Chapter Text
My name is Michael Jones, and this is my adventure of trying to save my best friend. It all started about 5 years ago when a war started. It was a massive war with many, many casualties. Now, at this point you may ask yourself, ‘Michael, if there are so many casualties why would you travel to such a place?’. You see, I’m a doctor, and I've always wanted to help people. And what better way to do that if you're a doctor, than at a war zone.
Helping people, or maybe just this one person, is why I originally wanted to be a doctor. My best friend, Gavin, is what you might call slightly clumsy... okay a little more than slightly. I figured that if I was specially trained I could keep a better eye on him.
About the time after the war ended, and people requiring medical attention started to dim down, I received a letter from Gavin. He was probably just being impatient and wondering when I was coming back. I knew right away it was from him when the labeling of the envelope had said, ‘My boy’. It was kind of our thing. While reading over it I could clearly hear his voice in my mind. Him pronouncing ‘boy’ like ‘boi’ with stupid little British accent of his. For some reason, as I opened I started to get a sick sense in my gut, an impending doom preparing to present itself. Despite the subtle shake of my hands, I continued to open the letter and began to read.
“Dear Michael,
I am sorry to inform you but this is indeed not ‘Your Boy’.”
As I read this, there was a sinister undertone laced in every word. I continued to read on, wondering what the hell was going on.
“At this point, it is not important for you to know what my name is. In fact, if I had it my way, you will never figure out who I am. The reason I am contacting you today is because I have Gavin. Now I don’t plan on hurting him, that is unless you don’t what I ask of you. Some idiots have stolen something very important of mine, a trophy if you will. It is made of 4 separate pieces of gold and each one of these thieves has a piece. Simply put, I want them back. Your job is to find these 4 men and get me the pieces. When you have all the pieces come to the Trophy Hall, I’m sure you know where it is, you and Gavin met there, yes? Once I have all the pieces, I will hand over Gavin. Simple enough, I think. I'll give you about one week? Good? Great to hear. “
The rest of the letter included locations of where the 4 thieves were, or where they could be. At the very bottom of the paper it wrote:
“Good luck Michael. Oh, and try not to get any blood on my trophy. Wouldn’t want to have to kill Gavin for that.”
After I read that last line I immediately realized how real this threat was. I filed the papers back up and shoved them in the envelope, cringing when I saw the label on the outside of envelope. How the hell did this idiot get Gavin to write on the envelope. 'Beside the point,' I thought, 'I needed to find my captain so I could leave and set out to find this damn trophy,' hoping I could leave within the hour. After a 30 second search party, where I was the only one participating, I had my captain in my sights. I started quickly marching towards him when I realized that if I told him the truth, Christ only knew what that psychopath would do if he found out I told somebody.
After creating a more reasonable story as to why I had to leave, I walked over to my captain and told him. He looked at me unsteadily. Maybe I rambled too much.
"Jones," He started, at this point my stomach dropped, again. I continued to look at my captain waiting for him to finish.
"Have a safe trip home."
I exhaled a breath I didn't realize I was holding, and immediate grabbed him into one of the most awkward hugs I've ever had. At this point I realized that he didn't know how much these words meant to me so I released him. I thanked him one last time and went to the cabins to get my stuff. As I was getting ready to head out of the city, a bunch of my friends came over to me and wished me good luck.
"Good luck Michael" one said.
"Let us know when you get back" another spoke out.
"We'll miss you" another said.
Finally our captain walked over to our 'Team Michael' huddle.
"Michael, it's been a pleasure working with you. And now I have a surprise for you. If you wouldn't mind closing your eyes and holding out your hand."
I did what he asked, after closing my eyes he rested my hand on his arm and he started to lead me what felt like downhill, to the water maybe? We halted to a stop, and I smelt the air. Yep, the ocean, definitely. The bitter punch of the salt water stayed it my nose longer than I would liked it to.
"Okay Michael, open you eyes."
At first I was rather confused not realizing why there was a boat bobbing around in the water. Then it clicked that my captain had gotten me a boat, but it's wasn't any old boat it was a legitimately good boat. But where the hell did he get a boat this nice so fast. I looked over him and he had this look of pride on his face looking from the boat to me.
"You like it?" He spoke.
You see my captain didn't really show emotion, he used to say 'When you've see the things I've seen, you'll know why'. But when I looked up at him and saw his eyes welling up with tears, and when a single one fell I didn't dare say a thing, knowing it would hurt his pride, especially knowing his was very hard on him to see one of his men go.
"Yeah, cap, it's great. But where did you get it on such short notice?"
"I'm always prepared Michael. You ready?"
"Yep, just got to get my stuff. Boys?" They helped me load up the boat, and I gave my final hugs, and saved the last hug for my captain. I boarded my boat and set off to start my journey of saving Gavin.