Accursed Waters

The Kardan Ocean: thousands of miles of open sea, uncharted waters bursting at the seams with mysteries, all boiling over with danger. It’s a wasteland of water that swallows ships, turning its floor into a graveyard of twisted, rotten vessels. Treasures of ages long past lie hidden in the silt. Bones of royals vanished from history cry out from the depths. 

I know people buried down there. I know ships that sank in those waves, carrying friends that struck out in desperation, that denied the stories.

So I should have known not to cross that ocean.

But when have I ever taken warning signs for what they were? The myths and omens were but challenges to me back then. I loved the thrill of mad chases and wild dreams. So I asked myself, why should I stop at an ocean?

I chartered a ship, joined the crew, and set sail with a group of half-mad men lusting for the prestige and wealth this would bring them.

If we survived.

I didn’t think of the ‘what if’s’ or the ‘maybe’s’. I thought only of the blood racing through my veins, the fierce feeling that came when I defied the laws that ocean had set and entered its accursed waters. Heat and defiance burned bright, encouraging me to ignore the signs –the warnings– that the ocean sent us.

That defiance didn’t waver even as we sailed past a monstrous sea turtle. Its eyes stared sightlessly at us, blood leeching from its broken body and turning the ocean a deep maroon. We watched silently as we sailed past twisted sea beasts feasting on its flesh.

I listened impassively as my men whispered among themselves, their nerves shaken. A bad omen, they whispered. The turtle was almost as large as the ship itself. But I was the picture of confidence. I fed them my bluster, and they clung to me like I was the mast on a sinking ship.

For two days, nothing else came. All was calm waters and blistering sunlight. On the third night, a storm gathered on the horizon, the bellies of the clouds overswollen with rain. It came upon us with a thunderclap, clouds spilling across the sky and swallowing every inch of sunlight. Lightning struck at our mainmast, splitting it in two. Waves tossed us about like driftwood, threatening to dash us to pieces. The ship groaned under the pressure, its timber moaning as the thunder threatened us all. 

But this, this was a miscalculation on the sea’s part. The men, who had been wavering in their resolve, had needed something to bolster their confidence. When the storm hit, they knew what to do. They knew they could handle this. A storm was not an undefeatable monster. Terrible, yes. But nothing they hadn’t seen before.

Our oars went out and we fought the currents. Our muscles burned and sweat slicked our backs. Exhaustion dripped from our limbs, and I began to doubt myself. My calculations said that we should see land any day. But as the days passed, as our stores ran low and tempers shortened, there was nothing.

The food became infested with weevils and sickness ravaged our decks. Salt turned our water bitter and undrinkable. Any attempt at fishing for sustenance left us vomiting our guts out onto the deck. We’d been cursed. It wasn’t hard to believe. The sea had infested our ship, rotting it away until some of its timbers crumbled under our touch. Constant pumping was all that kept us afloat.

At that point, I now believe that, had we turned back, we all would have survived.

But lost and floundering in the ocean, firm on my belief that land was only just out of sight, I ignored my doubts and urged the men onward.

Sickness drove us to our berths, only a handful of us able to occasionally pump out the water pooling under our feet. Our stink became so strong that one could hardly smell the sea anymore.

I slept in the captain’s quarters with the few others who could still walk. And it was I who woke up to hear the ship tearing apart. The wood cried splinters, groaning as it was gutted from beneath. I watched it cave in on itself, closing like jaws around my men. I ran for the rail, but the mizzenmast toppled, slamming into me and tangling me in its ropes.

Crushed and immobile, I screamed in terror as giant arms wrapped around the rest of the wreckage, dragging it underwater. I choked, thrashing as water flooded my lungs. The water turned black with blood. The monster ripped the wood to shreds. And as my vision began to go dark, I watched a maw rimmed with bone white teeth swallow my men, my ship, and everything else with it.

Death stared me in the face as I drowned. Thousands of eyes turned to look at me, still wrapped up in the mizzenmast. An arm curled around me, squeezing around my ribcage. Powerful muscle writhed against my bare skin.

But instead of swallowing me, it shoved me towards the surface.

I should have died. I should have lost the gamble and joined the chorus of souls. It would have been preferable to die with my brothers. Instead, I was left alive, the blood of hundreds dying my skin red. The last thing I felt was a tearing sensation and pain that ripped through my body.

The monster took my leg with it, down into the depths. But I lay there, floating on pieces of the wreckage for days, drifting in and out of sanity. In the end, I washed up on a shore half drowned and insane.

When they found me, I had been reduced to nothing, a mere shadow of the man I had been. The sea had banished me, spat me out like bile. I tried to return to it, for it was home to me. But the sea vomited me out, leaving me with more scars and a curse I couldn’t shake. I learned to live alone in a small cottage, knowing if I set foot on a ship punishment would come. And that banishment seemed to carve my heart from my chest. But that was nothing to the agony I felt when I heard the news.

Some foolhardy soul was going to brave the waters.