if they hacked the Journal, they would probably never find out who wrote it. Scarlet learned a few tricks and The Onion Road* was one of the best things that existed on the internet.

#screen starts#

Ahoy Seaweed Heads!

It is I, your captain, once again.

While the week has been interesting, it was also equally dangerous. Many of you wouldn't believe me if I told you that I was captured by both the Octopus Queen and the Marine Captain.

I'm sure you'd want to know the reason for my sudden love for delusion and fantasy. Yes, this is still an Observation Journal, but I have been subjected to the unspeakable so somebody needs to be smart enough to piece the clues together. This is in no way an S.O.S message, just a cleverly put together riddle from my cell right now.

Let's start from the beginning, shall we?

Lil' old me was minding my own business hanging out with two scrubs of mine in the usual tavern one day. The tavern mama is an old girlfriend of mine and her husband is a wuss who bailed on everyone. If not for this strong-willed lady, the town would have been razed to the ground when I first got to it. Everybody sucked so it was nice finding this gem of a person. Later, I made this place my treasure cove for obvious reasons. End of side story.

Back to the main story. I taught a drunken twerp, who thought spilling half his drink on me was funny, a lesson. He ran back home to tattle on me and his mommy, aka the shitty town's owner, who then pressured the useless mama's husband who then booted me out of my merriment.

The Marine Captain who received a call from the tipper came running down and she put me in chains so I'm sitting here rotting in my cell of doom and gloom. I'm actually waiting for the Octopus Queen who kidnapped me earlier to come save me because we had a deal. I'll take her daughter and son, aka the two twerps I was drinking with, to travel the seas and she'll rescue me whenever I'm in a pinch.

I'm sure half of you are hopping in your seats and chewing on your keyboards by now, wondering where I'd met the Octopus Queen while the other half are just wondering if they should unsubscribe to this nonsense. Truth is, everything happened by chance.

I took in the two scrubs when they sneaked aboard my ship and treated them as I would with my crew. The Octopus Queen was intrigued so she sent her seamen to capture me for undersea tea. She gave me some booty for down payment so I'm now inclined to babysit them permanently.

Here comes the regular section of the blog you lot are familiar with now that the story-telling is done.

Question: Both ladies captured me. Why does it seem like only one is a villain?

Hint: The villain is on the side of law that people normally respect.

Now, I need to put a disclaimer. Other than that drunken twerp, I've never really hurt anyone. I might be a pirate but I don't kill. Smack? Yes, but I don't kill. Drunken twerp got away with only one black eye... it could have been two.

Let's do the Human Observing part of this Journal now, shall we?

Madam Octopus is a mother of a friend who treated me like a human. Marine Captain is someone I'm biologically related to. Technically, I'm in the care of Marine Captain. However, emotionally, I feel more aligned with Madam Octopus. (God forbid that she finds out what I'm comparing her to!)

I've seen a few internet stories about animals raising children that aren't theirs. This could very well be my case but what do you think? I'm not going to make any judgement. I'm just here to pass biased or unbiased observations.

That's all for me. I have a lot of time in my cell now so you might see another update sooner than expected.

Fair winds and don't catch a cold!

Pirate S.

#screen ends#

Scarlet checked the time after she entered the last word. It was a little after three and the girl wondered what she should do next.

After the blog was updated swiftly, the girl yawned. That was odd. She remembered sleeping at least twelve hours so why did she still feel so sleepy? Must be the side effects of being shut in all day.

The bed looked inviting so after losing a battle with herself, Scarlet gave in to temptations and crawled over. Within just five minutes, the girl was snoozing soundly, uncaring that she'd forgotten to barricade the door or lock the windows.

*Due to the recent copyright issues going on in WN I changed it. Sorry, I know this isn't the exact name but can you blame me?