Rapture [Ver. II]

He woke alone.

Salt hung sharp in the air. Foul iron, on his tongue.

There was a difference in the air trapped in the room with him—it was heavy with damp, hard to breathe—he couldn't help but feel severely out of place.

At first, he avoided opening his eyes. It was so hard, his body so tired—and for a moment, all he knew was a blur of warm light.

It surrounded him like falling sand. Kept moving. Kept swaying...

Why was it all swaying?

In the dark, tendrils of gold caught what little light there was, where it scattered in arcs, revealing pieces of a room. Something brushed softly against his fingertips in time with every other sluggish beat of his heart. Like a pendulum, everything shifted with him. One way. Another.

He remembered very little of reason—nothing explained this, where he was, what must have happened—but there was a place he knew. One where the waves never crashed like they were meant to. One where, instead, they whispered shyly to the sand. Seafoam carried splinters to prick the tips of his fingers—was that was he was feeling?

His nail caught on a groove in the wood, fingers curling inward in response to it.

But he remembered, too, that the sun had risen blistering red, and so much worse, was the cold of the tide, biting away at him upon every ebb and flow.

No, a beach wouldn't be so dark—the heat remained on his skin even when he tried to blink it all away. The grains of sand sparkled like gold, and he struggled to define them—frustrated with the way his body ached to hell, the way it wouldn't work. He wanted to see, to know what it all was, what it meant—for in all this, something was surely missing, something had changed.

He just couldn't know what it was.

The swaying got worse—his teeth gritted, and when he tried to find the floor with weak hands, the ground was swept out from under him—

It was with a heavy thud that his face met the wood—the proper floor, surely—and the impact was enough to put some things into perspective.

His lip curled back in a scoff, but even that sent a tugging pain through his face. He settled instead for pursing his lips, teeth biting down into his lips to hopefully distract from the old pain with new.

He blinked away what felt like sand in his tearing eyes. Through the cloudy tears, he was able to narrow his sight on the small dark mark left in the wood just under his face. His hand rose to confirm what he saw, every movement suggesting he'd been asleep for ages. It came back expectedly bloody.

A shifting sound met his ears.

This is what truly cleared his mind—the shock of realizing he wasn't alone, hitting him harder than a spooked carthorse. His eyes cleared at last, but they were useless to see past the dark looming in the other end of the room. He heard it clearly, though—felt the scuffing of boots shake the floorboards just so.

He tried to track the noise with his eyes, but it proved a massive mistake when a door screeched open on it's hinges, and a blinding light poured in.

A shout rolled past his lips despite the way he tried to hold it back, but his eyes stung violently at the drastic change.

His hands shielded his face from further damage, but the rocking didn't stop—it kept his thoughts trapped in a sort of high that he had barely managed to escape for the moment.

Who was that?

His eyes burned, but they grew used to the light—and it actually wasn't so bright, after all, only that the room was so dark. Still, his hands hovered by his face, readying to shield it from any other possible misfortune.

The door was open. He heard nothing beyond it. A torch lamp swayed one way. Another.

His brows furrowed, but the pieces were falling into place. His fingernails found purchase in the grooves of the damp wood, where he shifted—just enough, for him to not only find pain laced all throughout his body, but enough for him to look up to the ceiling.

The rounded port glass was frosted with clouds of dry salt water, but the light made it through anyway. It was softer, only really catching on the dust suspended in the air, fading as it reached the only edge of the room it could. Strange golden webs still glimmered at the walls edge.

It illuminated a hammock, just above him—still swinging from when he'd toppled off of it.

He looked back to the sky, looked harder.

The clouds rocked one way, and another, and he finally realized what this was. A ship.

He was on a ship, and with the sudden realization, there were only two conclusions to gather. On one hand, he might have gotten really, really lucky.

On the other...

Swallowing thickly, he felt sand grating in his throat, and he coughed violently—it sparked a chain of discomfort that allowed him to really tally up his injuries.

His head, but especially his jaw; the ache settled deep behind his eyes. Both shoulders, but the right side hurt far worse, fanning out to his ribs. His lower spine, where the pain shot straight upward. Both legs in numerous places, and a particularly paralyzing pain stemming from his left foot.

But the door was open.

If he were exceptionally lucky, he would have nothing to worry about—someone would come to help him soon.

If he were exceptionally unlucky, that open door could be the last opportunity he would get—likely left open because whoever had been in the room with him had to know of his injuries.

It was so far-fetched—if he managed to move, as his left leg was fully disinclined to do, and this was indeed a ship...there would be nowhere to go.

Unless they'd made port...he strained his ears, held his breath...

Fuck, he couldn't tell!

Footsteps fell heavy on the floorboards, echoing in their approach outside the door.

He made to rise, instinctively wanting to assume a less vulnerable position, but he didn't get the time.

He'd expected a man well worth his salt, worn from weeks at sea and hopefully decorated in naval medallions—this man was not that. Hell—this young man may barely have lived long enough to be called as such.

With every stranger's step, his eyes narrowed, hoping to catch a glint of light from a naval officer's uniform. The shadows gave him nothing but a silhouette, the likes of which dragged something wooden across the floor to sit upon it.

There it was—the young man didn't say anything, merely a lithe form in the dark, but he'd seen it just then—a glint of light.

"Are—"

He coughed, the word sinking claws into his throat as he tried to speak—for a moment, all his breaths were full of sand.

The stranger said nothing.

He swallowed thickly, at his best, managing a whisper. "Are you—with the navy?" His scratched. "Do you have...have water? What happened?"

The man clicked his tongue, huffing a laugh under his breath. "The navy..."

Again—another glint of light, faint, and white. What kind of medallion...

There was a moment of silence, in which the man didn't move—didn't reach for water, didn't offer any aid. He knew already that navymen were often unforgiving, but wouldn't they at least offer aid after taking someone aboard?

That light caught again, arcing slowly this time, on a long curve.

His heart skipped a beat.

His entire body flashed hot, then cold—his vision darkening around the edges.

He steadied his breath—not that hard, given it had shallowed quite severely. "Are you with the navy," he said again, his words echoing eerily in the dark.

Oh, he already knew the answer—and he was exceptionally unlucky.

"Would you like to meet my friends," asked the stranger in the dark.

His vision pulsed—the young man's voice solidified his youth, a light-heartedness present that scared him half to death and weighed heavily on his shoulders.

Was he supposed to answer? Would it be rude to stay silent?

A flicker a light was all he knew before his body reacted for him, recoiling, punctuated by a solid thunk.

In his panic, his eyes found a pale, savage-looking dagger embedded in the damp wood beside his knees.

A wave of black blotted out his vision for a moment—he felt light-headed.

"That one, I call Plague," the stranger said.

Shallow breaths became heaves, and still, he felt like he wasn't getting air somehow.

"This one," the man teased, a blade's edge barely audible against skin, "I think you'll like. I call this one Omen."

His body shuffled backward again, the pain both present and not, numbed by his rushing blood—but the thud sounded, and suddenly a little spark of fire caught the side of his middle finger.

He hissed, his hand jerking away—he cradled it shaking to his chest, which stuttered around the sharp breath he'd taken, sand still seemingly in his lungs.

"Scurrying around the treasury floors like a bilge rat," the man scolded, standing. "Stop acting like a scared little mouse—tell me what order you belong to."

He shook his head hopelessly, his vision clearing just in time for the young man to approach him—he was quick, only a moment away, and then all of a sudden, face-to-face with him with one knee on the floor.

"Was the message not clear?" The stranger asked, and plucked the first of the indentical daggers from the floorboards. The curved, odd-looking blade whirled between deft fingers. "It goes like this."

The stranger grabbed ahold of his wrist with the speed of a viper—or was it just his panic?

"Start talking, or start counting down from ten. What order do you work for?"

"I don't know," he rushed. "I don't know, I swear, I don't—" The razored edge pressed against his small finger. "I don't remember anything, please."

Harsh, striking grey eyes slanted with boredom. "You don't remember? The hell's that supposed to mean? How d'you not fucking know who you work for?"

He shook his head again, whiplashed by the violence the man was ready to inflict with such ease.

"I know damn well it ain't the navy—if'it were, you'd have pissed yourself by now, I'll hand you that."

His hand was turned easily, his weakness offering no resistance to the man.

"Soft hands, even as close to death as we found you—I know well you've never handled a ship in your life."

"Found me?" He asked.

The stranger offered him a look that betrayed his immaturity. "Uh, yeah—figure you can guess where?"

His head shook, yet again, but it was all he could do. He wracked his addled head for anything, a hint, a clue—nothing came to mind. Not a single town, a single city. "I—I'm sorry, I don't remember."

Thick brows lifted high into a dirty blond fringe. "You don't...remember. Un-be-lievable. You know, I've waited real patient for a prisoner to come along that I could question, and you tell me you don't remember nothin'. Real fuckin' dirty of ya."

As he spoke, he seemed to gesture with his dagger, as if it were another one of his hands. He watched it carefully.

"I have half a mind to call you a liar and throw your useless ass overboard. Feed the sea beasts with ya. I would, but somehow, I know there is nothin' behind those pretty little eyes of yours, aye?" The man said, suddenly gripping his jaw and tossing it side to side. The ache deep in his spine protested harshly, but he was forced to grit his teeth and bear it. "I don't think you know a damn thing."

"You...believe me?"

"Don't act all relieved—you know what that means for you? It means you're dead weight. I'm gonna feed the beasts with you anyway. See ya—"

"What? I—" The man took the second, identical dagger in hand, and pushed himself up, making for the door. "Wait! Wait, please—"

"Shut up," he snapped. "You want me to stick around? While I got these?" He gestured with his blades. "You must be some kinda stupid. Looking to get yourself killed, are you?"

"No, but—you said you found me. Maybe if you could just tell me where, I could tell you what you want to know!" His voice was grating, similar to the aches and moans of the wood as the ship swayed. He was beyond parched—his body beyond aching—but it had to be enough.

"Oh yeah?" The blond laughed. "Alright, ya blige rat, let's hear it." He drew closer, but stayed standing, the edge of a dagger slipping audibly past his palm, his fingers, as he flipped it. "You know where we found you?"

He swallowed. "Where?"

There was a moment of silence that weighed heavy on him—a moment where the blond's smile slipped into a grimace. "Found you in a bonegarden. You know what that is?"

He turned the word over in his head, but it yielded nothing. He sighed harshly, frustrated, exasperated. "No."

The stranger pursed his lips. "You wouldn't. Mainlander's would never see 'em, but they're there. Tucked away, in quiet parts of the land, where no one would trespass for years at a time. This'n was the first I ever saw," he said, voice fading as he seemed to dream the sight.

He studied the young man for a moment. Something was odd about him—the way he could use fear as easily as another tool, and yet, also seemed to hold you captive with a sort of mutuality.

"A bonegarden is a holy place. The god we call Fate—it is a piece of the domain that this god tends to, a piece of Gehenna bleeding into the land. You don't know any of this?"

Before, the stranger had seemed to aloof and flakey—now, there was a stillness to him. "No, I don't think so."

The man squinted, but seemed resigned. "The Lady Fate is said to have a domain mirrored along the very bottom of the depths. Her sky is our sea. Her land is our sky. When our corpses fall to the waters, and we are not given burial rites, she plucks our bones from her sky, and strings them together to form the constellations."

"Constellations?"

The blond...smiled. "They're like stories the stars tell. The sky moves, you see—any sea artist will tell ya—and every so many days, the stars return and play again across the sky's theater. Some of them make shapes, like beasts and men. Some tell the stories of beasts and men."

He forgot for a moment—forgot who he was, his position, who he spoke with. "That's beautiful."

The man raised a brow in recognition. "It is. But only to those who respect the Lady's bones. You..."

His heart sunk quickly. "What? What did I do? I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to—I couldn't have meant to—"

"You see, you are never, ever supposed to step foot in the bonegardens. It is an insult to the Lady. It is an insult to her bones, to the men and women, sometimes children, who die honorless at sea. Who don't make it home to those who will bury them.

"I found you there. In the bonegarden."

His heart sped up again—he fought to calm himself. "I'm so sorry...if I'd known..."

"You weren't conscious, Mouse. I don't know how you made it out of that bonegarden alive—I don't know how you made it to that bonegarden alive. Fate must think your death still has some part to play."

"Wh-What? I...should be dead?" He looked down at himself—how beaten his life had left him, before he could remember.

The man met his eye. "To step into the bonegarden is a mark for death."

"No, I—please don't, I never meant to—"

"Oh no, don't mistake me. It's the gods you'd better pray to—the Lady herself marks you. It's no longer my place to kill you. It's up to her, now."

The notion was daunting, to say the least. These gods, he wasn't familiar with—whether he knew them in a past life was a foregone conclusion, and it wouldn't help him now. What he did hear, was that this man, whoever he was, would spare him.

"Thank you, I—"

"No," the blond said firmly. "Don't thank me yet, little Mouse. For all I know, you might've been better off given what the Captain's got in store for you."

His lip quivered. "The Captain? What will he do?"

"Fuck if I have a clue. That's for 'im to know, us to find out, savvy?"

The man made to leave again, and this time, there was nothing to say to stop him.

He was halfway to the doorway, and never bothered to turn, instead speaking into the room. "You're an omen, Mouse." He flipped a blade in his palm. "You can't escape Fate—she's already found you."