Pounding naked feet roused Captain Ciebert into a haze of lazy curiosity. The excitement of his crew’s voices drew him out of his berth and towards the bow of his ship. Maybe a whale had finally been spotted.

“Captain, a strange islet!” handing Ciebert his spyglass. He pushed the eyepiece against his good eye. “A strange thing indeed Flea.”

It was a giant black structure, without rigging, masts or sails and its rail thickly coated in noxious white guano.

It was trapped in the middle of a dense floating kelp bed. The hull was caked with barnacles and anything else that could attach itself.

A shout from the crows nest: “Captain! Noise and offal carry across the water!” Slaughterhouse-like noises and sick rot filled Ciebert’s nose and ears.

“We’re in hailing distance! You want we attempt a salvage Cap’n?”

His crew saw it before he did, a female figure being thrashed and dragged by a laughing striped dog; her screams cut short as the dog wrenched her head from her neck. The beast laughed as it ate.