Salt & Pepper — Part 3

The daylight gradually began to fade, accompanied by a loud rumble. The ship’s cargo hold was sealed in an instant. Pepper and Salt climbed down from the shipping pallet. Apparently they were in a huge warehouse, deep in the bowels of a moving vessel. And though they had planned to return home from Istanbul by train, fate had another idea. The pallet they were on had been loaded onto an ocean liner!

Fortunately, Pepper understood the pictograms on the walls, which flickered like street lamps. “Come on, let’s go this way,” he said to Salt, trying to navigate a route.

“You know what those signs mean?” she asked him, just to make sure, though she trusted her friend completely.

“Yes. You always have to go in the direction of the arrows. They’ll get you out of any jam,” Pepper assured her.

And so the pair slowly ascended the metal staircase, just as the arrows on the walls indicated. Panting, they finally stopped in front of a large set of double doors.

“Where are we?” Salt asked, hoping for an immediate answer, but Pepper was clueless at this point.

“Hey, you two, what are you doing here?!” came a shout out of nowhere. They turned around and saw two strangers holding hands. Looking stern, they were sizing up the newcomers.

“Please... well... we’re... we’re here to visit.” Salt spoke up, though it wasn’t the best reply.

The two strangers immediately started giggling. And then Pepper admitted: “We actually don’t even know where we are. We got here by accident.”

The stern-looking pair put on a friendly smile.

“I’m Thyme.”

“And I’m Mint.”

They all shook hands.

“Come with us, we’ll show you around the ship,” suggested Thyme, waving at the sensor that controlled the…