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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Particular_Can_493 on 2026-08-14 12:34:53+00:00.

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Most people remember the 2007 mega-ship that went missing for a month and washed up in Mexico pretty much empty. My fiancée knows I was onboard (it's easy enough to Google) but I've never told her what really happened. When someone brings up the "Children's Cruise" I usually just make a joke or say something vague, but she's not stupid, and last week she officially asked me to tell her the whole story. I can't talk about it—honestly, I can barely think about it—but I felt like I owed her, and maybe myself, the truth before we got married. So I sat down and wrote out every detail, starting from the moment things went wrong. This is what I ended up with. CW: self-harm.

“Good morning, this is your captain speaking. On behalf of the crew, I want to wish you a warm, tropical welcome to day four aboard the Queen Eclipse—another day at sea en route to beautiful Hawai'i. Great lineup of activities today, a.m. bingo in the observation lounge and Marine Life Discovery in the Kid Zone. Don’t forget the ABBA medley in the grand concourse tonight. I know I’ll be there.

“We deviated slightly from our course last night after identifying a small craft in the water. We were able to recover it. Turned out to be a vintage life raft that seems to have been at sea for some time. Don’t worry, there were no people—probably a test deploy, which we find sometimes—but there was a personal object onboard that may be of interest to any amateur archaeologists out there. Feel free to swing by the crew deck if you want to take a look.

“Anywho, lunch will be served in the main dining room, dinner in La Lune on deck six. And lastly, the Staff Captain has informed me that he is under the weather this morning, so First Mate Paulson will take over bridge duty from 2300 to 0700. Thank you, and enjoy another beautiful day here in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.”

The PA clicked off and breakfast noise returned. Scraped silverware, slapped flip-flops, screeched conversation. Four days in, and I was ready to call it: cruises weren't for me.

Don't get me wrong, the company was top-shelf. The man at the buffet, loading his plate like he was trying to get arm hair in every dish, the woman walking past in a shirt that said KID ROCK HAS SEEN MY ASS, the seven-year-old two tables down watching *The Departed* at full volume on a Zune. Luminaries of the American endeavor, gathered at sea for what was sure to be a rigorous exchange of ideas and E. coli.

I turned to my parents. "You guys think the captain actually goes to the ABBA thing?"

"Who do you think plays Björn?" my dad said around a mouthful of eggs.

A dimple dented my mom's cheek as she grinned at me. "You should hear him sing SOS."

"Hard pass," I said. The doors swung open, and I craned my neck to get a look at the far end of the dining room.

"You see your friends?" my mom asked.

"Observe, one teenager has been separated from the pack," my dad said in a nasal British accent. "Frightened and vulnerable, he must resort to desperate measures, like talking to his parents."

"I'm not looking for anyone!"

He just shrugged and stood up. "I like the one with the nose ring. She seems fun."

"Kurt, tell me you're not going back to the buffet," my mom said.

My dad raised his eyebrows. "Uh, yeah? It's all-you-can-eat."

"You don't think you're courting danger?"

"Courting danger?" We were sharing a table, and my dad turned to the woman next to us. "That's her nice way of saying she's afraid I'm gonna end up firing out both ends."

"Kurt!" my mom said. As my dad walked away, she turned to me. "Your friends do seem nice." Her fingers picked at a saran-wrapped apple next to a yogurt with the lid still on. She wore a sleeveless blouse under a pale pink rain jacket, like she couldn't decide if she was hot or cold, and her smile looked precarious. Was she trying to convince me that I was having fun, or herself?

My dad came back with a second plate—lo mein, sausage, and half a grapefruit.

"Oh come on, Kurt. It's nine o'clock in the morning. What are you doing?"

"I'm expanding my palate," he said. "Next I'm gonna try a Scotch egg." As he twirled his fork in the noodles, I watched a waiter with a tower of chairs try to work his way around a man in a rash guard.

"Well, I'm glad to hear you're open to new things." My mom pulled the day's program from her bag. "Because I booked us a family spa day."

I turned back to the table. "A what?"

"One o'clock," she said. "All three of us."

My dad brushed muffin crumbs out of his mustache. "What does a package like that run?"

"It would've been free if you sprung for a suite." She squared the apple and yogurt in front of her.

He sighed. "Was I supposed to read your mind that you wanted a suite?"

“You weren't supposed to read my mind, Kurt. You were supposed to read my email. The one where I told you we needed a suite, ya know, so Evan wouldn't have to sleep in an armchair.”

My face flushed. Dad didn't say anything, just shrank a little as he tried and failed to dig out an edible chunk of grapefruit.

I guess that's what you get for going on a cruise with divorced parents.

I'd thought it was a joke when they first told me. Or that I was dying of cancer or something, and this was how they planned to break the news. But no, after five years of divorce—five years of me trading semesters between Denver and Boise—they assured me they'd enjoy nothing more than a vacation "just the three of us."

Dad lobbied for a cruise because "fun happens to you." Towel animals appear on your bed, there's karaoke every night, nobody has to be in charge. My mom had always been an overachiever, so she picked the bloated itinerary. Fourteen days, Seattle to Hawaii and back, waterfall hikes, a five-hundred-dollar jeep tour. We'd be sharing one cabin, so they both swore up and down they'd be civil the whole time.

Or at least until the airport. Literally, they'd come to a full stop while arguing about who had the passports, backing the jetbridge up so bad a gate agent had to come see what the problem was.

They'd always fought like this, so I can't say I was disappointed as much as confused why they wanted to take a trip together in the first place. But I was fifteen, what did I know? Maybe divorced parents did this all the time. Besides, I had other things on my—

Across the room, I saw a flash of familiar red hair. "Gotta go," I said, already standing. "See you later."

I threaded between tables, pretending I couldn't hear my mom's stammered protests. A clean escape. I caught up with Brandon and his dad near the long corridor that led aft. They both wore Tevas, Grateful Dead t-shirts, and floppy safari hats.

"Evan, my man!" Brandon's dad said. "You hear about that life raft? I saw the Staff Captain haul it in last night! They thought maybe there was a person inside, or a bundle of rags, but it was just…" He searched the middle distance. "Stone. Like a stone statue."

“What kind?” I asked, trying to make eye contact with Brandon. Had he heard from Tyler? Were we still on for today?

"Didn't get a good look," his dad said, wrinkling his nose, which still had a dollop of sunscreen on the tip.

The ground felt steady underfoot; the only way I could feel the ship moving was through the occasional judder and a low, consistent pulse. It sounded like my own heartbeat in my ears, and as we funneled down a hallway of identical doors with brass number plates, I imagined my heart was beating the whole ship.

Brandon's dad's nostrils flared. "Hey." He sniffed once, then again. "Do you guys smell—"

BAM!

He walked full-speed into the edge of a watertight doorframe, hitting it so hard I felt the reverberation in my heels.

"Dad!" Brandon jumped to steady him.

"I'm fine," he said through cupped hands. "Just—just a nosebleed."

Blood mixed with sunscreen seeped through his fingers and dropped onto the carpet in plunky dots. Brandon steadied him with one hand and waved me on with the other. "Tyler said everyone's meeting in room 4118. I'll be there soon."

"Go ahead," his dad said, muffled. "Go have fun."

“No, Dad," Brandon said. "Let's get you back to the room.” I heard him muttering "So embarrassing" all the way down the hall.

The kid who opened the door of room 4118 was small with bone-dry hair plastered to the side of his head. He put a finger to his lips and waved me inside a suite. Couch, bathtub, balcony. It smelled fresh, like clean sheets and a citrus basket.

Everyone besides Brandon was already there. Jennie sat in front of a white clamshell iBook, playing with her nose ring. Holly lay on the couch, too long for it, feet hanging off the armrest. And Tyler stood in the middle of the room, tan and golden-haired, wielding a bottle opener like a teacher's pointer.

"Two years ago," he was saying, "I was like all of you. It was my first cruise, and I didn't know anyone. Enter Patrick. He'd been cruising with his family for years. He took me under his wing and taught me the truth about cruise friends."

I found a patch of wall next to the desk. "Whose room is this?" I whispered.

"Cory's." Jennie nodded at the mousy kid. "His family sits with Tyler's at dinner." On the iBook, MySpace was slowly loading someone's summer camp photos.

"They say the first cruise was on the Mediterranean, thousands of years ago, and even then there were kids on it. While their parents were drinking wine and doing the limbo, they made a decision that would echo through...

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