I purchased two cotton balls to cure the sirens curse and I made use of a queller of light.

  The dark walls of the room loomed around her, scruff marks painting the dark oak. Ada took in a breath as she let her eyes mingle with the companions of the room that felt so unfamiliar yet familiar. The small cot pushed to the side right below the window which was unlatched, allowing the sea breeze to walk in. She walked from where she rested against the wall to the bed, the patting of her boots against the floor filling her ears. She sat on it, shifting the quilts that had been haphazardly laid before she looked up.

A mirror stood at the opposite side, next to the large mahogany door. Ada's now black hair was tied up in a bun, her dark brown eyes were slightly curved up, different from her own droopy eyes. Her straight nose then sloped down to her strawberry pink lips, all housed in a round face. So unlike her own.

Ada's heart ached, pain shifting within her at how much she missed her body. Dark spots ringed her vision again. Ada didn't even know how many days would have passed in her own world. Her hands were calloused unlike her former hostage's, she could almost see the blood stains.

Ada's breath quickened as screams from the people she had left for dead resurrected. Her world spun. Ada had trained all her life for this, trained to know how to weather the portal side effects, effeciently be able to use the hostage's memories and skills, put the conscious of the hostage to sleep and so much more. But she had never trained to kill, guilt crept up on her.

Those people's lives were a fantasy.

Ada tried to console herself. Her eyes stung, her throat clogging. Even she had a problem with believing that. With each reality she stepped in, each person seemed more real than the last. People allowed to die because of her cowardice. The princesses whom had only sought out to help their friend had their lives cut short. 

Ada bit down on her lip, forcing down the tremble that shook her. She could imagine Cinderella wake up now, terrified and confused by the prospect of all that had happened. She even doubted that Philip would take care of her.

What had she done? She held her head in her hands as sweat tumbled down her dark brows.

The door jerked open, creaking loudly in the room. A woman with a lanky frame came in with a wooden bowl in hand. The smell of fish made her mouth water but Ada had no appetite. Her auburn hair was packed up in a bun, clothed in a loose tunic with black tights and boots. Her round monolid eyes widened slightly, her thin lips tapering downwards.

"Su, why look so glum?" Kae asked, walking into the room briskly. From the hostage's memory, she recalled Kae to be a crew mate. The cot dipped under her weight, creaking a bit in the silence. Ada looked at the bowl in her hand slightly, the greyish waters suddenly took an overtone of red. Ada gasped, jumping away.

Kae watched in confusion, looking between the bowl and the gasping girl. She set it down hurriedly, not wanting to get the quilts dirty. Kae turned to her, a bushy eyebrow raised.

"Care to explain?" Ada's mouth trembled slightly. Now she understood, many had come back from the trial with a pained outlook on life, broken beyond repair. Now she knew it was not that they were weak but that they were guilty of destroying other's lives and then hated the idea of transversing in which the other members had revolted.

Kae snapped her pale fingers in her face, watching her worriedly.

"Tell me Su." Ada breathed in. She looked back to her again, feeling empty inside. She chewed on her upper lip, hardly able to keep in this revelation.

"Kae, tell me. What would you do if you have blood on your hands?"

"It's about your parents, isn't it?" Kae whispered, then the memory pulsed within her, unlocking itself from a vault and piercing into her conscious. Ada nodded, using that as a guise.

" I can't tell you how it does feel neither can I tell you what I would do." Ada's renewed hope deflated. Although they were pirates their crew was one of the few that never sought out to kill any. But individually, they'd shed blood except Kae. The purest of them all, Ada could detect some envy that the hostage had for Kae. To be able to sleep at night peacefully and not have a clasp of guilt. Ada felt the slightest pint of jealousy too.

"But, I remember you offering to join my father on his merry mission through the seven seas because you wanted out of your old life. You joined us to get away from the death you had led your parents into." Memories pulsed within the mind of the hostage, spheres of stories told as a memory of the hostage's primary life changing incident filled her with knowledge.

Ada saw a young girl, the daughter to the chief of the village. She remembered how by young Su's going against her father's wish by going into the temple all for a dare, Su had gotten cursed.

Green splotches on her skin, thinning hair, black eyes. They had consulted with the priest whom had talked to the god that had afflicted her with such a weighty curse. They had been told that only someone from her lineage could take the curse instead, thereby saving her but killing themselves. Su's parents had chosen to share the yoke but unfortunately they had failed to realize the gravity of the curse. They died soon after.

"What did my father say when you joined us?" Ada felt a memory shudder to her conscious, she read through the memory as if she were reading through secret files. She had always felt happy that she could do this so easily while some others found it very difficult, now she felt so disgusted by it. Ada clenched her fists, keeping down her emotions. Ada adjusted her seating on the cot to wash away the numbness in her legs.

"He said that he would allow me not to run away but show me that there is a new life in the core of the sea." She stopped, wondering what that was supposed to mean. Ada raised an eyebrow in question. Kae rolled her eyes with a soft smile.

"He was saying you would still have to face your demons because you can't ever hide away from your past. But, he was also saying if you look past the waters to the very core of the sea, you will find a new beginning." Confusion wove around her, binding her. It felt as though the conscious had heard it before, realization ringing in one of the distant memories. Ada didn't pick it, she wanted to find this for herself. Ada wrung her fingers together, she looked down at it. Pale and scarred, a few green splotches marred her wrists, a reminder of the gravity of the curse. Ada couldn't help but pity Su, she shook out of those thoughts, focusing back on what Kae said.

"I fail to understand."

"Drop blood on the sea, yes the rest of the waters may be bloodied but the core is still intact, it's heart still remains."From all she had learnt  from the hostages, she realized that humans sometimes had a difficult way of using their terms.

"Your parabolic use of terms is heart warming." Ada said drily to which Kae sighed loudly before shaking her head, her pearly earrings dangling lightly.

"Look past your mistakes, look past the blood. If you don't you will be like a lost soul, a dead man walking. If you do then you can find a new life, no matter where you are." The lost resonated within her, going back to the isle of the lost. A dark throb that stood just afar off from the plains of Kratos where eternal darkness and screaming lay. What did it truly mean to be lost? Does someone deem you to be or you deem yourself?

"What if it's too thick to look past?" She remembered how in the first reality she had been mean to Mei's friends. In the second, she had aided Luna, a dark magic user and a notorious villain to kill thousands with her comrades. Then in the third she had betrayed all the princesses and destroyed Cinderella's life. Ada felt her gut belch with sadness and guilt, she sealed her lips shut, looking away from Kae to the mirror again. Despite the layers of pale skin and pirate clothing, she could see only one thing.

A murderer.

"Then start by shining a light in form of a good deed."