The Hero's New Apprentise

2:35 PM, New York City…..


It was a rather warm summer day in the City that never sleeps, things were moving as they normally would.  The horrible traffic was dotted with the yellow of multiple taxi cabs, the streets were like an insect swarm of people trying to get where they need to be, and the many construction site rebuilding the City were willing the air will their loud machinery.  Everything seemed to be going as well as they could be, given the circumstances.

About fifteen miles out from Manhattan’s busiest harbour, a massive cruise liner would be making its way back to New York from some trip to Europe.  It was absolutely grand in scale, pearl white in color, and had “The Odyssey” written in large cursive letters on both sides of the hull.  On board there were four thousand people made up of crewmembers and the vacationers who paid for the voyage.  There was only about two or three hours before the ship can reach the harbor, dock, offload its passengers, take in the next couple thousand, and leave again as the ship has done many times before.

But something went wrong….

Fifteen miles from the harbour and the ship was rocked by a sudden explosion in the bottom decks that blew a hole out from the hull and water began to rush in!  The four thousand people on board screamed and panicked in terror, but the crew stayed vigilant.  There was more than enough time to dock in the harbor and evacuate the passengers before the ship sank.  That was until there were more explosions deck the bottom deck, opening up more holes in the sides of the vessel and even killing the engines completely!  The Odyssey was stuck in the ocean, miles from land, and was taking in enough water to sink the ship within the hour.  And with four thousand passengers onboard, it would be impossible to evacuate everyone before the liner goes under.