Changing of the Tides

[Caira Ayryn]

Shackles. Binding my bruise-worn wrists. Along the cuff’s lines, the chaffing showed bright violet with low tones of crimson. The colors mangled together under the paleness of my flesh, not that I could tell anyway, no, I couldn’t tell at all.

My eyes were covered in a dirty, piss-covered rag, their form of a practical joke, though its message was far from playful. I lifted my nose to the ocean air, tasting it as it blended with the bitter pungent scent from the rag. The breeze ruffled my hair for one last time as I evaluated through touch, and shaggy winces of pain, just how poorly my body had been abused.

My head tilted but an inch and the shooting pain my body had numbed yesterday, struck like an iron pickaxe into my delicate muscle. Thank God my eyes were covered, for I could feel the welling up of tears. Agony and shame mixed together and drooled from my eyes, immediately absorbed by the blindfold, rather than rolling down my cheeks. Thank God, I wasn’t seen as weak by my captors. Thank God.

Not everyone would thank God in this situation though, would they? I smirk, feeling the smile only touch half of my swollen face. The other half? Well, let’s just say it probably looked pretty ugly.

The pain was terrible, cursing me as it coursed through my veins, unendingly pouring out distress signals, begging my bound hands to somehow unravel chain and treat and soak up the blood that had oozed out of my body. However, that was not how the day’s schedule had been planned. I gulped down, trying to file away the pain into a distant cabinet in my mind, but every part of me wanted to move, to be free of these chains, to be free of my so forlorn fate. I wanted to stand, I wanted to sing, I wanted to run, oh, did I want to run as far as my wonderful body would take me.

My heart was still beating, despite the disgust it had endured, still beating, despite what was to come. This was everything I’d feared, except never living free. So, here I lay, on the ground of a wood-laden ship in the middle of God-Knows-Where Ocean, and I didn’t regret my choice, I only regretted that the world, nor my life, could handle it.

Now I paid the price, as every decision begs for cost at some point, and little do we ever kick the beggar, and so often, do we pay the fee.

“Wot are you smilin’ at fool? You know where you’ll be once the Cap’n has ‘is breakfast? That’s right, wipe it off your face, or I’ll take yer teeth out before I send you off to Davy Jone’s Locker. That’s right, you little shit. You’re nothing but another pile of shit that I have to wash off o’ the deck. Remember tha’ when you’re chokin’ on the ocean. HA! I’m the one breathin’ air, and you won’t even be havin’ a gravestone. Forgo’n, that’s what you’ll be,” the brute above me spoke.

He had a deep, craggily voice that sounded like a jagged cliff face with jagged rocks slicing your ears. I’d seen him before they put the blindfold on me, he was well above six-five, heavy-set, rugged looks, huge beard, slightly disheveled appearance, though that wasn’t uncommon for a pirate such as he, when he spent so much time at sea. The name he went by was Niller. He wasn’t special, but he had such immense girth that I was surprised the boat could hold him. He’d walked off, clunking heavy boots with the panels of the boat squeaking under his pressure. He’d strode off before I could get a reply in.

And it was just as well, my reply would’ve gotten me a kick to the lungs, and I’d already broken about three or four ribs on my right side, hard to say on my left, because there was a lot of torn skin, distracting me with the raw pain of an open wound.

I could taste my sweat on my brow, along with the irony blood in my mouth. Delightful, truly. But this is how my story would end. Say goodbye, Johnny boy, to your last.

Life was a lot of firsts and lasts, right now, I was remembering them as they screened through my mind and onto the projector that was my closed eyelids. The last time I’d seen the sky, the first time I’d tried pie, the good memories I’d had. Twenty four years would never be long enough for someone like me.

I was a wayfarer, I was someone who found things that were lost, devoted themselves to passions that could fill the soul. Yes, I was alive and well, but soon, I’d be dead. Maybe I’d reincarnate, maybe I’d just simply die. Or maybe I’d stay with my bones until I decayed, watching the fish eat my deceased flesh.

So many options, it was sick, and it was sad, but dead men were forced to think about these things before they died, the curiosity of man was often so bittersweet.

I was curious as to whether the many kicks of pain had caused my voice to fail, so I hummed a few notes, “Mm-Humm-Mm,” very quietly, so as not to attract attention and found that apart from the pain I’d felt from breathing, my voice was still well and able to hit the notes. I would miss it, this life, the jazz that was spontaneously created in moments that had no music playing at all. It was so easy to remember the way life’s pristine music of memory had made me feel. It was so hard to think that it would be over, truly over and I’d never be remembered.

Hey, God, I look up as though God is an avid reader, Will you remember me? Remember all the smiles I’ve made and the tears I’ve caused? Will you know the pain I was a catalyst of was never spawned from evil? Or are you there at all? Creator and destroyer of life, banisher to Hell and the one who opens the gates to Heaven, do you have free-will, or are you bound by the laws you created to watch every single one of your creations die, ready or not, as they are, or as you are, for them to lose their very lives?

The question went unanswered as the moments passed and the breeze caught on the colossal gaping tan sail. Soon it would be time. I could almost hear the bell tolling.

Footsteps approached, one of them, Niller, the other, I assumed to be their captain. They laughed, their chords sounded haughty and polluted with stupidity and ale. That was, after-all, the basis of a pirate’s life.

“Har-har-har, look at my favorite little lad. A man who’s name I’ve only barely remembered, Warren Walsh. Are you ready to die?” the captain tilted his head, causing the shade of his hat to fall upon my face, he wanted to hear me squeal, to beg at his feet for the punishment to be lifted, for my word that I’d be his slave forever, but that wasn’t who I was. So I’d die instead. “Come now, it is disrespectful to not respond to your betters when they’re speaking to you.”

I felt his grin through the blindfold, teeth full of gold, gums gross with scurvy, and his gaze piercing through the thin fabric. “Niller, remove that. I want him to see the face of the man who bested him before he dies.”

It was removed. I felt my eyes light up, though they were dampened by the bright morning sun floating high over the horizon. “I think, if you’d really bested me, you wouldn’t have had your crew do all your dirty-work.”

“Harhar, we have a sense of humor still left in your pitiful body? Well, it won’ be there soon, see, there’s power in numbers, boy, and I’ve bested you by far more than you’d ever compare in your worthless little life, so small, so futile, your mother would die of shame if she weren’t already dead. All that time and effort fer nothing, you ain’t leavin’ no legacy, me? I live how I want, and I kill who I want. Yer on my list, I don’t like to be wronged, so I’m gonna right it in the next minute. Niller, stand him up, we’ll walk him over to the plank,” the captain grinned as his command was followed through.

The shackles on my wrists were brutishly lifted, causing my face to wince in pain, meanwhile, they’d clipped a bag of lead onto the shackles that bound my ankles and wrists. There was no escaping this, my throat had gone dry as the fear riddled my bones, and set in like hardening cement.
I was gestured to walk forward while Niller held the weighted bag. When I didn’t, I was shoved, my legs caught me, staggered, and then the captain patrolled back over, and I took a step forward, closing the inches between us. My expression turned into a snarl, and hell, apparently I’d accepted my fate, I was gonna die anyway, why not take out one of his lovely, expensive gold teeth?

My fat forehead collided with his mouth in an agonizing crunch. The bone of my skull didn’t waver against the mush of his gums that were holding together his implanted teeth so delicately. I blinked once and saw a splatter of blood at our toes. Mine were barefoot, his, covered in shined and expensive black boots. They’d need another shining. I blinked again and his hat had drifted carelessly to the ground. I lifted my chin back up, to see the look on his face.

Priceless.

Savagery lit his eyes. Anger curved his lips into a snarl and flared his nostrils. His cheeks puffed up like tomatoes, rich with embarrassment. I’d soiled his ruse of power. I’d done it for the last time.

“GRUH-” he reacted slowly, from the booze, “WHY YOU LITTLE-”

He inhaled, keeping his cool while his entire crew watched, curious as to how he’d react to insurgency of a prisoner who’d been sentenced to death. Death was one of the worst things you could do to a man, how else would I be punished?

“Ahaha, you think you’re hot shit dontcha? Getting one lass’ hit in?” his tongue had caught and slurred his ‘s’ since I’d knocked out the tooth there. He smirked, the alcohol had numbed most of his pain, but now it was my turn, I could see it in his eyes. Not only had he starved me for a week, but now, he’d fix the other half of my face. The thoughts were blatantly churning behind his darkened eyes. His hand extended to my right jaw, tapped it with the flat of his hand, before he curved his hand into a fist that could’ve rivaled a cannonball and wound up his knuckles, the veins of his face spiderwebbed with effort before releasing his white fist, capturing with all his might, into my face.

SLAM!

I felt the crack of my jaw, the one bone that’d seemingly been saved from torture, now pop out of place. I couldn’t even will my maw to open to release a scream. The pain was real, and it had caused my body to collapse into the ground.

Thud. My body wouldn’t lift. It was as though my death had already come. My hands touched the splintering wood, but I couldn’t will the muscles of my arms to move my body upward.

“YEAH HIT ‘IM REAL GOOD BOSS!” Niller cheered, the other men were a chorus of praise, behind their lowly devotion, snarling dogs, waiting for their turn in line to be able to snap at their prey.

“Back off boyss, he just wanted a little jussstice before his death, I think, you’ll all find, that by killing him, we’re getting all the jussstice we need, ain’ that right?” the captain pronounced, motioned to Niller to lift me up, my ankles wobbled, but somehow the years of balancing on my feet had come in handy, if only now, to walk me off the plank.

“Let’sss go, we’ve got a day of celebratin’ to get to, HAR-HAR!” Glasses were raised from the crowd, along with an agreeing chime of yeses.

My bare, calloused toes, resisted most of the sharpened splinters that welcomed me the moment they’d met with the plank. “Don’ forg’t to hold yer breath,” Niller said with a gargoyle’s giggle. But it was the captain’s job to do the honors.

“Today, we send off a criminal, a thief, and a man who has been nothing but a plague to our very exissstence. Praise Neptune, for this will the his last moment alive.” The captain now faced me, proud of the spectacle he’d made to his men, the example I’d become. “Ready to feed the fishes?”

He grinned. I couldn’t help but to grin back, as I looked as his lost tooth as though contemplating taking another. His smile turned downward, in dissatisfaction, “Any last words, Warren?”

A punch slammed into my gut, and my diaphragm was forced into my lungs. I didn’t get any last words, he’d read them off my face. And now, my body was thrown from the plank’s edge as though it were nothing but a pile of bones. Off I went, into my watery grave.

And I landed with a splash.

Chills of water encompassed my skin, spearing my wounds with saline swords as they stung with cleansing poison. I hadn’t braced for the fall and my offset jaw was releasing bubbles of air as my wrists and ankles were slowly tugged to the darkening bottoms of the ocean. My eyes followed the bubbles, carrying away my last breaths to the top of the sea once more. The pirates aboard their ship were likely cheering with joy, funny, I was sinking down to death on the other side of the coin.
While I couldn’t much move my jaw, I did manage to close my throat, saving just ounces left of the air my sore lungs could’ve stored. My hair swished above me, dark and awash with water. My eyes had stung initially, but I had promised myself if I were going to die, it would be with my eyes open.

My body floated upward, as though by instinct, deciding to live, while my shackles tugged me down, to the cold, fated bottom which I would end. The last moments of my life slowed, I felt around the shackles of my wrists sure that if I could free those, I would be able to somehow swim upward, but the metal was cold and unyielding even when I’d tried to break my wrists in order to get free. My hands were large and likely swollen from all the hits I’d taken and given.

This would be my end.

Why couldn’t I accept it?

The air in my lungs was vacuumed out, going through my heart and delivering to the other parts of my body that wanted to live. But wanting wasn’t enough, it seemed, as the stagnant air began to ache sickly, fighting the supression of my closed throat and using the buoyancy and pressure of its lightness to tire my muscles out.

First they would fail, and then, I’d get woozy after I’d swallow my first sip, my lungs would give me a swift cough, and I’d release all of it, belching out water and air only to inhale it in. And then I’d be nowhere, no one, no longer. My body would slowly soften, shackled to the death, flesh decaying on bones until I’d forget the reason I was alive in the first place.

Yes, it was close to over now, however, I could still think, I guess there was a little air left in my bloodstream. It was painful, eternal agony, to die almost as helpless as I’d lived. Shame heated my chilling cheeks, my fingers, still controlled by me, attempted to slip off the shackles from my wrists once more, my ankles tried to wiggle free, while I attempted with my last moments, to lift myself from the edges of death.

However the darkness continued to set in, my mind grew slow and weary, and my jaw lay open, tongue wading in the water that I so wished would turn into air, yet, it was in these desperate moments, you realized that wishes never came true.

…

.
.
.

Ocean waves crashed around me, a great Wooooosh! of an incoming tide slapped white froth against my face. My body, as dead and as heavy as cement. My muscles, won’t move an inch. My lungs are the only thing functioning, and I guess, my beating heart too.

I will my eyes open, and find them to be filled with kernels of salt and sand around corners. I bat away the pain with eyelashes mixed with tears and shake my head the best I can to clear my sight. I’m looking up at the sky. There’s a fucking cloud. A motherfucking cloud!

God, am I so happy to see that fucking cloud, it was beautiful, I lay my head back, and just look up. I knew I wasn’t in heaven, because I knew my body was only tricking me and numbing the pain with a distinct drowsy, heaviness. I’ve known this feeling before. Apparently life hadn’t been done with me yet.

I opened my mouth, and immediately my body swung over to my front and cackled out an overpouring of blood mixed with water. My forearms had braced myself in the sand, so that my face wouldn’t fall into the disgusting mess, and my haunches heaved, hacking and swaying as first it was my lungs, then, my stomach. Yellow bile spilled out from my cracked and bloodied lips. Every place it touched, inside and out, it burned like acid that was destroying me from the inside out.

My body was fatigued, weakened, and nearly-dead. The next wave hit me, cold and gaining on the shoreline, sweeping my bloodied bile-mess away with the sea.

I sniffled at the irony, and hacked up the last drops. The ocean had filled me inside and out, like a second-baptism. Perhaps it had even saved my life. Only thing was, I couldn’t remember anything after I’d blacked out. And these shores didn’t look familiar at all. They were filled with unorthodox colors and a mysterious, mystical hue.

If only I could ask God where I was, though his answer wouldn’t mean much to me now. My answer, would be the Omniverse of course, the Vasty Deep, summoned by a peculiar girl with lavender eyes also on death’s door, but would I find that out any time soon?

No, no I would not.

[Caira Ayryn]

I grit my teeth, torment bearing down on my with the very gravity I fought with to stand. Salt splashed my wounds prodding my brain, foggy in the wake of grog. The pain was tangible, alive and stampeding my body with every debilitating stab.

It wasn’t so bad, I was alive, right? But just what had saved me?

Or who?

Warren Walsh is my name and here I lay. I’m a mortal human nothin’ special, nothin’ important, a bastard child, living more or less, a pirate’s life. My eyelashes batted away the sand and I found myself collapsing on my side yet again, wincing and waiting for the pain to subside, though I knew it wouldn’t any time soon.

The shackles… They were still binding my wrists and heavy chains dangled into the sand, the last fallen chain link appeared to have been broken off by something sharp and forceful, meanwhile the ones on my ankles were completely gone. That was one less weight for me to carry. I lifted my head once more from the pillow of shore I lay on and looked at the long sprawling beach. Palm trees sprouted, mounds of coconuts and macadamias piled at the base of the trunks in disarray.

I used my forearms, boosted myself up, a series of painful groans flowing forth from my lips. “Tch,” escaped my lips when I took a deep breath, “Ah, shhit,” when I felt my broken ribs poke through the bruised skin of my side, while cramping my lungs.

“Ouch, shit, at least I’m…” I huff in a slow breath, waiting and bracing for the sudden throbbing pain, I determined I could only breathe half as deep as usual, my voice was faded and weak,  “Still alive...”

I force a determined smile, which burrowed its way into my numbed swollen face. If only my mother could see me now. I focused on her heavenly voice, humming in my memories, as my muscles tensed and forced my body to a hunched, agonizing stand.

What a handsome little man you’re growing into, promise me that you’ll use your charm for good, and never evil. She’d wink, in that quaint, youthful smile of hers, telling me how politeness was a superpower. Of course it wasn’t, and when she died, my superpower left me homeless. No one cared about another orphan on the streets. I had to redefine myself, every aspect of my being. Morals didn’t help you to survive, they merely improved quality of life, and I had lost mine.

Still, my ma was great to me when she was around, sure, we struggled, but that was the state of the world. Unless you were a direct member of the bourgoise, you suffered and that was just the way the status pyramid had been stacked, I’d been born in the mud and never risen from it. I worried I’d failed my mother, that when she looked down at me, she’d feel disappointment, but whenever I thought about her, I felt only compassion smiling back at me, from the memories, from the thought of her.

I had to keep going. One step at a time.

For the freedom she had tried to grant me in my life. To make meaning where it fell flat.

My bare feet dodged a sharp thorn of seashell only to skim upon a sea-smoothed rock. I staggered, callouses on my feet sunk into the soft sand and I pardoned my painful momentum in order to reach down at a wide looking stick. It was nearly as tall as I was, and I immediately used it as a crutched third leg. I was barely standing, even with the extra support dragging in the sand now. The edges of my eyes were getting hazy with fatigue and to be frank, I wasn’t even sure where the edge of the shoreline would take me, if this island was even inhabited, but now that I’d been granted a second chance, there was no way in Hell I was going to just lay down and die.

[Caira Ayryn]

It could go on for miles and let’s be real, I can barely walk let alone depend on my fragile body to take me there. What was worse, I didn’t know what was the end of the road. It could have been nothing at all. That was a bet I couldn’t take. I hesitated as my walking stick wobbled, before I decided that gravity, in this moment, was stronger.

I plunged, albeit lightly, into the soft cushion of soothingly warm sand. I wondered what day it was, though, for a wayfarer like myself it didn’t quite matter. I wondered what continent I was on, if any human being lived here at all, or if it was deserted, or devastated by the war. Then, suddenly, my eyes widened as I caught scent of smoke. The ocean breeze had pulled it away from the core of the island, of that, I knew for sure, as my hair was blowing the same way, whipping the short brown locks straight into my face with vigor.

Smoke. Real friggin smoke! It smelt like chimney smoke! Civilization! I was saved! I was saved! I was-

A prisoner.

The shackles hung on my wrists marking me as an enemy or slave of the state. I’d be captured and returned, and there was no way I was giving up my freedom, my new life, for anything. I winced, as my latest breath had pinched my lung. Still, I needed medical attention. Most of it I could do myself, as on our long crusades, I’d worked underneath the doctor, quite literally, made to clean up any terrible puss-like muck that was excreted from the ill and wounded men aboard.

Back to reality though, I’d have to wait for nightfall, and swipe what I could, that seemed like the best option. Hopefully I could catch someone’s house who was on vacation, or was vacant. I’d done it before, pirate’s life, remember? I had snuck into an elderly guy’s house while he was sleeping and taken some food, I only ever take what I need, I’m that kind of thief. This time, I just needed some gaus, antibiotic, alcohol to sterilize the wounds, and definitely some food too.

See, if the people saw me, chains and all, they’d assume I was a bad guy, murderer, thief, criminal, well I was a thief but not necessarily by trade, and it wasn’t something I deserved to die for. I’d be considered an enemy of the state, exiled, perhaps even chased and hunted down, and for that, I just hoped I could get it all without being detected. It didn’t look like it was cloudy so I tasted the air for the faintest taste of petrichor but last I could remember it wasn’t monsoon season. I planned to sleep on the beach with a fire, I should be warm enough, I might even nab a blanket or tarp for myself, God willing.

Before I did all that (I was getting ahead of myself) I needed to find the camp or village, and I needed the patience to wait. My stomach grumbled and gnawed at me, rumbling at the scent of fire, so often affiliated with the deliverance of fresh food, it didn’t want to wait any longer, I could’ve been afloat and unconscious for days. It’d been so long since I ate, I was honestly surprised to even be standing, though I was lightheaded and woozy, aching with agony, at least I was over the drowning portion of this adventure.

As though a lasso in my mind had been struck, it occurred to me that the sun was falling too quickly, I needed light to best make my assessment of the village or encampment. I had to go, now. My limbs flopped around, as sore and helpless as fish fins, but I set my mind to the task of first picking up the stick- a battle all its own, my fingers didn’t want to coil around it any longer, and I noticed where the cracked skin had chaffed and began to bleed. Next, I prepared my good leg, propped it up and winced as my angles jousted with the new position, and threw the weight that they couldn’t handle into the wooden cane once more.

“Gahhh, shit,” I muttered hoping to get some sort of release from the pain by cursing as my mouth spat the excess air out. Breathing was tough, and as I left the beach behind me and traversed through a dense part of the forest, I found myself huffing with every step. The dense, muggy air began to overwhelm me, there wasn’t enough oxygen going to my appendages and I could feel the soggy numbness that came with the sensation of drowning. Shaking my head, I resisted it, though, fatigue beckoned me, I would not fall to death here. This was my opportunity to rise once more, I just had to go a little further.

“C’mon body, work with me here, I’m trying to get you better,” I say to myself, a complete whisper, in case there are any villagers around. I stood near the mouth of a pathway, shrub and tree had been cut away and was well maintained. The soil looked as though it was frequently passed over, though I could only get glimpse from the distance, in between leaves and greenage of my own.

The pathway trailed all along, like a road, into a clearing where the forestry was less dense and there was even a breakage in the canopy overhead. Faint twilight trickled in, it was pale gray, and colored the village’s both shackle and grass-made rooftops with a silverish tint. Many chimneys were lit, and houses were lit from within, quickly, my eyes found only one chimney that wasn’t emitting smoke. I went for it.

Creeping around the perimeter of the village, in the shadows smothered by tangling vines that threatened to coil me underfoot, I managed to bat away some of the hanging web-like vines that I wasn’t able to simply pass through. Going through the tropical forest had been rough and it was dark by the time I’d gotten to the far side’s edge. The windows were still vacant, no signs of life passing through, I listened and used my God-gifted powers of thief intuition. To me, now felt like a good shot. I pondered if knocking at the door would ease my trifling pangs of doubt, however I quickly negated that thought, I couldn’t be seen, remember War?

It was here, where every stealth mission took a chance, I’d go in, jiggle the lock and if I couldn’t get it, the window would be smashed. I’d shuffle through it, maybe step my bare foot on their table while watching for tipping over the fine-china, trying to make as little noise as possible. My next goal: Check the shoe-rack, it didn’t hurt that I needed a set, but it was essential to know the type of people who were living in the house. Were they a family? Did they work a blue-collar job or white collar job? Was it a woman raising an only daughter? If they came downstairs, no matter who it is, it could be fatal for me, however, I was good at wiggling out of consequences, even with a pistol’s snout aimed at my nose and it never hurt to know what might just appeal to the trigger finger’s angle.

The mission commenced. My body lurched forward swiftly, I had no way of telling the time but it certainly seemed to be moving quickly, the stars were already sparkling out, and soon the moon would rise. I’d be able to tell how many days had passed on whether it was full, waxing or waning but I certainly didn’t want to be caught in its light. My chains made light jingling noises with every step, I had been forced to drag them, or toss them over my shoulder and out of the way, right now, they were stored over my shoulder, but it didn’t give me much room to fiddle with the lock. To my surprise, it hadn’t been latched.

In fact, not even the sliding door was locked, so I took the simple-thief’s way in, and slowly slid it open, hoping and praying that nothing would squeak because of a lack of oil. Both the windows and the glass door were cut in a spherical, circular shaped hunk of glass, it was kinda futuristic in a contrasting sort of way, that the houses were simple and primitive. More importantly, I was in. I let the door remain open before me, bracing my body and narrowing my eyes with concentration to as not to move or breathe in anyway that would give away that their house door had been opened -if it was inhabited- and then, I took a step and crossed the line inside, venturing beyond the point of no return.

As the distance of the door and my feet increased, I got a quick look around in the house’s shadows. The style was very… Off, but hey, I wasn’t a decorator. I watched to not stub my toe, and I had left my walking stick near the forest. Nothing but my feet could make a sound and I would make sure they wouldn’t get the chance.

The light padding of my raw skin over the flat-wood floor, soundless skimming as I took every hobbled step, but I forced my movements to be fluid and swift. I went to the front door, it was also cut in a circular shape, and made out of what I assumed to be wood. There was no shoe-rack, nor closet, nor mudroom  that housed their shoes or coats, a prickle was starting down my spine, suspicious thoughts littered my mind with every hair that rose. However, I had to focus, my time was limited. Medicine first. Then supplies.

My hunched body crept in the shadows while my eyes adjusted with the dim light, seeking the answers behind every door knob I dared to open. Daring with courage or desperation, it didn’t matter, the doors opened but strange items I couldn’t find use for, there was a tangle of rubber covered rope, maybe they’d made it waterproof, but other things I could barely identify the shape of, sat dormant on shelves, as though waiting for their masters too, to reach them. They almost appeared to be children’s toys, but with extra color and sophistication, yet strangely blank, as though a book that could never open. I couldn’t make sense of it, nor did I have the time.

Finally, one of the closets seemed to have a little of what I was looking for. After grabbing a few sheets of fabric-they were scratchy, like wool, but I wasn’t complaining. I’d use it as bedding and gaus, next the same closet had little vials of liquid, as well as some bottles full of little hardened stones or candies. I couldn’t read the labels in the dark so I opened a few of the caps, some of them had a ghastly smell, one of the many, smelt like rubbing alcohol, and I slipped that one in what was left of my pant’s pocket. I grabbed what I could, what seemed useful, but I couldn’t find tools, not even a needle or thread. Aborigines or indians must have lived here, to be so deprived of the essential! Not even matches! Or, maybe they were just hiding it from me cause they’d known I was coming. Of course, that wasn’t the case, I smirk, they can’t have known, and there wasn’t anyone around. I wouldn’t dare go upstairs though, that was always the greedy thief’s mistake, always going too far. Till he got his neck caught in the gallow’s rope.

I wasn’t going to lie, so far, I was disappointed in my findings, but I hoped finding sustenance for my stomach would distract me enough to finish this break-in and get out. So I wandered back into the only uncharted room left. I smelt… Something. It was tangy, like a fruit, but one I had never smelt before. It was an island, highly likely they had fruit I’d never experienced, but I bet that most of it was edible. I opened one of the wool blankets and shoved everything I could find inside. Round fruits, some spiked, others had skin that was smooth or furry, one was hot to the touch. I hoped to find some meat, but came up empty handed. My best find tonight, raiding this house, was the strange looking wavy steak knife, it would be useful, I placed it in the waistline of my pants just in case I was driven from the village prematurely.

Well, toting the bag now over my shoulder like a rogue, homeless, shoeless Santa Claus, I ran off without my reindeer into the night, making sure to slide their circular door behind me. While I’d left without a trace, and without being detected, I was sure the owner of the house, if they weren’t away, would notice their items gradually missing, or, they’d realize all at once if they’d looked in the closet that held their medicinal vials.

The thrill had given me the strength to heave it all over my shoulder, but I wasn’t sure how long the adrenaline would last. Would I make it back to the beach, or would I collapse in the middle of the woods where the snakes were eagerly slithering and moose-sized spiders ready to bite and jump on me? Of course, that was only my imagination talking, I hoped.

[Caira Ayryn]

A yawn erupted from my lips as I finished. Finished what, you say? Well, I’d ripped apart a scratchy-feeling gray blanket and put it over my wounds, not that it exactly mattered, but my wounds needed treating. I wasn’t able to find any ointment to put on them, but at least the replacement gauss made sure that no sand or dirt would infiltrate the wound and cause infection. When I was finished wrapping myself, I almost didn’t have any energy to eat, but my stomach persisted and ached enough that I knew it would be a long night without at least some food in my stomach.

I started with the fruit, by the fire I’d lit with my craftiness and well, the dry brush and resources of the beach, I was able to see the hands in front of my face and using my newly acquired knife, cut the fruit at first in half, then in quarter-slices, best for eating and well, cramming the most food possible down my throat in the least amount of time. Almost all of them were unfamiliar, but the smells were sugary, succulent, and flavorful and everything smelled edible. I went with the giant spiked fruit which had a spiked green headdress growing out of it. It was unique looking, and the flesh of the fruit was bright yellow, shining with moisture in heat of the golden flames.

As my teeth sunk in, the sweetness filled my tongue and was probably the most delicious fruit I’d ever tasted. Succulent, a tad of tang, and so very saccharine without the aftertaste. It was glorious and I felt my entire body thank me. I’d finished the entire thing, which was quite a feat as it was about the size of my head, before I decided not to gorge myself on food, but to start slowly, as my body could reject it if I ate all the food before me as though it were a buffet. Belly full and wounds tended, I collapsed into my blanket placed on sand and tumbled into the thick black veil of fatigue.

I awoke to foreign bird chiming loudly over the ocean breeze and immediately feeling the boiling hot sun scalding my skin. Sand was mixed with my stubble and my eyes opened only to close again at the brightness. I shook my head, shaking away the fatigue and madness and am motivated to stand up only by the empty pangs from my stomach, “Gaahhh,” everything hurt. And when I say everything, I mean everything.

My head throbbed from dehydration, the beating I’d taken, and my time in the sun and tumultuous waters of the ocean. My lips were dry, cracked, peeling, and tasted of blood, my bones were too tired to move and I had pushed my torso forth to sit upright and felt a wave of nausea and lightheadedness. I gulped down hard on my dry throat and felt the burning agony of my unquenched thirst. Obviously I’d swallowed enough salt water to last a lifetime and it had sapped me dry. To quench my thirst I’d make a filter from layers of rocks, sand, and patches of the blanket, however I’d prefer fresh water to filtered down ocean which could make me hack up the good fruit I’ve been indulging on. After my filter, or perhaps before if the snack of fruit hydrated me enough, I’d search for a source stream. Islands like these often had waterfalls or natural wells. Shoot, I should’ve tried to find some last night at the village, I could always go back, but now they’d be on the lookout.

After my thirst quenching snack I ran my hand through my hair, it was thick with grease and my fingers almost didn’t go all the way through. My eyes fell to the coals of the fire, the heat that once permeated from them was now non-existent. My muscles were heavy and I could feel the beating I’d taken multiplied several times over from the initial hurt. My lungs still pinched at my sides due to my broken ribs, those would take a couple weeks to heal, I could still try, however, to build a raft or steal one so I could get off of this island. Maybe I wouldn’t have to though, if I could just get these chains…


Off.

“Hello!” A voice squeaked behind me. My eyes widened and my heart skipped, I froze, then, jumped up, twisting to turn and see who was behind me, what story I’d have to tell to get out of this one, or what action I would have to take to escape their capture. However, I wasn’t anticipating my eyes meeting a what.

Quickly, my hand fumbled for the knife which I’d stuck into the sand the night before and I held it up while my slowly streaming thoughts caught up with what my body’s instinct had warned and assigned danger. I held the knife up, fully aware what I must look like. My pants had been reduced dirt-smeared shorts, torn in multiple places and with thread dangling from their lining, my shirt was pale and covered in splashes of my own, now dry blood, and my beard had grown in a feasible amount and my hair looked shiny enough to have been gooped up with gel.

I was barefoot and shoeless, not that it much mattered on the beach, other than the sand now warming their pads. Still, now I looked at what abomination shown before me and I was sure the legends that the Greek Empire foretold were true. All of them. For before me, standing tall, was a great and mighty monster.

It was as tall as me, thin, as though it were a female one, and its hair was held back in a braid. Its skin changed from purple to blue as it stepped in the sunlight of the uncovered beach. It was tall, lanky, and well, had eyes like I’d never seen before. It was a monstrous brute, I narrowed my eyes with worry as it paused, detecting the threat I held between my palms and directing the knife at it.

“Whoa… I’ve never seen a real life human before!” It was apparent now that it’s voice was female, she was now smiling, I took a step back, the sole of my foot falling on a shard of wood from my makeshift fire and causing me to wince, though I barely felt it, the adrenaline from meeting this unearthly creature had thrilled my heart and numbed my sole. “You must be the one who broke into Wobbo’s house, weren’t you?” her eyes, golden and flecked with an orange blaze passed over my injuries and noticed my stance was defensive, “Oh, no, there’s no need to be scared, I’ve read all about you!”

My chin moved back and I looked at her now more quizzically than with fear or intended harm, which was a mistake on my behalf, as she took a step closer, and I couldn’t get the words to come from my hoarse throat so I held up my knife, waving it in a way that angled for her to stay.

“Hm? What’s wrong? I just want to help, I’m not mad you took fruit Wobbo picked from his garden, obviously you were just hungry, is there… Are you a mute human? Or maybe deaf?” her voice was a little kinder now, however, it still sounded abrasive to my human ears, which had only ever heard the tones of english spoken in the tongue by my own species.

“N-no..” I managed, my throat fought me, burning and hurting as I choked it out, threatening to hack up a hairball if I didn’t get water down my gullet soon.

“Hmm, you’re thirsty, here, you can take my canteen, just put down the knife, you could hurt yourself and you look rather unbalanced. Put down the knife and I’ll toss it over,” she gestured that she was only getting out her container for water and, in order to show me it wasn’t poisoned, took a sip herself, “See? It’s okay,” she tossed it a safe yard in front of me, I’m guessing so I would not assume it was a grenade or other kind of device.

My eyes didn’t lie, it didn’t detonate, nor did it appear to be full of gunpowder. My feet hobbled over on the uneven dunes of sand and I kept the knife ready for slashing, in case she decided to make a charge, my hand reached for the drink and I receded back a few steps before unscrewing the cap and drenching myself with the thirst-quenching water. It tasted a tad different from water, as though it had been juice dripped from a ripe fruit, but it was refreshing and overflowing trickles of it rolled into my new-forming beard.

Click. The shutter of a camera went off and there was a flash from the device in her hand. I felt a thrill of fear convulse in my muscles and held my knife up and ready in my hand, my throat was quenched enough for me to manage, “What’s that?”

“He speaks!” she praised and the smile on her face didn’t leave, “OH, I’m sorry, I should’ve asked you first if I could take your picture, I just wanted it for my blog, “Islander” I’m getting really good at my writing and… Well I guess that’s beside the point, are you feeling better, sir? At least I um, think you’re a male, you grow hair on your face so that’s the main reason for my assumption.”

“What?” I spoke, exasperated and surprised. It was all too fast, a monster had come up from the forest and approached me, I thought it was going to attack but now it acted as though everything was normal and they were having a regular conversation.

“Am I.. Speaking too fast for you?” she said slower.

I blink, dumbfounded and stupefied still at what I was witnessing. This couldn’t be real, “I must be dreaming.”

“Haha oh you’re excited! I feel the same way, I’ll be the first of my generation on the island to ever meet a human!” she squeaked and her fingers flipped on the little piece of metal in her hands, tapping repeatedly as her eyebrows wove upward with glee. “Posted! Hehe! Now you’ll be famous!”

[Caira Ayryn]

“Famous?” I was still dumbfounded. It wasn’t what she was saying, per se, but what she was talking about. I couldn’t wrap my head around it, she didn’t have a newspaper in her hands, nor a textile to make it. I was confused, and my skull was pounding. My feet wobbled and my balance was compromised. I fell down and brace for the fall, holding the knife a safe distance from my body.

“Eeep! Are you okay there human? What did I tell you about that knife, you could’ve stabbed yourse…” her voice trailed off as she noticed that the red stuff on my shirt was the color of my very human blood. “YOU’RE BLEEDING!”

Her screech was like cannonfire on my eardrums and she attempted to get close, “Stay back!” I warned and waved the knife up in her direction, aimlessly.

“Why? You need help, I can call the hozzian and he can help you. Why are you acting so afraid? It’s not like you’ve never seen a purple-girl before, unless you’re one of those petty and prejudice humans, which I’ll like, still call the hozzian but honestly discrimination is sooo last century,” she said with a wave of her hair and turned around.

“Wait, don’t…” I struggled, “I don’t need anyone’s help. Just answer my question, what exactly… Are you?”

She turned around, her head tilted with curiosity, “Well you see, mister mister, I’m a purple-girl, at least, that’s what our species is called. If I were a boy, it would be accurate to say purple-boy, when we ascend into womanhood and manhood we achieve the titles of our elders and ancestors Galeemoth, which is… You probably didn’t want a history lesson, did you sir? Well, I’ll be frank, at first I thought you were kind of racist but by the way you’re looking at me I guess I can’t really consider you that, can I?”

“Racist?” the term was vague and I searched and searched until I had found I’d never heard it before, “What is that?”

“Like when… You don’t like someone because of their physical differences from your own,” she summarized.

“Uh… Well you’re not exactly human but… I guess I don’t personally dislike you?” I shrugged.

“Oh Gazziemon!” she exclaimed, “This is great! I’m gonna ask mom and dad if you can stay at my house! We can have sleepovers and parties and-”

“Wait, if you insist I meet your people and my wounds tended by them, I er, assume, I have a requirement, if you could find some way to get these chains off of my wrists, I will go willingly, if you promise in your ancestors that your people will not execute me.” My wager worked easily enough.

“Your chains? I thought those were bracelets, haha, they aren’t just like, a fashion statement?”she giggled and inquired, stepping a little closer to me.

“Not in this case,” I spoke, still very flummoxed by all she had to say but I would let her break the chains if she could.

“Got it, but toss the knife away, I don’t want you trying to stab me or whatever, you could mess up my hair and Bohoma would laugh at me sooo hard if she saw it. She’s the school bully and like, I don’t want her to give her a reason to pick on me.” The purple-girl who was actually currently blue, stepped closer to me, and I complied, though I didn’t place the knife so far off that it was out of reach. I was the one at a disadvantage, child of their race or not.

“You shouldn’t let people like that treat you that way,” I said, realizing my own hypocrisy.

“Yeah, well, last time I tried to stand up for myself she had Kizzleberry pull my shirt off and the whole school saw my bra, not cool, and then the school said I had to go home for the day. It was uncool. Anyway, I can get these chains off with just a little more pressure… Annnd, snap! There you go.” She stood up and smiled, taking a step back from me as she saw the suspicion in my eyes.

She’d crushed the steel with just her hands, as though it were a twig or branch wrapped around my wrists. I gulped but tried not to let on as I examined the texture of her flawless blue hued skin, “Those kids at school sound pretty uh.. Not so nice,” I couldn’t even fathom the culture difference but while I had never attended much school past middle, we’d never do that to a girl.

“Yeah well, now I’ve spotted a human and everyone will know I’m the BEST!” she raised her silver device to the sky.

“What exactly… Is that?” I asked her and she showed me a colored picture of myself. At first I thought it was a mirror but there was text underneath it too, as though a newspaper had come to life, “Holy shit… Is that real?”

“Uhh, my phone? Of course it is. Hmm, you must be new because you don’t seem very cultured.” How ironic, I thought, as she continued, “So I guess I’ll brief you because the Kennliker will just do the same anyway, you’ve washed ashore to our island and we practice strict isolationism, we don’t export nor import, we make everything we live off here. Our isolationism is to prevent wars and unwanted violence in the Omniverse but like, I think there’s other reasons too that the elders don’t tell us.”

That was it. I’d washed up into an entire new world.  “The Omniverse?” I parroted.

“So like, I’m not really sure what human world you came from, but that’s totally cool, you don’t even seem like you’re from this time either, since you didn’t even know what a phone was,” she continued, “The Omniverse is a world a lot like some of the Earths humans come from, you are from Earth, right?”

I slowly nod, aliens, monsters, the stories of Homer were all true.

“Okay, so do this for me, imagine that you’re a man in a story book, will you?” I nod again, life was like a chronicle of stories all mashing together until they became intermingled bits, “So you were pulled from your book and re-written in ours. That’s kind of how the elders taught us that it works. It is a pretty apt description if you ask me.”

“So I’m… Dead in my world?” I look down at my calloused hands, confused, fear-ridden, and wishing for a brief instant my life had ended in the sea.

“Nobody knows, ask the God of this world if you get the chance, they call him Omni, but I’m not sure… Hey, hey, don’t cry, it is a new opportunity is all,” she reached for my shoulder but thought twice about making contact with me, based on how skittish I had portrayed myself.

“Is that all the afterlife is? A bunch of stories put together?” I asked her.

“Listen to me, you’re not dead and I’m not some angel telling you that you are, see? No wings. Though, that’d be hella sick, y’know? Anyway, you’re not dead, you just fell in our world instead, don’t worry, I’m sure everything is fine back home for you.” she reassured, she really was a kind ogre-looking thing.

I snuff out the tears that had met with my eyes at the idea of a change of world, “How did I… End up here?”

“I took the chains off, you can come with me now, and the elders will tell you more. I’m afraid I may have told you some things you couldn’t handle, my apologies, human.” She stood up, extended her hand to me and I took it and with ease, she lifted me, a grown man, off the ground.