The water dripped down her face, the medical johnny became soaked and clung to each curve of her body. But she could not linger, so she moved forth and opened the final door.
A corridor welcomed her. But what more was the breeze. Distant, but present. She followed it, running barefoot over the rigid floors. Dashing left and right, she did not hesitate in the path of the wind that guided her to freedom. The steps she took were strange, as if her body swayed back and forth, oscillations beneath her feet. Could it be an earthquake? The alarm started blazing. Red lights flickered in emergency as if lava surging forth in response to her question. Sounds thundered around her.
Footfalls resounding from the guards came closer and closer. She came to the end of the hall and stepped out. Dark skies greeted her. Trees, sands, even buildings were absent from view. Instead, the nighttime ocean stretched out before her. It pounded in cascades against the steel hull of the surrounding ships and the ship she now stood upon: the Scipian’s fleet.
She could no longer run ... could she?
A shot from behind her answered. The bullet whistled by as the men surrounded her. It roused her to action, running forth to jump into the tempestuous seas below rather than be trapped again.
“No!” A familiar voice called out.
The command did not come from the direction of the gunfire, but elsewhere. Nyx was not sure if it was directed at her, or to the men behind her to stand down and stop firing. She recognized the voice, as if from an echo of long ago. But she could not grasp its source. Not only the voice but what she was doing. Running along this deck, looking for freedom. She remembered for moments how she halted before, and how she was determined to have no pause this time. But like awakening to a dream, her memories slipped away forgotten but her resolution remained.
She jumped from the Destroyer. Plunged into the seas below.
Waves collapsed over her head, sucking her down into the depths. Bullets hit the churning waters near to her, ricocheting the sea into a frothing broth. Their target never to be found. A cacophony played around her of waves and ammo, but down below was the quiet, ne’er ending reclusiveness of the abyss.
The tides pulled her down toward the elysian fields of the netherworld. Charybdis dwelled below, the whirlpools of the creature capturing her in their down-pull. Though the need to live drove her to kick up and away. The instinct found in all the living beings; the unbreakable and tenacious will to survive and not surrender to the bearer of dark tidings. Her head broke the surface, but only for a mere second as a wave forced her down, refusing her air. Again she tried, again to fail. Caught in the sea’s anarchic torrent; the ocean tossed her asunder as a ragged doll forced into submission. However, her conviction prevailed. Her strokes forced her upwards to break the surface.
She caught sight of the ships grey against the thundering skies. A riptide drove the runaway to safety, taking her out of the enemy’s view. The current transformed from a curse beating her downward to a blessing, having facilitated her escape from the bars of the floating prison.
But land was not in sight in the dark, and the storm showed no signs of abating. She only saw a translucent line between the blackness of night and of the ocean. Even the stars did not mark a separation between air and water as their reflections danced upon the rising waves. Did she even swim through the water, but rather the sky? Each hand coming down in stroke to touch the small lights of another world, rippling them into eternity.
Predators feed at night within the waves.
A ghostly reminder of what swam below. Predators ravaged the sea; their hunger akin to her own that night on the shores with the Fisherman.
“Grant me safe voyage,” she whispered, but as the waves arched around her, guided by the wind, she quieted in her pray for she no longer yearned for the sands of the shore.
Tranquility within the storm. As one finds wonders in the tempestuous clash of lightning and magic in the tornado swirls, she could only admire the sea’s perilous strength. She could not refuse. This was life. Each moment spent in safety’s harbor would become forgotten in the grand scope. The mundane and predictable are lost to the memories. What created life were the moments of jeopardy and change. The moments when we leave the nest, spreading wings for the first time to face danger.
Not to hide. Not to exist.
Not even to run.
But to live.
And life was clearest when the obscurities of death become unmasked.
The waves took her away from all comforts, painting her with a vulnerability that she allowed herself as part of the sea’s great energy. The persistent, unfettered ocean itself granted reason, shedding light to life’s mysteries. It left her stripped of strength and humanity, but complete and stronger than ever.
She did not know how long the wrath of winds and seas came, but finally it rested. The storm ebbed. The waves quieted, leaving her alone in the stillness. Kicking, energy almost drained, Nyx knew she could not live forever in the ocean’s breadth, however it was desired for there always seemed to be others, surrounding her at every turn.
Except here and now.
Silence sung to her. Freedom flowed within the salt-filled sea. One place still on the planet where one could lose themselves: away from humanity and society, what little was left of it.
The dark sky fought for dominion as rays of light pierced it from the horizon. The battle ensued on the sky and sea. Stars divided the wave’s crescents, speared by light from Helios’ hand. Soon the nightscape lost the battle to the sun, as the perpetual war between day and night was bound to play the conflict eternally. Her eyes, red with the salt, looked over the new dawn in search of land. Cumulus clouds accumulated in the west, the sight of land beneath their shadows. A welcome sight to her, especially with no ship in her view to circumvent her getaway. Maybe while guided by the storm, they had crashed into the outcroppings of rock. A pipe dream, but one could hope.
Triton and those of the Scipian deemed what was best for her, imposing their will upon her. How she wished to forget them, but not the wisdom. The Drakōn mund lived inside her. It proved she was not an outsider, but an accomplice to the era that now unfolded. She was the cause of it all. Either she could scorn herself or embody who she was. She chose the latter.
A confidence in her stroke, she swam toward the shore. She needed solid ground though, no matter her wish to forever swim in the unwavering release. Not simply in the sea, but in life. All this time she sought to be unrestrained, unconfined by the very aspect of living. Though the definition of life was in opposition to absolute freedom: the soul confined within the body. Sustenance and shelter a necessity in order to avoid death’s prison.
All this time she had been looking for something that could never be achieved. Pushing away the people she cared for most.
Hector.
Leander.
The latter name whispered out loud, the winds echoing her feelings toward him. Her dreams of the night before danced in her mind. She never wished for love, viewing it as a cage built by emotion. Now though, that cage hinged open.
Just another reason for her to swim faster, to break the tides and find where Leander had gone—if he was still alive. If.
The call of the peregrine falcon signaled land was near. He circled overhead. She wondered if he could see her, if he realized he became her soul. He was boundless by even gravity. His freedom allowed the rest of her to walk earthbound, restricted but free. All she needed was to look up, see the falcon, and lift to the heavens. He was her guide, her guardian, her spirit.
Almost to the shore. It would not come soon enough, even under the watchful eye of the falcon. Something grazed her leg, stopping her in her tracks. The movement felt sensual, though desire did not come. A chill did. The streamlined shadow below her highlighted by the rising sun depicted a clear profile; the predator she had once warned the Fisherman of now hunted her. A shortfin mako shark swam in the water depths.
The Fisherman had told her to blend to nature, to becom
e one with the wild. She followed his words, remaining calm. She moved her hand underwater to the bandage that wrapped her calf and made sure it was secure. But then again she felt the shark brush against her. The metallic skin felt like sandpaper, grating her hand. Her presence lured it to turn and come again. Though she hoped it would not attack and knew the shark could only be met with its own tributes: strength and curiosity. If it sensed the vulnerable, it would strike.
But sound broke her composure.
Yelling from the shore.
The deep sound distracted her. Her body trembled along the fin of the passing mako. Her breath quickened and deviated from the surroundings as she wondered who called out. Within this falter, came the wrath.
The shark’s body under her turned from his course; the departure from the norm of the ocean now clear. Parting the sea, the shark came as a raptor in pursuit. Instinctually she moved in order to avoid the more brutal force of the shark’s jaws. The teeth barely grazed into the skin of her calf; one predator’s mark replacing another’s. Only a muffled scream pierced her lips before the waters covered her face in the downward pull of the predator.
Your life in another’s hands, whether it be a lover or demon, human or Chaot, falcon or shark, brings you closer to them. But she would fight for their roles to be reversed. Escape being the prey by becoming a predator. Act bold. Fearless. She tried not to panic as the shark pulled her, for that would mean her death. He had a superficial hold on her body, teeth scarcely breaking her skin. The mako’s teeth were not serrated; they did not cut into her flesh so much as grasped her, and in that she found the advantage. She attacked, plunging her hand to the beady eyes: bloodlust alongside beauty looking at her in the black orbs. The mako did not rely on the nictitating membrane, hence its unprotected eyes were left victim to her fingers as she jabbed him. Blood sprouted from the sockets causing the shark’s body to grow rigid, skewed within a sharp pain. Its clasp over her body loosened, and the serpentine creature doubled over in agony. Its tail coiled back, whipping out and the jaws released her.
Swimming up, she broke the surface and breathed. Was it over, she thought looking for a sign of the mako. Life relied upon imperfection. Evolution needed it. But what happened when imperfection became perfection? The mako shark had evolved from its predecessors one hundred million years ago, even before the great white sharks appeared, which may of even spawned from the mako shark. For millions of years of evolution to be deflected by a singular attack was not likely.
She saw the dark figure again, darting underneath, signaling the fight was not over, it would not retreat without a true test of abilities. Stalking not with its blinded sight but now with its electrosensory perception, it swam toward her. Born in the womb to attack, now outside the shark allowed the sense to lead him to its victim, each of her movements causing electric impulses, signaling location to the carnivore.
Kicking outward, she struck the nose of the shark. Its course changed away. Seeing the retreating form skid within the depths again, she began to swim to the shore. Exhaustion was making her strokes heavy. But she had to swim, for who knew when the mako would make the next round of attack. The water blurred around her, consuming her. She saw nothing. She heard nothing. Silence only below in the waters. Only a blackness threatening to encompass her life. Lost within the darkness, the light no more. She fought against this, trying to keep her head above the water.
Freedom does not come with death.
Rather it is the most oppressive prison that one could face.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Skin, salty and wet. Nyx no longer felt the waves; rather, she lay on the grit of the sand. She felt pounding on her chest. A device covered her lips, pumping the needed oxygen. Water plunged up through her mouth, pouring to her side. Fresh air filled her lungs.
The Fisherman stood before her.
He had swum in a fury through the sea after having called for her, dividing it as Poseidon himself could never have done in order to get to her in time. Such fear had risen from him, concern that a bullet had hit her or that the sea’s fury would drown her. But the storm ebbed quickly and he had seen her. But he also saw the shark’s fin behind her. He felt as if he were separated from her by limitless miles. Each stroke served to lessen the distance, but not by enough as he saw her begin to sink in a wave of blue.
He dove, swimming underneath the crashing tides. Luck served him, as his hand circled round her body and pulled her up. The shark lurked to the side, only having temporary retreated to wait for its prey to weaken. Breaking the surface, trying to pose her chin up to divert the ocean waves from her mouth, he fastened a life preserver around her. And then he saw the shark coming. Without remorse, without restriction, fighting for its meal against the perceived competitor. The Fisherman reached for his blade. It would not be the mundane and unchallenging that came to clash against him. The shark served as a true match for him, unlike the fish of the shore.
Instinct ruled them both, instinct to attack, instinct to protect, instinct to hunt.
The shark abruptly pivoted in its path, turning away from the two, and thrusted its crescent-shaped caudal fins side to side. The propulsion rammed into him, parting him from Nyx. Then, the mako turned back, its dorsal fin parting the waters, heading straight toward him.
Staying vertical in the waters, the Fisherman rotated out of the shark’s path just before contact. To the side of the mako, he reached out and jerked his hand into its long gill slits as it passed. He dug deep into the sensitive flaps, tearing into them. The shark spasmed, throwing him off. It turned to attack again; still vertical, he grasped onto the shark’s head. It could not bite, for its nose was in the way, preventing it from wrapping the jaws around him. All it could do was whip itself in the waters, trying to get loose from the Fisherman’s death grip.
This time, he used his hand holding the dagger in his attack. This time, he would not go for the gills.
He plunged the blade into the predator’s skull, into its brain, killing it.
Indeed there were predators in these waters, and he was the most fierce of all.
Now the Fisherman kneeled near Nyx on the beach. His skin was dusted with salt from the ocean, water droplets fell from his bare shoulders. Her focus cleared. She saw the Fisherman, a mirage, an oasis in the desert. Was he there, she questioned, or a figment of her fevered imagination. She strayed back within the black, not of death but sleep. In the arms of Morpheus, the god of sleep and dreams, she drifted as the Fisherman assessed and treated her wounds before carrying her to the shade.
“Don’t leave me,” she said. A plea to his shadow as she slipped in and out of consciousness. Through her sleep, she felt the calloused hand press periodically against her forehead as if to check her temperature. Sharp pains came as nightmares as he stitched the bite. And through her dreams, she reached up, searching to find her savior. The Fisherman’s hand enveloped her own, as silence brought her back to an undisturbed rest. Yet as she fell deeper within the dreamscape, chaos reclaimed its interrupted hold on her mind. Haunting her, calling her, deriding her.
Her dream transpired as reality. She was the key to society’s end. Drakōn mund spilled from her blood. The Dragon’s wrath unleashed. She was the beginning to the realm of chaos.
Darkness reigned. The Chaots came.
Nyx awoke with a start, breaking the nightscape of her dreams. Sweat dripped down from her forehead. She called for the Fisherman and reached for his presence.
But only the waves resounded in response; only the ocean breeze reached back to her outstretched hand.
“Fisherman,” she called again. Fisherman, his true name unknown to her. She knew it was pointless though, he had left. The only trace that he had been there was the new bandage wrapped around her leg. The hospital gown replaced with a black shirt and combat pants. The Fisherman’s knife and holster that Leander had given her was by her side. That she also sat in the shade and not drowned in the abyss testified to the presence of the enigmatic fi
gure.
The pines reached forth to the skies, untouched by the disease that had eroded the human race. But it was what stood fearless within their branches that caught her attention: the peregrine falcon.
From its perch she saw its enduring gaze upon her, a quiet guardian watching over her.
“I thought I would find you here.”
Hector. His voice came through the underbrush, his figure dense against the leaves that clung to him. The sound made the falcon fly off, going higher to the top of a white spruce tree. Hector emerged from the forests, dirt covered, though his eyes shone through. A smile broke her misgivings, as she limped across the beach to reach the one she had presumed dead. But before she could throw herself into his embrace, she stopped. She looked at him as if seeing him for the first time.
“But how?” she asked.
How are you alive? How did you find me? So many questions in one.
“I came to the shores that you first spoke of when we found you, in hopes you would do the same. Back to where you said you first began to remember. I fought death to come here, to come back for you.”
“Where did you go after ...”
The sentence left incomplete. She did not need to speak it for it to be understood. After the scientific compound, after the Chaots attacked and destroyed the safety of the group. After the death of Megaira.
“The Chaots may be nasty, but hell if I would give up without a good fight. But when I got out I could find no trace of you, so I was going to go back to the Thalassic to find Leander, to see the situation for myself, to see Dio. But I was stopped by one of Thalassic’s waiting party, who were sent shoreside to escort us back down. I was warned of the circumstances. Diomedes is dead.”
He stopped and looked at her. She saw the wars reflected in his face, the fights he had endured. And the frightening prospect that the next fight would be his last. And the next fight was clear, it would not be against the Chaots, but his own kind.
Crashing Tides Page 22
