حسناً، هذا النص الإنجليزي فقط كما هو، دون أي تشذيب، دون تعليق، ودون ت
On the deck of the ship, Silas sat squatting, watching intently, while Elyra stood leaning her back against the wooden railing, her eyes following the rapid movement before her. Poggles was frolicking around, jumping from one pillar to another, feeling the polished wood and cold metal as if embracing old friends.
"It never crossed my mind, not even for a moment, that I would meet someone like you here..." Silas said, smiling, enjoying the sight of the mechanical lemur moving with such vitality. "You seem to really love this ship."
Poggles stopped jumping and sat on the edge of the chimney, his glass eyes gleaming with a dim light.
"The Floating Whisper... this brings back memories," Poggles said with a resonant tone of nostalgia, then lowered his head and began talking to himself in an audible whisper, as if running a system check: "But... I feel that part of my files is corrupted. Memory sectors are damaged... I can't remember everything clearly."
He suddenly lifted his head and looked at Silas seriously: "Did you say you own the ship? It seems Jawad trusts you a lot to entrust it to you. He never let anyone touch the helm."
Silas furrowed his brows slightly at the name.
He answered calmly: "Yes... but I still have much to discover about this world, and why he left it. I am happy you are here, Poggles. Tell me, what did Jawad want me to know? What is the message you waited all these years to deliver?"
Poggles stared into the void for a moment, his gears turning slowly, then said with mechanical coldness:
"I don't know."
"What?!" Silas and Elyra shouted in unison, shock written on their faces.
Elyra stepped toward him angrily, clenching her fist: "How do you not know, you stupid monkey? Didn't he tell you anything? Weren't you waiting for us to give us an answer?"
Poggles scratched his metal head indifferently: "Maybe he didn't tell me... or maybe I don't remember. The data is encrypted or missing. All I know now is that I returned to The Floating Whisper, and that is enough."
Then his small body shivered, and he looked toward the dark horizon: "Do you know how scary it was to live in that scrapyard? The loneliness... and those distant screams that deafen the ears every night..."
Elyra looked at Silas, understanding what he was thinking: "Since you mentioned the screams... do you still want to go behind the gate?"
Silas stood up, dusted off his coat, and looked toward the distant gate that was still howling in the fog.
"We got what we wanted on this island... we found Poggles," Silas said with a heavy voice. "But those homeless people... they don't deserve to live like that. Hunger, fear, and despair... Maybe we can help them if we go there and uncover the secret behind the wall."
The gears moved, and "The Floating Whisper" rose on its mechanical legs, turning slowly to move away from the scrapyard, heading back toward the hell they had escaped from.
///
On the black beach, the scene was completely different from the calm of the ship.
Chaos and noise filled the place. The homeless, who were silent ghosts just moments ago, had now turned into a raging human mass pushing madly. Frail bodies collided, and some fell to the ground underfoot from the intensity of the competition, indifferent to pain, for the instinct of survival was stronger.
The food... or rather "food scraps" had arrived.
The quantities were large, almost enough to feed a small village; piles of stale bread, bones with some meat still on them, and half-rotten fruits. But the number of homeless people was far greater than Silas and Elyra had imagined. Hundreds emerged from the fog, like hungry locusts.
Amidst this crowd, Kim, the man Elyra had scolded earlier, fought desperately.
He took an elbow to the face and was pushed hard, but he didn't retreat. He crawled between legs, reaching his trembling hand toward a pile of food, but another hand was faster. In the end, he only succeeded in snatching a single piece of bread, hard and small.
Kim withdrew from the battle, panting, his clothes more torn than before.
He looked at the piece of bread in his hand. It wasn't enough to satisfy a child, so how would it suffice for him, his wife, and his infant daughter?
Elyra's words echoed inside him like a painful reverberation: "Aren't you ashamed of yourself? How can you allow a life to be born in this place?"
"Kim... are you okay?"
His wife's weak voice came from behind a rock, as if waking him from his daze. She was holding the baby, still wrapped in Elyra's white coat, the only clean spot in this filthy world.
"Ah... uhhh... I'm okay," Kim muttered, trying to hide the tears in his eyes. He reached out and gave her the only piece of bread. "You eat... so you can produce milk for the little one."
The wife took the bread gratefully, while Kim stepped back and moved away a little, looking toward the thick fog enveloping the island.
He clenched his fist until his knuckles turned white.
'That woman is right... I must do something. Not for me... but for my daughter. We can't stay here waiting for death or crumbs.'
///
Behind the gate, inside the bleak factory.
The two men were walking in one of the long, high corridors. The place was a maze of metal and shadows, the ceiling rising tens of meters with massive chains hanging from it, and the walls vibrating gently with the rhythm of the machines working below.
"The place is gloomy and boring here..." Captain Jackson said, looking around with disgust, his voice echoing in the empty corridor. "I don't know how you live here without getting bored or losing your mind. No women, no good wine, not even a sky to look up to."
The Supervisor walked beside him, clasping his hands behind his back, his black cloak draping quietly.
He answered in a monotone, emotionless voice: "The thing is... I just got used to living here."
Jackson stopped for a moment, raising an eyebrow. The sentence was familiar, and the tone... despite the difference in the Supervisor's metallic voice, the way it was spoken carried the same sarcastic indifference he had heard before. But he shook off the thought and continued walking.
Suddenly, the Supervisor stopped in his tracks.
He placed his hand on his raven mask, specifically at his temple. He felt a sharp pulse in his head, an unmistakable warning signal, as if he sensed a breach of his domain.
"Damn it..." he whispered sharply.
Without explanation, the Supervisor ran toward an iron balcony overlooking the factory's outer courtyard, and Jackson followed him with curiosity.
Outside, in the wide courtyard directly behind the gate, the scene was strange.
Several workers in white ghost uniforms were roaming the place, maintaining and preparing massive equipment.
There were several large boxes, much bigger than the ones the pirates had carried. Boxes made of polished copper and bronze, their sides open to reveal complex gears turning inside, and steam pipes emitting light, regular puffs. At the top of each box, there was a massive crystal glass dome, surrounded by bolts and ornaments, emitting a faint blue light preparing to launch.
And suddenly, a giant shadow overwhelmed the courtyard.
The workers raised their heads, and Jackson and the Supervisor froze on the balcony.
From above the high iron gate, and from the heart of the fog, appeared "The Floating Whisper."
It wasn't floating in water, but standing with terrifying majesty on its four mechanical legs, which clung to the edge of the rocky wall surrounding the gate. It looked like a metal beast carrying a house on its back, peeking its head over to see what was inside the fortress.
At the bow of the ship stood Silas, his coat fluttering from the factory steam, looking down at the courtyard, at the Supervisor, and at those strange boxes.
And in that moment, screams erupted from the crystal domes, loud and mad, announcing the beginning of the confrontation.