Oma's Epic Quest

"The world is not what it seems."

I shivered at the sound of my father's voice. It was a familiar sound, one I had heard many times in the past, but only when he was close by; never from beyond the grave. But here he was, with his deep voice and thick accent, speaking from a place I had never known existed.

My dad had passed away when I was young, before even I could remember. He had died far away from our little village; in some far-off land where magic and demons were more than legends. He started working on one of those big ships when he was still young, and his work took him all over the world. He wrote letters to my mother and me every so often, but they always seemed too long, as if he didn't have enough time to write them. They would come months later, usually during the winter season. When my mother would open the envelopes and take out the letters, her eyes would grow watery, and she would tell me that she missed him very much, and that she hoped he was doing well wherever he was. I would always nod when she said this, but I never really understood at that age what it meant to miss someone.

I wish I could say that he came back after his journeys around the world, but each time he returned home from a voyage, he would look older, thinner and more worn out than before he left us. Sometimes I thought his face looked grayer too; like stone that has been left out in harsh winds for too long. A few months after his last return home—the last time we saw him alive—my father fell ill with a puzzling fever that no one could explain or cure. He lingered in bed for days while my mother cared for him with nothing but love and hope to keep him going, until finally he slipped away from this world forever.