Published: 2025-10-16

It was a dark and stormy night. The waves rocked the ship violently; the Caribbean Sea was a formidable foe, one not to mess with. The crew had lost all sense of direction; they probably weren’t going West anymore. They lamented having set sail that day, but no man dared to disobey Captain Guillermo’s orders. The crewmen ran across the deck, securing the cargo and reducing the wind. Captain Guillermo not only yelled orders to his men, some, paralyzed by fear, couldn’t decide if the reason was the storm or the captain’s animal-like gaze.

The waves kept pushing the ship, making it spiral as if trapped in a typhoon. Men clung to the helm, shifting their weight to the left, trying to force the ship to maneuver, but it refused to comply. Everyone knew the ship was too heavy to escape the storm, but nobody dared contradict Guillermo’s judgment, for the punishment was death. Respect was not the driving force of Guillermo’s men, but fear; they had served him in his quests and seen how cruel he could be with their own eyes.

The wind grew stronger, and the rain intensified. Men struggled to stay on their feet; some threw themselves to the floor, holding their hands over their heads. Guillermo yelled at them, “Stand like a man, you worthless scum,” but their decision would prove to be a judicious one as a gust of wind knocked Guillermo overboard.

The raging sea seemed to drag his body away from the ship until he couldn’t see it no more. Not knowing North from South and constantly rammed by the sea, he looked at the sky, where not even the Moon was visible, and knew this was his end. He smiled and relaxed his body; after the next wave hit him, we has gone.

A voice resonated in his head as he descended into the deeps of the sea: “My son. My son. Wake up, my son.” Guillermo never knew his father. Could it be that in this, his last moment, the memory of the man from whose seed he had sprouted had surfaced from the subconscious?

“My son. Open your eyes and come to me.” The voice said. As it did, a blinding light descended from the sky, as if it were a path to the surface. Guillermo’s eyes opened widely; there under the sea, somewhere in between San Juan and San Pedro, he could see, he could breathe, he could hear.

Guillermo opened his mouth, but no water went in. “Who are you?” He asked.

“I’m salvation to those who come to me. Do you accept salvation?”
“I do. I do accept salvation.”
“But salvation has a price, my dear seaman. What do you offer in exchange?”

Guillermo spoke proudly of his riches, “There’s no stone, not metal in the world that I don’t possess. Be it gold or silver; diamond or ruby. I could give you riches that you have never dreamed of possessing.”

But the voice from above was unimpressed with Guillermo’s offer. “And what else do you have to offer, captain?”

“My ship! I will give you my ship. The finest there has ever been on the four continents. Crafted by the most gifted of craftsmen and shipbuilders. Not even this storm could harm her, and as a sign of my gratitude, I offer her to you.”

But that offer too wasn’t enough for the voice. “Your generosity moves me, captain, but it’s not riches that I seek. Gold and silver mean nothing to me, nor does the finest ship ever built. What I want from you is one thing and one thing only.”

“And what is that?”
“I want you to live. As long as you can and in the way you please. Keep your ship, keep your treasure, and enjoy the pleasures a man can buy, but remember that you owe me, and when you die, I want you to offer me your soul.”

Guillermo laughed. First, at the thought of a man rejecting his greatest treasures and letting him go, but then the reason for his laughter was another. He raised his gaze to the sky and said, “That is the one thing I cannot give you.”

“And why might that be? I’m offering to get you out of the sea, for you to leave unharmed, to retain what is most precious to you. Why would you reject my offer?”

Guillermo laughed once again, louder than before, and with a hint of mockery in his manner. “I’ve been to the sea, I’ve heard the stories. You know as well as I do why I cannot accept your offer.”

The voice turned from calm and charming to deep and guttural; it felt like long nails scratching a chalkboard, and it made one’s teeth grit.

“You, Guillermo Barba, the filthiest, cruelest pirate the new world has ever seen, dared to reject my offering after doing my will all these years? The towns you burned, the corpses of children, men, and women you left behind anywhere you went, it was me whispering in your ear. You’re my puppet.”

“For my actions I will be judged, saved, condemned, or whatever it may be, but I will not yield to your will like a coward.”
“Then the sea will become your resting place.”
“Be that as it may.”

The voice laughed as the path of light that penetrated the deep sea became narrower and faded into the distance.

“You might fool yourself, captain, but you cannot fool me, you cannot fool Him.”

With these words, the light disappeared, and with it the voice.

Guillermo found himself at the bottom of the sea. The crushing pressure made his head hurt, and trying to open his eyes was like being stabbed with a fork. That unknown spot in between San Juan and San Pedro would become Guillermo Barba’s tomb.

In a last demonstration of courage, he opened his mouth and felt his lungs fill with seawater. He could not speak, but his last thought was: “My soul I offer to God, my body to the blue sea.”

THE END.