Chapter 7: Discovering new routines

Days on the Leviathan bled into one another, each one an indistinguishable echo of the last. Time had a way of warping out here in the middle of nowhere, the relentless expanse of the ocean swallowing minutes, hours, and even days without a trace. The three of us - Clyde, Slade, and I - settled into our own rhythms, the ship’s vast, labyrinthine corridors offering enough space for each of us to carve out our own little worlds.

For Slade, his world was stripped to the bare essentials. His life revolved around code - numbers and algorithms flowing from his fingers into his laptop as if they were extensions of his own thoughts. He needed little else. His room was sparse, a makeshift desk, a chair, and a bed that looked barely touched. The real action was on the screen, where Slade spent his days diving into the digital ether, chasing whatever ghosts haunted him there. Sometimes, I’d catch a glimpse of his face, illuminated by the cold light of the monitor, his eyes distant, almost empty, as if the man himself had been left behind somewhere in the code.

Clyde, on the other hand, had transformed his space into something altogether different. At first, he’d simply been fixing things - tightening bolts, greasing joints, coaxing the old machinery back to life. But over time, his work had taken on a new dimension. He’d begun to create, to shape the rusted metal into sculptures that seemed to rise organically from the ship itself. Strange, abstract forms that twisted and spiralled in ways that defied logic but felt oddly right. There was something therapeutic in it for him, I think. His hands, calloused and strong, were softer now as if the act of creation had smoothed out some of the rough edges that life had given him.

Clyde’s sculptures started popping up all over the ship, adding a bizarre, almost surreal quality to the place. What had once been a derelict hulk was slowly transforming into something unique, something that reflected the man who was giving it new life. And with each piece he added, Clyde seemed to relax a little more, his gruff exterior giving way to moments of quiet reflection. He’d even started to whistle happily as he focused. Sometimes, he’d come to find me, his hands still greasy from his work, and he’d start talking about life, his theories, his past. He never said much, but what he did say felt like pieces of a puzzle - glimpses into a life that had seen more than its share of darkness.

As for me, I’d found a small cabin near the ship’s stern, a room with a porthole that looked out over the endless sea. It became my sanctuary, a place where I could write, think, and try to make sense of everything that had led me here. The words came slowly at first, stilted and awkward, but they came. The ship’s isolation, its deep, resonant silence, seemed to draw the thoughts out of me like a needle-pulling thread. I wrote about the ship, about Clyde and Slade, about the strange, almost mystical pull that the ocean had on me. It was as if the Leviathan itself was whispering in my ear, telling me stories of its past, its forgotten secrets.

Over meals, Slade would sometimes talk - really talk. It was during these times that I got to see beyond the tech-obsessed exterior. His stories would start off with something mundane, a memory from his childhood or a job he’d once had, but then they’d take on a life of their own. He’d talk about people he’d known and places he’d been, and sometimes, in the middle of a sentence, he’d drift off, as if the memories were too much for him to hold onto all at once. There was a sadness to him, a sense that he was running from something - or maybe toward something - that he couldn’t quite articulate.

Despite the differences in our routines, there was a certain harmony aboard the Leviathan. We’d each found our ways to cope, to make this strange new life work for us. But that harmony had an unspoken rule: Clyde and Slade needed to keep their distance from one another. It wasn’t that they were openly hostile, but there was an undercurrent of tension between them that neither of them could fully mask. Clyde’s practicality, his need for order and control, clashed with Slade’s chaotic, almost anarchic approach to life. They were like oil and water, two forces that, when mixed, only stirred up trouble.

So long as they stayed out of each other’s way, everything was fine. More than fine. There was a sense of peace that I hadn’t expected to find out here, a quiet that seeped into my bones and made me feel more alive than I had in years. The ship, the sea, the solitude - it was all part of a grand experiment, a chance to redefine what life could be.

But in the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but wonder how long it would last. The Leviathan had become more than just a ship; it was a microcosm of our own private worlds, fragile and isolated. And like any fragile thing, it felt like it could shatter at any moment.