"Blub... blub... blub..."
"Ugh... gah," Max opened his eyes. He saw he was in the ocean and was sinking. "Gah," he panicked, unable to breathe. Bubbles escaped from his mouth, and his eyes widened. He tried to swim up, but his hands and feet felt heavy as if something was weighing him down.
He looked down and saw that both of his wrists and ankles were shackled with chains, which increased the speed of his sinking. He looked around and saw a lot of wreckage from a ship and several people wearing clothes like slaves or prisoners also sinking with him.
"Wh-What is this... I-I can't breathe... I..."
His vision began to blur, and his consciousness started to fade. But just as his eyes were about to close, he saw someone swimming down toward him and reaching out a hand. His eyes closed, and everything went completely dark.
***
"Dee... Dee... wake up, Dee,"
"Ugh," Max opened his eyes. His head was still very dizzy. He saw a wooden ceiling and heard the sound of creaking wood. He also heard the sound of water and smelled a strong scent of the sea. But when his eyes opened wide, he was shocked. He saw many men with long, unkempt beards and hair in front of him. There were also many women with haggard faces and messy hair.
All of them were wearing clothes made of a very rough fabric like a sack to cover their bodies, and they were all chained at their wrists and ankles. Max immediately sat up and leaned against the wooden wall. He could feel himself swaying, and he also saw the people in front of him trying to keep their balance.
"Wh-Where am I... huh?" Max was surprised because his mouth was speaking a language he didn't know at all, but he understood what it meant.
"Are you awake, Dee?" asked a middle-aged man with a thick beard and long hair, whose appearance was the same as the other men, only his hair was a different color.
"W-What happened to me? D-Didn't I fall into a river? Why am I on a ship?" Max asked in a panic.
The people in front of him who heard Max's words looked at each other, confused. Suddenly, a plump, pregnant woman with messy, disheveled hair came forward. She knelt in front of Max, holding her large stomach, and touched Max's forehead.
"Dee, I know you're in shock, but don't you remember me?" the woman asked, holding Max's head.
Suddenly, another memory flowed into his head and confused him. Max learned that he was a slave without a name. The nickname Dee was a name for young children among the slaves. He was 12 years old.
He came from a noble family called Ravencrow, whose family was killed by the Norden Empire, one of the two great empires on the continent that controlled the northern region of the continent of Vanadia, for being considered traitors. After that, he was sold as a slave at the age of 6.
Why was he in the ocean before he woke up? It turns out he was thrown overboard by a crewman of a Calderon kingdom military ship, which was planning to attack the Phanteos kingdom's port, for making a mistake along with several other slaves without the captain's knowledge. He was saved by another crewman on the captain's orders. He turned to look at the woman in front of him.
"I... I remember Ama," Max said.
Ama was the name for an older woman, and Abe was the name for an older man. These three terms were used by the slaves because most of them had no education and no names, so they created their own terms.
"Thank goodness, Dee," the pregnant woman said, hugging Max.
"Y-Yeah, Ama." Max replied. "This is clearly not Earth. I've never heard of the language I'm speaking on Earth. Besides, there's another memory in my head, but it's my memory of my wife and brother ambushing me at the office, then me serving my sentence in prison and then dying from drowning. It's weird; there are two memories flowing in my mind, but they're neatly separated so I can remember both clearly... From a golden child to a slave... It's a fitting end for me," Max said to himself.
After the pregnant woman released her hug and sat next to Max, the people who were initially crowding around Max dispersed and went back to sitting in the corners of the ship. The atmosphere became quiet, and the only sound was the creaking of the ship sailing on the open sea. Occasionally, there was the sound of thunder, the footsteps of many people running above, and the sound of heavy rain. It seemed like there was a storm outside.
In the memory that appeared in Max's head, he remembered that he had been at sea for almost six months and that all the slaves with him were very fond of him. Although he was a golden boy before, the warmth he felt now was truly different, like the warmth of a true family from the slaves who were with him, especially from the pregnant woman sitting next to him.
"Even though everyone here has a haggard, dirty face and their bodies have an unpleasant smell, I feel comfortable here for some reason. Maybe it's because the atmosphere here is similar to prison, where there was the warmth of a real family, unlike my own," Max said to himself, leaning against the pregnant woman next to him.
The ship was tossed around more and more. "Splash," Max's hand, which had been hanging down, touched the water. He looked down and saw that seawater had pooled on the floor where they were all sitting.
"Ama," Max said.
"It's okay, Dee. It'll die down eventually," the pregnant woman next to him replied, smiling at Max.
Max looked forward again. His heart felt uneasy because he was afraid the ship would sink and be wrecked. He leaned his body onto the woman next to him, who immediately put her arm around him. The shaking of the ship was getting stronger.
The sound of thunder, running footsteps accompanied by the faint shouts of people, and the sound of heavy rain grew louder. Suddenly, "bang," the door above opened. A few people came down. They opened the barred door where Max and the other slaves were.
"Everyone, get up now!" a man in a sailor's uniform yelled.
The man pulled a bearded man and took him out of the cell. Another man in a sailor's uniform pointed a pistol at the slaves so they would get out quickly. Finally, the slaves went up one by one, including Max and the pregnant woman who was with him.
When they were on the deck, Max saw the crew members busy trying to stabilize the ship because it was sailing right in the center of the storm. The atmosphere was truly tense and terrifying. Max struggled to keep his balance so he wouldn't be thrown off and held on to the pregnant woman next to him. A crewman approached the slaves.
"Slaves, line up now!" he yelled.
The slaves immediately lined up, with the pregnant woman who was with Max at the very front. Max stood behind the woman. Then the crewmen led the line to the side of the ship and opened a door on the side of the deck. A crewman told the woman to jump into the ocean.
Of course, all the slaves immediately started talking and protesting to the crewman, but the crewman said that some of the slaves had to be thrown into the ocean to lighten the ship so it wouldn't sink and would survive the storm.
The crewman also said that all the supplies had already been thrown overboard and that to the crew and the captain, the more than one hundred slaves were a burden that had to be reduced so the ship could survive. The woman looked scared and held her stomach.
Max, who was annoyed by the crewman's actions, immediately blocked the crewman who was pulling the woman who was standing in the front and spread his arms out.
"Get out of the way, you little boy,"
"Slap," the crewman slapped Max, making him fall, but Max immediately got up and stood in front of the crewman who had slapped him.
"I said, get out of the way!"
"Wham," this time it wasn't a slap but a punch that hit Max's face, making him fly backward, but Max immediately got up again, stumbled to the front of the woman, and spread his arms out again, even though his head was very dizzy from the blow.
"Dee... that's enough, Dee... it's okay," the woman said.
"No, Ama! Ama has to live for your child's sake!" Max yelled.
"You insolent brat, get out of the way!" the crewman in front of him yelled, drawing his sword.
When the crewman's hand was raised to swing his sword, Max closed his eyes and gave in, but "slash," the woman behind him pulled Max back, and she was hit by the sword's swing. Max, shocked, immediately knelt down and held the woman's wound, who had collapsed on her back. Max saw that the woman's stomach was torn open by a deep enough slash that it bled a lot, but the woman held Max's cheek with her hand and smiled.
"Dee... you... have to live," the pregnant woman said.