The Heir To Nothing

Alric wanted to stop them. He wanted to stop them so badly. But he was not naïve, he knew he couldn't stop them. not on his own, at least.

His hands were shaking. Was it from rage? Despair? Was he afraid? He didn't know.

His instincts told him to flee, to go as far from here as possible. But to his luck, he was stuck on a fucking ship surrounded by water on all sides in the middle of a fucking ocean.

He cursed.

"It's none of my business; I shouldn't be here," Alric whispered to himself. But he was curious. He wanted to know what was locked behind that door, worth enough to take the risk of attacking an entire ship with high security.

So he stuck around to see what was behind that cursed door.

He observed eagerly as the pirates came down. And that woman was here too. He was curious as to why she left him alive, but he didn't question it. It worked out in his favor, after all.

"Interesting," she muttered with a surprised look on her face while she looked at the two lifeless bodies that were lying on the ground.

"A battle?" She asked herself. "Must be one, but who could have done this?" She asked another question to herself.

As though she lost interest in the matter, she said to her subordinates, "Get them out of my way." They followed without any questions and tossed their bodies aside as though they were garbage.

"Is this the place?" she asked, and a handsome-looking man with blonde hair, blue eyes, and a tall body replied to her gracefully, "Yes, my lady. This is it."

The woman questioned again, "What are we waiting for? We don't have all day, or night... or whatever. Just open the door."

The handsome man replied, "As you say."

Alric was taken aback. All his life, he thought pirates were ugly, good-for-nothing pigs. But today, he saw that there was a pirate who was actually not ugly. No, he saw two of them; the other was that woman.

"Are they called the beautiful looters or what?" He said a joke to himself and even giggled at it like a mad person. On second thought, maybe he was mad.

He observed the pirates trying to break the lock.

"Is it done yet!?" the woman asked the man who was trying to break the lock.

"Not yet, ma'am, just a few more minutes."

The woman replied, "Minutes!? Ok, ok, do it faster."

A long silence spread. And then, one of the pirates came running and breathing heavily.

"My lady! Listen! There is a huge iceberg ahead of us! This ship's captain is dead, and the door to the control room is locked! You need to come with us, now!"

The woman replied, "Ah, fuck this shit!" She started running, and the entire crew went with her.

After the place was cleared out and there was no soul in sight, Alric stepped out of his hiding spot.

"Dumbasses. Left the place without putting anyone on guard duty. Well, good for me."

He started walking straight toward the locked door, looking around for anything suspicious. He was on his guard.

Finally, he reached the door.

He kicked the lock as though it would open. "As if," he muttered, but to his surprise...

Click.

The lock opened. Alric's eyes widened. "What!?... Like what!? WTF!?..." After a long silence, he muttered, "Good for me, I guess."

He pulled the heavy door made of metal with his full strength and barely managed to open the door.

Alric raised an eyebrow at what he saw. "Woooo... A book? Wild. Looks really old."

There was an ancient-looking book in a glass frame in a small room. Alric moved closer, observing the book. He smirked and then moved even closer. He looked around, then broke the glass case with the hilt of his dagger.

"Oops..." His hand moved into the broken glass case, and he carefully took the ancient-looking book out of the case.

He opened the book, but the first page was empty. He flipped to the second page, and it was empty too. He kept flipping the pages and finding that they were all empty.

He kept flipping and finally flipped to the last page of the ancient book.

"Finally!"

There was text written on the last page, but his mind refused to comprehend that text.

"Strange," Alric muttered to himself.

He took a deep breath and read the first word out loud, "This..."

He forgot what he read. He shook his head and focused on reading. But he kept forgetting what he had read out loud.

Giving up, he thought...

'One last time.'

As he read the book, he kept forgetting what he had read. But he ignored it and kept reading the text in the book out loud. Finally, he finished.

"That was utterly usel—"

He was not standing where he was standing before. He didn't even know where he was. He was speechless; he didn't know what was going on.

He was in a place surrounded by... darkness? Something like that?

His body grew heavy, and his mind grew tired. But he felt better. Better than he had ever felt in life.

With no sound at all, he fell down to the floor. No, it made a sound, but he couldn't hear it. In this place surrounded by darkness, there was not even an ounce of light.

Laying on the floor, his body grew limp as he slowly lost consciousness.