"Squa!" cried the seagull outside his window.
His deep brown eyes fluttered open and his ear perked at the sound of the dancing ballerina in the glass box on the night stand. The cabin rocked, the ceiling dripped with water, and the floors creaked as the waters of the ocean cradled the S. S. Vile. Dr. Schmitt's migraine was only eased by the eerie gentle music and the clouds that dimmed the light of a savage sun out on open sea.
Levi rose up in the neatly stitched quilts and he looked around at a place that was both foreign and familiar.
"Rise and shine peanut!" Cried a woman beyond the door, "It's time for rounds."
Dr. Calliope Torres was not a woman you wanted to keep waiting. There was a reason the ship mates called her "Bonebreaker". She was strong, fierce, and determined.
So he threw off his blanket and stepped off the bed onto the wooden baseboards that lined up in crooked ways from one side of the room to the other. Who built this thing?
Flashes over his eyes. A face. Who's?
Suddenly the room changes. He's standing in the OR of Grey Sloan Memorial and he's hovering over a patient he's about to cut open. He looks down onto the table and Nico Kim is looking back at him with sad teary eyes.
"Cut it out of me Levi. Please." He begs. Then his voice becomes a shout, "LEVI!"
Dr. Shmitt is standing out into the corridor illuminated by fire lamps that sway from the ceiling above and the lights so dim he can only see about ten feet ahead at all times but he keeps on walking.
Footsteps. He turns just in time to see a young girl running past. Her mind on other things, "Sorry Dr, Schmidt." she said after bumping into him and continuing on her way. Jo Wilson is a girl with a dark past. A survivor. A person who bonds in the blood of the battle more than the water of the womb.
Where was she running off too?
He rounds a corner and finds himself in a mess hall of sorts. The lights dimmer in here than it is out in the hallway and the wooden picnic tables are bolted to the ground. The double swinging doors come back to fill the void behind him and Levi crosses the room avoiding eye contact with the other's.
The crew, bandaged up from this story and that. Eyes of fire. Sneers instead of smiles. Scars, shanks, and clothing shredded to rags.
A familiar face nearest to the slop buffet sitting at a table alone. Captain Meredith Grey, avid reader of the stars, warrior of the world, first woman ever to run a pirate ship made up entirely of the resurrected dead. She raised a mug to him and he smiled at her as he approached the slop line and uncomplainingly took the mash up of meat and muck that was mashed onto his dark blue plastic trey.
The scruffy old grey headed man behind the counter gruffed and seemed nice despite missing an eye. Richard Webber might not be able to cut people open but he can mix it in a blender and pretend it's beef.
A meow beneath Levi's feet as he turned to look out at the crowd of people. Meredith was waving him over.
He sat down across from her and she popped her eyebrows, "I like you shmitt. You don't complain much. You seem a little worrisome but you know how to suffer in quiet and I appreciate that."
"There are lives to save Captain Grey." He responded.
She nodded, "Exactly. Which is why I invited you on a ship of the dead."
"Resurrected dead." He responded, "You single handedly brought these people back from the dead."
She sighed and rose to her feet, "I'll be having a luncheon in my quarters around one. I hope to see you there."
He said that he would and she was on her way.
The mess hall was quiet but only because there were no acoustics. Conversations on the other ends of the room are muffled by shadows that steal the very words from your lips.
Again the room was shifted.
This time the OR was lit up in deep red and he was surrounded, on the floor, in a mucky dark liquid. His eyes flitted up to the hand that drooped down the side of the table still dripping with the same substance that painted the walls, the monitors, and his once white lab coat.
He shook vehemently as he sat there on the floor unwilling to accept the truth for what it was but when he looked up at the face of the patient Dr. Kim was staring at him.
"I can still feel it inside me." The corpse whispered.
Levi was then brought back by someone new sitting at his table. Lutinent Owen Hunt. Scruffy gentleman with red hair and ghosts that followed him around.
He had a kind smile as he said, "So I hear your the guy showing us the island."
Levi nodded, "Indeed. I know the layout of the land. I knew several people that worked as maintenance."
"Yeah but do you know anything about the monsters?" Asked the military officer.
Levi informed him he knew only about the humans that were to be labeled monsters. Those who snatched away the innocent and tortured them on said island for the sake of science. Barbaric practice. He should have known one or two of the people on this ship would be far more invested in slaying dragons than anything else.
A shrill shreik came from out in the hall way and those inside the mess hall were quick on their feet and beyond the swinging doors to see what it was. There, hovering over a body, was Andrew Deluca- a member of the cleaning crew- clutching his sisters lifeless body. He spun on his feet drenched in blood to look around at those who looked upon him.
"Someone killed my sister. Which one of you did it?" Tears streaked down his face, "Who did it!"
Levi, without even thinking, looked down at his hands and was once again in the OR.
Only this time he was alone.