The smile on Cecilia's face vanished, replaced by a suspicious look. "Why would I need good karma?"
"Are you for real?" Ms. Murillo's expression was more curious than surprised. "What would a dead person need money for? The Karma is for the family that we left behind in the mortal plane."
"Dead Person? Left behind?" Cecilia scratched her head, and then her eyes grew wide upon remembering the gloomy Gray deck, and that all the people she encountered seemed to be cold to the touch. "Is everyone here dead?"
"Well, yes, this is after all the Twilight, the barge of the dead. That is why good Karma is the ship's currency," Ms. Murillo explained. "I'm dead, and they are dead too," she pointed to her colleagues
Cecilia pouted her lips and nodded as if thinking about something. "Good thing there is no contract, but I have to back out," she calmly explained. "Now, if you would excuse me, I have to get off this boat."
Ms. Murillo and the others exchanged confused glances at Cecilia's words, "You can no longer back out, like I said, the handshake is the contract, you are now bonded to the ship for fifty years before you can move to the afterlife."
"FIFTY YEARS?!" Cecilia said her voice reaching a glass-shattering pitch, "I'll be an old lady by that time!"
The three looked at her, puzzled. "I'm not a ghost!" she exclaimed. "I'm a human being!" Cecilia waited for a reaction from the three, but their blank expressions frustrated her. "I'M ALIVE!"
Shocked gasps came from the two male auditioners, but Ms. Murillo kept her calm. She grabbed the human by the wrist and started to lead her somewhere. "You're going with me; the Captain needs to know about this."
"The Captain?" She recalled images of the captain and how everyone seemed to be afraid of him. Breaking free from Ms. Murillo's grip, she quickly ran away. "No way! I'm not going to be your Captain's dinner!"
After recovering from the initial shock, Ms. Murillo barked her orders, "What are you waiting for? After her! The Captain will throw us overboard if any passengers get wind of this." The two men ran after the human to catch her before she made a scene.
In her frantic attempt to evade her relentless pursuers, Cecilia shoved and shoved against anyone in her path. She collided violently with a waiter, sending him sprawling to the ground. The cacophony of shattering plates and glasses reverberated through the room. As she regained her footing, a chilling revelation struck her: all the people were levitating, suspended a few inches above the floor. A scream tore from her throat as the veil of normalcy was ripped away, revealing the spectral form, their gaunt, ghostly hands accusingly directed at her. A cold dread slithered down her spine, urging her to scramble to her feet and flee.
In a frantic dash through the dimly lit hallway, she spotted a staircase spiraling downward. The urgent cry of "Find her quickly!" pierced the air, leaving her no choice but to plunge into the abyss below. As she reached the gray deck, a wave of dread washed over her, revealing the grim reality of her surroundings. The atmosphere was thick with cold despair, and the floorboards groaned ominously, exuding a musty odor that clung to her senses. Gone were the dreams of gold and jade; instead, cobwebs hung like ghostly veils. The entire space felt like a decaying house, but the true terror lay in the gaunt figures that roamed this deck. Their hollow eyes glimmered with a haunting light, and with every creak of their joints, they shuffled closer, moaning in a chorus of despair.
"Eeeehhhh!" Her shrieks sliced through the atmosphere, causing the spectral passengers to wince and cover their ears. Seizing the moment, Cecilia bolted. In her panic and confusion, she made a rookie mistake—rather than ascending the stairs, she plunged deeper into the ship's belly. "Did she just wander into the engine room?" one ghostly figure inquired.
"Yep, she sure did," replied another, his eye popping out from its socket.
"Oh, that poor girl! I hope she doesn't go bonkers in there," fretted a female specter, blood trickling from a gaping wound on her neck. The three specters shrugged their shoulders and went about their business.
Cecilia stumbled into the engine room, the air thick with a metallic tang that clung to her throat. The dim, flickering lights cast ominous shadows, and the rhythmic churning of the machinery echoed like the beating of a heart, foreboding and relentless. It was here, in the bowels of the Twilight, that her greatest fear waited.
"No… please, stop it!" she gasped, her voice barely a whisper, as the scene unfolded before her. There, in the haze of her imagination, she watched helplessly as a car swerved into a speeding truck, metal crumpling like paper, the sound piercing her soul.
"Cecilia!" her parents' voice cried out, filled with terror. "Cecilia, help us!"
"Stop! No!" Ceilia shouted, her hands clawing at the air, but it was futile. The vision replayed, each iteration more agonizing than the last. Her father's face twisted in agony, her mother's eyes wide with fear, all while she remained paralyzed in her own personal hell.
"Why are you doing this to me?" she screamed at the ghostly figures, but they only continued their tragic dance, the engine room a purgatory for her torment. Each repetition carved deeper into her heart, a relentless reminder of loss, echoing eternally.
One of the engine crew pulled her out of the room, snapping her back to her senses. "What are you doing here? You are not allowed here, go back up!" he pointed to a set of stairs.
Cecilia, her eyes filled with horror, ran towards the light of the stairs. She did not stop running until she saw the star-filled night sky. She took a deep breath, savoring the crisp breeze of the moving ship. "We're moving?" She looked around her and realized they were surrounded by water. She saw people coming her way; to escape them, she climbed the nearest stairs until she reached the observation deck. Once on there, she panicked even more when hit with the realization that she had nowhere else to go; she was trapped.
"Miss, it's over; you have nowhere else to go," one of the crewmen told her as she tried to descend the stairs. No choice, she climbed back up.
Backed to the edge, she looked around her, looking for a viable escape route, but there were none, except the waters. "Stay back! Don't come any closer, I'll jump!" She climbed over the rails of the observation deck. "I said, don't come near me!"
"Miss, hold on, don't jump, that's a bad idea, just come back here and we'll talk," A crewman said, trying to get her trust. Cecilia looked down and saw the black waters. She was about to climb back to the observation deck when a crewman grabbed her. startled, she swatted away the hand that held her. The next thing she knew, she was already falling. She closed her eyes and resigned herself to whatever fate awaited her.
Then she felt a warm grip around her wrist, her descent came to an abrupt end, and she hit the hull of the ship, nearly knocking her out. When she shook the cobwebs off, she screamed, seeing that she was dangling over the waters. She lifted her gaze and saw the Captain holding on to the ship's rail, dangling on the side with her. His eyes were narrowed with a glare directed at her, his teeth gritted, and his breath was rapid. The only words to escape her lips were "You're human?"