High Seas: The Kraken Strikes

Originally written during High Seas, our second “Universal You-Ship-We-Ship” program which ran during the winter of 2024/2025. This story was used to launch a referral scheme where teenagers could get credit within the program for getting their peers to join.

High Seas: The Kraken Strikes

The bobber plopped into the water like an olive in a martini glass, a final touch on a perfect concoction. Blue sky, wide ocean, fresh plunder. Captain Trashbeard was trying a new kind of bait today: cockroaches. Le Dumpstairè had thousands of them scurrying around the cargo hold ever since she pillaged that landfill in New Haven. That city was a veritable gold mine. Life was good. She delighted in how the rocking of the ship, the swishing of her tail, and the bobbing of the bobber were all in delicate phase with each other, making a sweet silent harmony with the undulations of the enormous shadowy tentacles rushing up from the depths below on either side of the vessel. Ohhhhhhh shiiiiiIIIIIIIII—

The next two minutes contained too much profanity to be described here. Most of it was screeched in her native raccoon tongue, but seriously it was way too obscene for us to risk you putting that into google translate.

By the time the narration had returned to PG-13 levels, Trashbeard and Arrpheus were watching Le Dumpstairè dip below the waves with the help of a big hug from a very snuggly kraken. Thank god they had this lifeboat. The captain originally bought it on a manic spending spree that finally ended when Arrpheus forcibly uninstalled Temu from her phone; the prospect of an app that sends garbage directly to the boat was too dangerously irresistible for Captain Trashbeard. Too dejected even to be smug about how this particular piece of junk had just saved their lives, she whimpered sadly as she watched her haul from that landfill disappear below the waterline. And… wait, her hat was gone too?! Today sucks. Oh and her ship, also that thing.

“We need help.” said Arrpheus. Trashbeard nodded.

“Let’s gather a crew when we find a port.” Trashbeard nodded again.

“How will we convince them to join us?” Arrpheus said, to a still silent captain.

The unbehatted raccoon thought for a moment, then solemnly turned to her dinosaur friend and locked eyes. “The same way Temu got me on board… a referral program.”