Hephaistions Demise

The Final Chapter

«3»

By elysiumfields

Dimitri was below deck in the cargo hold of the Marie Celeste when he heard the sound of crashing above him.

He bolted up the rickety old steps towards the source of the noise coming from the Captains Quarters in the quarterdeck.

Literally pounding the door open,he rushed into the room to find Theo lying crumpled on the floor grasping an old navigational sextant in his tightly clenched hands. "Captain,..are you ok!..what happened?"

Theo had a look of dazed confusion across his face,glancing up at his first mate and almost seemingly not recognising him at first. Dimitri rushed to his captains aid,stooping down beside the prone form of the old man.

He looked up at his first officer,attempting to stop the image of him spinning around in his head and hoping for the disorientation to wear off.

"I'm gonna take you back onto the Hephaistion and i'll tend to you in your cabin." said a concerned Dimitri.

"No, i'm fine..just help me to my feet will you." Theo tried to reassure the handsome Russian.

Dimitri hauled Theo up off the floor,always sure to hold on to him for support. And it was a good thing too, because Theo felt weak in his legs which nearly gave way from under him.

"I don't think you are fine,Captain. Maybe a little rest would do you good.".

Dimitri guided Theo out of the Captains quarters,glancing quickly over his shoulder as to what caused Theo's collapse.

Out on the mist shrouded deck of the deserted Marie Celeste,Yuri rushed over to his Captains aid.

"Sir,what has happened to you.?".

"Nothing to worry yourself about,Yuri." Theo waved him away.

But he knew he was feeling weaker by the hour from his illness,and that shock of seeing a ghostly image that just so happened to look a lot like Dimitri, had overcome him with uncertain dread that did not add to his present condition.

A few minutes later and Dimitri had assisted the Captain back to his own quarters on board the freighter.Theo had deteriorated sharply since that supernatural encounter on board the Marie Celeste.

Lying Theo on his bed, and not failing to notice the pale pallour of his face and the coldness of his forehead,Dimitri knew full well that Theo was suffering an illness. However much Theo had tried to hide it,Dimitri had been around him much more privately than the rest of the crew to notice that his Captains condition needed medical attention soon.

Theo lay in his bed,feeling unusually listless and weak...'Was this the end..Am i dying?' he thought, as he looked up at Dimitri's beautiful youthful face smiling down at him.

It was time to let his first officer know..

"Dimitri..." Theo whispered quietly.

"What is it Captain.." Dimitri pulled up the chair from the Captains desk across the narrow cabin,and sat beside Theo's prone form.

"Dimitri..i'm..i'm dying."

Dimitri continued to to smile down at him.

"I knew you were ill. You hide it away very weakly,because i am very keen on your well-being not to notice it.".

For the first time in their few short years together,Dimitri showed some intimacy by gently stroking back the strands of greying hair,matted onto Theo's clammy forehead. "I kinda sensed you were dying." He smiled faintly down at Theo who smiled weakly back.

"I wanted to tell you but i did not want to feel weak in front of you or the crew,..and i love this ship too much to give it up." Theo said hoarsely.

Dimitri wiped a tear appearing out of the corner of Theo's left eye. He had'nt noticed the sudden tightness in his long shirt sleeve,at the rippling of the muscles in his forearm,faintly bulging beneath the navy blue fabric

"Captain,...Theo, you are not going to die on me. You are gonna beat this thing and lead this old ship for years to come yet."

"Thats just it Dimitri. My illness is too far gone to stop,..and 'this old ship' is gonna die with me,or soon after, i just know it. We are both old"

Dimitri fidgeted in his chair,and absently pulled at the top button of his shirt,still not noticing the subtle changes in his physical stature. His chest was very perceptively broadening out and pressing at his shirt,the slight curves of his smooth pectorals giving way to more solid and pronounced mounds.

His personality too, was very gradually changing.

He held his Captain very dear to him as a very good freind,but he felt annoyed that the 'old fart' was gonna die on him in the middle of this godforsaken place in the vastness of nowhere. Something in the back of his mind kept nagging at him that Theo had to stay alive to 'pass on a gift to the world' ?.

Theo felt tired. He looked upon Dimitri,the youthful man he secretly desired though knowing his age,the fact that Dimitri was straight,..and now,that he was dying, his wishes would never be fulfilled outside his fantasies and his secret love for the handsome young Russian would die with him.

That 'ghost Dimitri' he saw on the old haunted ship alongside Hephaistion had muttered something in a harsh low voice about 'needing to escape his purgatory' and use Theo to spread his muscular divinity among the young men of the world. Theo passed it off as an hallucination of his advancing cancer,yet the encounter had vastly sped up his mortality.

Theo suddenly retched and coughed,racked with an unexpected bout of pain. He tried half heartedly to sit up,only managing to support himself onto his elbows, when the coughing fit finally subsided enough.

"Recall the crew off the Marie Celeste and set about for course to Miami." Theo retched again,then slumped weakly in his bed.

"I will do that Theo.Promise me,my good freind that you won't die on me while i am away from you." he smiled faintly.

The voice in his head seemed louder now,merging his thoughts more sinisterly. "I need you old man.You won't fucking die on me.!".

Dimitri stood up,finally becoming aware of the tightness of his shirt. But by now the entity that had lain on board the deserted Marie Celeste for 150 years, dominated Dimitri's mind and seeped into every mind on the Hephaistion like they were one consciousness. Dimitri seemed unphased that his pecs had filled out beneath his shirt like rising hills,gaping the gaps between each button down the upper section of his shirt until the top two pinged off almost simultaneously.Nor that he was bothered by the thickening bulges of his hard rock like biceps swelling under the straining fabric,creating tears in the seams around his thickening deltoids and under his arms as his lats joined in on the growth.

Out on the top deck,Yuri was unfastening the mooring rope attaching the rickety old sloop to the great freighter,his arms rippling and tearing out of his grey shirt sleeves as he pulled back on the 4 inch thick rope.

Ivan,the ships communications officer and the youngest of the crew at 17, sitting at his post,growing out of his uniform into a hulking stud,bigger than the crew growing around him.

The crew of 10 in the engine room,maintaing the great machines needed to run this ship,growing massively muscular by the second.........

Theo's breathing was becoming shallow,his vision blurring,yet he was sure he could see a hugely muscled version of Dimitri with an impossibly wide back,leaving his quarters.....

Hephaistion roared into life, and began to coast away from the old sloop wreck through the mists.

After an hour had past,the mists around this uncharted seas broke into brilliant sunshine in azure blue skies and calm waters of the western Atlantic.

The Entity felt his chances rising. "Yes at last i am free of that wretched place,free to make this world my own."

It already had power over the crew now. They would be his key to spread their growth amongst the youth of the world, a modern world that was yet alien to the entity residing in the form of Dimitri, a now hugely muscular young Russian now free to explore the true desires of homosexual lust with his crewmen. The Entity had need of a naturally homosexual man to guide him from his imprisonment to the world.

But he had forgotten Theo.. With a sudden dread,the Entity inside Dimitri felt a sudden pull back towards the Captains cabin. Theo was close to death.

When he realised his only way out would be gone soon, the Entity within Dimitri screamed aloud.

Dimitri thundered his heavily muscular bulk down the corridors back to the Captains quarters and slammed open the door.

Theo lay still and serene on his bed,eyes closed but smiling as if finding peace at last. Theo had died.

Dimitri fell at the foot of the bed sobbing,his human side sad at the loss of his freind,but the Entity had been denied his goal.. "NO..why have you denied me..?"

Suddenly,the whole ship shook as if it had been hit by violent waves.

A bright light emanated from the Captains quarters and rapidly immersed the ship...

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Three weeks later the U.S Coastguard found the the old freighter Hephaistion floating aimlessly and seemingly deserted by its crew 100 miles off of the Florida coast.

Media interest built up around this new 'Ghost Ship' and rumours of its journey into the Bermuda Triangle were rife among the easily believed.

Hephaistion was towed into Miami where it was kept for two years under close scrutiny by the U.S. Authorities.

When the time came to sail it back across the Atlantic to its home port of Lisbon.poor old Hephaistion had gained a reputation as an unfavourable ship to sail upon, and that it may of been haunted.A rumour among some that there was poltergeist activity aboard,and that a ghostly voice could sometimes be heard shouting "Why have you denied me..?" and lamenting that it had failed in some mission.

Another year past before a small crew were brave enough to sail it back across the Atlantic. But its fate was sealed that year in 1976 when attempting to sail around an approaching Atlantic storm close to Bermuda,it sank in rough seas with loss of all hands...................

Deep down inside the sunken wreck,the Entity would have to wait for his chance again........ Perhaps an unsuspecting guy on a small vessel called Elysium almost thirty years later..? •


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