The Sixth—and Possibly Seventh—Rule
Alice didn't understand much about the world.
Not really.
But she'd spent years—maybe decades—shut inside her wooden coffin, listening through the cracks. In those muffled whispers, in the tense exchanges between guards and handlers, she had gleaned at least one fundamental principle when it came to anything… unusual:
If something is clearly abnormal and undeniably real, first follow the safety protocol. Then, and only then, consider further investigation.
Even if she didn't feel like an anomaly, she knew that she had been labeled one—"Anomaly 099," as they'd called her. But what did that truly mean? She didn't know what she had done, or what she could do, that warranted such fear from people. She didn't even know what counted as "normal thinking" for a sentient anomaly.
So she was just trying to think like a human.
And based on that, when the talking goat head said there were only six crew rules, she accepted it. When it then mentioned a seventh… well, she accepted that, too.
Still, something it had said stuck with her, and she couldn't help but ask, "Earlier… when I tried to push the captain's door, I noticed it opens outward. That seems obvious enough—why make it a rule?"
The wooden goat's head stared at her with its obsidian eyes.
Two full seconds passed before it replied, its voice lower than before.
"Sometimes, it opens inward."
Alice blinked. "Then—"
"If you ever see the door open inward," the goat interrupted, voice dropping to a near growl, "do not go inside. On all of the Vanished, only the captain may do that."
This was the first time the goat had spoken with such gravity—its tone carried weight, not just of authority, but of something darker. Warning. Omen.
The air grew still around them.
Alice shrank back slightly, alarmed.
But then, just as suddenly, the goat's voice turned cheerful again, as if none of that had just happened. "Well, that concludes your introductory session, miss! Now then, let's move on to something more delightful. Tell me, was there a particular reason you visited the captain's quarters? If you're confused about ship equipment, I assure you, there's no need to bother the great Captain Duncan. If you're simply looking for conversation, then you've found the right partner! I'm remarkably well-versed in the Vanished's many grand exploits. Not interested in stories? Well, perhaps a culinary tour of the Endless Sea—did you know I'm something of a gourmand myself…"
The floodgates had opened.
Alice tried once or twice to interrupt, but there was no breaching the tide.
Today, Anomaly 099, the gothic doll known as Alice, would experience the second greatest terror aboard the Vanished—the first being, of course, Captain Duncan.
This was the Goat Head.
The Captain Behind the Door
Meanwhile, behind the wooden bulkhead just across from the navigation room, Duncan sat in silence, listening to the commotion.
He'd only just returned—his soul had finished its strange projection into that distant, cadaverous vessel, and now he was back. He hadn't caught the beginning of the goat's conversation with Alice, but the rules? Oh, he'd heard those.
And the comment about the captain's door.
That was… unexpected. But invaluable.
So the goat head knew.
It recognized that, when Duncan pushed open the captain's door from the inside, it meant he was "leaving." That movement—the inward push—was not an error. It was expected. For Duncan, it meant returning to his cramped little apartment on the other side of the "door," but for the ship, it simply meant the captain had stepped away.
And not only did the goat understand this—it considered it part of normal operations. A matter of routine.
Which led Duncan to one chilling but important realization: The previous "real" Captain Duncan used to do the same thing. The original must have also disappeared through that door—repeatedly—into some unknowable world.
Enough times, in fact, that the behavior became a matter of protocol.
It was oddly reassuring. If nothing else, it meant Duncan could continue traveling between worlds without blowing his cover. The crew—such as it was—would not question it. Even Alice, now that she'd heard the rules, would likely accept it as part of the ship's strange order.
But it also meant something else.
Duncan's brow furrowed. He thought again of the goat's 6 + 1 rule set.
Why six "official" rules and one tacked-on as a casual aside? Why these particular rules—so strict, so contradictory, so specific?
They weren't just nonsense. They were survival instructions.
Everything about them—from the demand that crew obey Duncan without question, to the warnings about forbidden zones, and even the odd insistence on how the ship must appear—read more like rituals than laws. Not just authority, but containment. As if obeying these rules was the only way to remain real aboard this ship.
He frowned deeper.
By the rules' logic, Duncan held complete immunity to these threats. He was the sole individual allowed to walk freely, to open any door, to break any pattern—so long as he was the captain.
The real captain.
And that… that was the part that worried him.
But he had walked these halls. The ship had not rejected him. The goat had accepted him without hesitation. There were no shadowy phantoms dragging him into the deep.
At least… not yet.
Duncan let out a slow breath.
The voices beyond the wall—Alice's bewildered interjections and the goat's cheerful lectures—continued unabated.
Thirty seconds in, Duncan regretted having ears.
The doll had clearly fallen into the goat's conversational death spiral, and the former priest knew she was not prepared. If he didn't intervene soon, she might lose more than her nerves.
But… he hesitated.
His fingers curled inward.
He'd just completed a harrowing spiritual projection—a voyage into a distant land through the brass compass. He had gathered valuable intel, but also experienced something that might be repeatable, controllable. A weapon, even.
He needed to process. To test it further.
And with Alice now acting as the goat's primary distraction, he had a rare window of peace.
"Sorry, Alice," he muttered under his breath, "but you're on your own for now."
Then he glanced down at his right hand—
And froze.
The brass compass was gone.
Just… gone.
He remembered holding it. He'd been gripping it. It had been the last thing in his hand during the projection—tightly held even as his spirit returned. But now… his palm was empty.
His expression darkened.
He hadn't even noticed its disappearance. A lapse in awareness like that, aboard a ship full of anomalies and lurking secrets, was not just dangerous—it was unprecedented.
He flexed his fingers.
A flicker of ghostly green fire bloomed between his knuckles. Soft, familiar. Comforting. It licked at the air as he stood, ready to probe the room for residual traces.
But he didn't get far.
Something changed.
A ripple—intangible, psychic—flickered through his senses. Not a sound. Not a vision. A presence.
He turned his head, just in time to see a few pale feathers drifting gently through the air.
His eyes widened.
Before him, a blur of light and shimmer condensed into form—soft, ethereal, surreal.
A white dove.
It flapped once, then perched silently on the floor.
Around its neck hung the missing brass compass. At its feet… lay a familiar, obsidian-bladed knife.
Duncan stared.
Then blinked.
Then muttered aloud, voice flat as a becalmed sea:
"…What."