Mafiascum.net

The unsettling act of deliberating once more was not lost upon the crew, but so it went: painfully slow, their trust eroding in one another as the minutes ticked past. Their hunger, their thirst, shared discomfort that they carried as yet again they went over what little they knew.

Among them sat a chair, empty, that no one dared to look at.

It was evening, again, when their minds were made. All eyes went to Pavowski, whose words did not quite match their handwritten logs he left. A missing number here or there, a small mark placed in just the right place to confuse. Little things that went forgotten in the fray but now were horribly wrong. Though that feeling of shame lingered, as heavy as any chains, the crew could not stop themselves from their self-set mission. Two hands grabbed Pavowski, one on each arm, and dragged him upward.

The struggle was brief, their ship large but the fight went out with each step closer to the edge towering high above the water. Having done so once, the crew knew now the feeling of grabbing and pushing a body over; it was loud until it was not, their lost crewman's attempts ending as the cold sapped his energy.

"That should be the end of it, then," someone stated, and at once they all realised the feeling of guilt was gone from their bodies. Standing straighter, they regarded one another with a new sort of respect, as if they had righted a wrong and all was well.

"To bed, then?"

"To bed."

There was little respite in the night. Sleep, yes, but sleep plagued by strange dreams. Shifting lights and darkness and the never-ending coldness that kept the crew prisoner drenched every facet of every dream. When each person woke, one by one, they felt as if they gained nothing but stiff necks and tired eyes.

And, for a few, a strange burning sensation. Left hands clenched into fists at their sides as they ascended to ice. Ice surrounding, ice that clung to the steel-and-wood of the , ice holding them hostage.

"We've done nothing but kill a killer," someone stated. They were met with a quiet mumbling as everyone looked out into the bright horizon, the sun oppressively bright as it reflected from everything it touched. "It's all well and good we've done that, but it's not gotten us anywhere."

A pause, and then a voice. "I suppose our work is not done, or we've done wrong again. But I had the strangest dream... and my hand, it hurt so badly when I woke I thought it to be dead from the cold. Look at it though."

Hand shoved forward, the marks stilled every crewmember. A circle, three lines radiating.

"The sun," another said, their hand offered too. Three more joined, and they regarded one another warily.

"We were the ones who truly sent him over yesterday. Perhaps this is a sign that we've done well? The sun, to free us? If it's only five, our work is surely not done, but not everyone could have... have wanted to sabotage our trip, from numbers alone."

The collective sigh ran through them all as those words registered. What choice did they have? Venture out into the arctic in the hopes of finding shelter? It was a foolish thing to even think, and it was no surprise that without a word they knew to descend back, another day spent as jury.