…climb in the crack and hide.

You tiptoe the few steps to the dirt crack, avoiding anything that might make noise underfoot. Its depths are darkly unknown, though you doubt deep, and the late summer earth is too dry to shelter a puddle so far from any stream. You wince as some desiccated leaves crunch under your hand, but most have rotted through the spring and the hard ground comes soon after, inviting you to lie in its embrace.

You lie on your belly, though for no strategic reason; it just feels more hidden that way, with your head down in the dirt. You lay your feet flat, so the soles of your pumps cover your ankles, and with a spurred moment of inspiration, you reach up and flick the hair out of your bun, letting its dark muted colour cover the back of your pale neck.

As shallow as the crevice is, you should be an all dark patch within an all dark patch, yet with scooping fingers and burrowing legs, you rustle into the leaves and cover as much of yourself with them as you can, as quietly as you can, until the footsteps mean you can’t.

The thudding steps come to a stop soon after they reach the hollow, turning slow and careful and ponderous. You can almost hear his eyes move as they scan the trees about him, trying to decide which direction you went, and after a minute, his absolute silence tells you those eyes are closed, his ears pricked to even the smallest sound.

You lie like a corpse, a stone, the world itself, listening with him and hoping for the jump of some rabbit, the pounce of a fox, or the rustle of a swooping bird. Even a good gust of wind would be a welcome sound. His breathing finishes its fall to a steady rhythm, ending perhaps calmer than your own, free as it is of dirt and leaves. He begins to walk, the lanterns squeaking where it rocks on its handle, going away and then closer, his feet padding to the far treeline and back to the hollows centre. Then, he walks to you, until light shines through your hair, onto the leaves before your eyes. You hold your breath.

And then it’s gone, searching the treeline of the clearings other side, behind trees, stalking in a semi-circle.

“Damn it.”

His path takes him about the hollow, the frustration evident in his voice.

“Damn it. Damn it!”

Why doesn’t he just move on? You were heading in a direction before; why not just continue that way? He answers the unasked question with a bitter predatory mumble.

“I know you’re here, bitch.”

He pulls air between his clenched teeth, the pain he’d been ignoring evident and returning after the quiet search. You recall the slice you blade made across his back when he turned. It wasn’t nearly as deep as you aimed, but he’s still injured. He’s also on his own, as you suspected; there is no way others would be about and not speak or try and coordinate, let alone make no sound in the woods and bushes. There is also something else to consider, but he robs you of the satisfaction of remembering it by reminding you the moment you do.

“Bastard stones.”

A few clatter across the stony ground of the clearing, brushed off his bare feet. How he kept up with you while running barefoot you have no idea; some of the sticks and stones and roots were sharp enough to feel clearly through even your black pumps. He picks free a stone and tosses over you, rustling some leaves as it sails into the woods. It enough to startle a sleeping bird, which gives flight, making a racket as it lurches sleepily through the canopy, long before there is a morning sun to greet it.

It’s enough; bereft of anything else, the man trots over to investigate.

Right towards you.

His feet slap as they walk across the large stone you lie besides, and when he comes to your ditch, he steps over the dark crevice, landing on the dry soil of the other side.

It gives way, slipping his foot and sending his wayward heel right into your side in a brutal bony stamp.

“Fuck!”

You don’t say it, but you certainly agree with it. The soft flesh of your back, between hips and rips, twinges with his impact. The usual dull sharpness of a future bruise mixes with the odd crackling shock of a sickly feeling: your poor organs wondering what just happened. Worse still, the light that flew by previously now lingers, hovering above you.

It does its job.

“You sly bitch.”

Time to go.

A point, sharp and cold, rests upon your back before you can even move, like a pin through a collected butterfly, holding you in place. The sharpness is familiar. Horribly familiar. The man laughs, long and loud, like a child solving a puzzle, or more likely, winning a game of hide and seek. He has to take a few moments before he calms enough to talk again.

“Not so fun, is it miss.”

He leans into the shallow pit and wraps his fingers into your loose hair, scraping your scalp before he pulls you up by the brown locks, forcing you to get on your feet or face baldness. It hurts, but it’s only for a moment, and the resting point of the blade at your back has you far more concerned. He tosses you aside like a heavy sack, laying you on your back on the rough earth near the stone before wrapping the same hand into your top, scrunching it like a ball and using it to keep you pinned. Your hands come up, ready to fight, but the blade waits, close to your face; too close to your face! It hovers directly over your left eye, as your hands hover up by your side, both of you ready to strike. Only one of you has the advantage though.

“Up. Put em up! Up! Up!”

You raise your hands, from shoulder levelled readiness to the dirt above your head. Breathing hard, you try not to hurry, to keep calm, but it’s met with impatience and the blade gets so close that it blurs horribly in your vision, the flatter edge resting on the cloth across your cheek. It’s yours, you know, dropped at the beach and found by this bastard; the black painted stiletto edge shines only where it had been sharpened.

Your terrified body moved to place and pressed against the dirt, he moves the dagger from your cheek to your neck, pressing its flat side coolly to your throat while his fist rests upon your collar. Each swallow makes the metal edge rise and fall like flotsam on an ocean swell, and it beats with second rhythm: each rapid thud of your heart. The position places him squarely above, and while the lantern had been placed down on the stone bolder, there is light enough to see him clear again. He’s far taller than you, with a string bean quality; all arms and legs and neck, as though stretched out on the rack. That said, he has knots of muscles bulging upon his otherwise naturally skinny arms, and his firm grip warns of a strength honed by hard work. His face, framed by somewhat large ears, is youthful, though you suspect older than you are, and it bears a look of fading glee as he stares down at you, fresh catch’s thrill turning to practical considerations. The knifeless hand releases the scrunch of your top and hooks a finger at your mask, tugging it down side by side until it rests with the knife about your throat.

“Ah, you’re much prettier with that down miss.” He takes a moment, tongue darting across his lips. “Much prettier.”

In the silent second that follows and the thoughts visible behind his appraising eyes, you both, in the very same moment, realise what he plans to do next.

His free hand races down, to the hem of your dark trousers, grabbing and pulling with cruel insistence. The daggered hand jumps from neck to belly as he moves down, giving himself leverage to bare you as he himself had remained since the chase.

“No!”

You squirm, hands lowering on instinct to push him away and to run against the risk of his threat.

“Shut it! You did this!” The dagger presses, hard, point drawing blood from the flesh above your belly. “Up! Up!”

“Ergh!” Your arms raise again, to the dirt above you, stretching you out even further as your pricked belly draws itself in and your legs press tightly. No, no, no, please no! This is not what you came here for!

“It’s gonna happen.” He mutters it to himself, fighting down the fabric side by side by side and kneeing your legs apart. “You did this. You fuckin deserve this.”

The awful sight of his long body sends your heart into your throat, his chest curtained with his torn jacked and his bottom half covered by nothing at all, leaping to lay its ready self across your exposure.

“No!”

Your arms, coming down again on instinct, are forestalled by the return of his dagger hand to your throat, this time accompanied by the rest of his body, full of nervous energy, laying upon yours. He doesn’t look at you, only down, where his legs spilt yours and his free hand worms in the space between your bodies.

What can you do? What can you do!? Your breathing is so fast, it’s all happening so fast!

“You deserve this. You fuckin-“

You and he both make the same sound; an ‘Ahh’ from the breathy back of your throats. There is a difference though, apart from the obvious tonal one between man and woman. Yours is a cry, while his is more of a sigh.

“Oh! Ugh. That fuckin gash!” He laughs as he draws back and forth, like dry nails on a dry chalk board. “You, ugh, ever even been fucked afor miss?” He looks at you now. You can’t bear to look at him. “Savin yer self ffugh- for me? Uuuugh. ‘Preciate!” He punctuates the words hard ‘p’ with an ample spray of spittle that showers your face. His free hand roams, taking a long and circuitous route over your chest and the tight space between you, until he holds it before his mouth. The moment freezes, with him and the sudden stilling of his burning movement, letting you feel across the veined girth of your new reality as it holds you open, penetrated. ****.

This cannot be happening. There is an unreality to it. You planned for weeks, swam ashore, near knifed a pirate. Now you’re on your back with a man between your-

He spits his carefully gathered spittle upon his palm in several viscous globules, before he drags himself free with the scrape of a small hipward pull. With the stained hand, he takes a moment to grab himself, rub himself, and spread upon himself, and when he’s ready again, he re-enters with a violent jolting gusto.

A little yelp leaves your mouth, sounding pathetic, and as his hand reaches up into your hair, grabbing it for his leverage. It becomes the first of many.

“Oh, that’s it.” No sound come from his hard male rod, splitting you, sawing you, save for the sounds made up in your own head; the thuds, the grinds, the scrape of hair on hair. “That’s better. Ugh.” Even in your own head they are drowned out.

The woods may be still, the night watching in silent horror, but the sounds of his breaths are like thunder, roaring across you with each push. His tall neck is before your eyes, the bulge of his throat bobbing with each deafening swallow. From sound alone, he could be running, or hauling, or some other tedious exercise far from enjoyment, despite his words. Only the sounds you make, unbidden, disgusted, and pushed out of you with each reaching stroke of his foully lathered cock, would tell the idle listener how you are tortured by his presence. The dizzying need to scrape him off you, like shit, grows with each deeply violating hump of his hips, to the point that even the dry earth, scraped and churned by your thighs and buttocks, feels more human and relatable than him.

The knife hand at your throat relents its pressure, slipping to your shoulder to give him more pull for his pushes. It pulls your stretched arms a little down, but he doesn’t mind. The few minutes of his mechanical effort had born fruit for him and his satisfied distracted moans spill forth from his throat.

For your part, you raise your knees, spreading your thighs until they are on either side of his thrusting and your feet are pressed again on the ground.

“You want this?” His words, panted between each plundering pound of your female treasure, are a question only for himself, and naturally, he answers with his own breathy moans. “You want this.”

The burning friction heat between your legs, bruised and bruised again, quivers upon him with new soured revulsion, and your hand, like his guard, lowers further. He’s going to seed you, with all the natural self-serving destructiveness that rapists indulge in. If he does, with the moon as it is and your cycle aligned so, a babe is near assured and your unmarred life more ruined than his presence had already made it. He starts to moan, loud, sucking air between his clenched teeth. It’ll happen soon.

Fighting or fleeing, your life may be over.

You grab his hand and the hilt below it, turning it and usurping it from his grasp before he has time to notice. He humps you, even as he fights for the blade, his mind straddling the realities of old success and this new revolution, and it gives you time to push against the ground with your feet, sliding up and off his intrusion, while lending you more favourably with the blade. Both of your hands snap to it, and both of his follow, the danger it could pose as alive as it was on the beach. Your run, and his ****, seem forgotten as the life and **** struggle is rekindled once more.

Despite being above you, he seems weaker, likely for his exertions inside you, and you manage to twist the blade his way and make sure it’s your hand on the hilt, despite both his on top of yours. They scratch and claw at your fingers, **** to reclaim his overwhelming advantage and the abuses it brought, and your other hand pushes at the exposed cross-guard, tilting it further towards his neck, waiting until a strong push can send it there. Fear creeps into his eyes, his breath panting for a different reason, and your fingers are pried off one after the other, until no hand grips it enough for a killing blow. Pushing up is harder than pushing down, and despite its angle, you cannot drive it home. Your knees strike him, your free hand pushing and clawing, your face as twisted with effort as his, but the blade only shivers with the strain you both put to it, hovering in the air between your stalemate.

It’s he that changes the game first.

With his scant grip, he manages to pull your fingers free while giving up his hold, letting the dagger become loose in the tangle of your hands. In a cruel reversal, he does to you as you did to him, tossing the knife out of the scuffle with a sideward flick of both your wrists, and then as now, it is you, the deprived, who fails to see where it lands. The metallic clatter of steel upon stone is the only help.

You try and reach for the sound, **** to be free of his pin and seize it before he does, but he doesn’t go for it.

With a tug of your shoulder, he pulls your back and lays a clenched fist across your jaw.

“This is what you get for not letting me enjoy it bitch!”

The words are yelled into the ear your turned face presents. You turn to look, catching his other fist across your eye socket. You feel your hair on your cheek, providing scant protection from the loose gravely stones, and another crushing pain courses through your skull. It’s his hand that turns your head back, and his other that turns it again. Whiteness. Ringing. Your hands are pushed aside, your face turned back to him. You see a fist raise. You feel it hit. And again. Another; was there one before it? Six hits? Again. Selvnt-een?

Again. Again. Again.

---

It’s an odd thing, being underground. There is not nearly so much dirt as it seems. You float in a void that thuds with muffled sounds, looking up at the real world floating above. The stars are set through stained glass and peek out from the rising shroud of trees and leaves. It looks like a painting, caught in a frame. Shapes writhe in its middle.

You move your arm in the void, and watch as the woman above does the same, even feeling the scrape of the dirt and small pebbles rolling under her fingers. She is not you though. She has four arms and four legs and is shaped oddly, not to mention that she moves even stranger; up and down in a steady roll. You meanwhile…

Thoughts blur. You don’t seem to have anything, or be anything, which you suppose makes sense, being underground, but you still feel arms and legs, two of both, in tandem with where some of hers above are placed. She gropes and claws the ground as you do, **** for purchase on something real. The more you do, and the more she does, the close you get, rising through the earth, until you can see and feel more. Her buttocks are pale and flattened, as though pressed against glass, and between them you see, and quickly begin to feel, a hard looking male rod pushing violently between the petals of her red raw flower.

That’s not right.

You watch as the legs become clear; the carnal act thrown into sharp relief. The feel, like a dull pressure, also begins to grow in clarity, with flourishes like the small tapping of his swaying sack, the grind of his hairs upon yours, and the occasional slip and re-entry his fast pace causes. The muffled noises are clearer than ever, yet still not understandable; they are like animal grunts heard through a wall.

Suddenly, a new sensation is shared, but you can hardly fathom is source. A hot wetness growing inside and spreading, coinciding with the rhythm hammered above becoming sporadic and jerky. You are closer now than ever, to the woman and the mind you left behind, and the bridge of comprehension begins to return sharply.

In your final moments below, you both feel and watch as his seed spills out of you, mixing with the dry ground and churning the dry dirt to mud with his last few thrusts. It gradually paints your pale behind, until the twin moons are eclipsed and unmoving.

---

“Ugghhhh! Huurrrrrr! Mmmmmm!”

The rapid fucking of your slit begins to lessen, the pain of its hammering lubricated by the spilling of seed. You’re not underground, and the confused dream memory is washed away by the greater confusion of the wakening world. There is weight, and heat. Hot wet slurry paints bruises. Your wrists are in an iron grip. Stars sparkle above, stabbing your painful squinting eyes. Above all, everything hurts. The moment rushes by, as though already done; a memory sped through by a mind catching up with the present, all adding to the confusion.

By the time you’ve blinked enough for your pounding head to process, you’re at a point of forgotten familiarity, his last slick spilling humps churning dirt to mud. It’s done. You feel the spill of a tear down your cheek, or blood; it’s hot and wet and yours, and with his diminishing cock still buried between your legs, its more than appropriate. Work done with your ready womb and length returning to a pathetic flaccidity, he withdraws and moves to sit beside you, gathering his breath, which had been moaned to exhaustion into the night.

You feel weak, and not just from the beating. Your ****’s seed boils inside you, and where it had spilled outside, it leaves you catching a chilling air. You lost. You didn’t even see the captain you came here for. Sobs, small and miserable, begin to bubble. First they shake your lips, twisting them into a hopeless exaggerated frown. Then, more tears begin to spill, blurring your eyes and the sight of the treacherous clearing. A snearch rips through your nose, clogged with snot, and despite the blur, you see his head turn to you and you flinch involuntarily at his renewed attentions. Your mouth opens, wanting to breathe more quietly. Where’s the knife? Was it over there? Your free arms come down and cover your chest, which you’re shocked to find is bare. When did your dark top come off? Where is it now?

A similar mystery encompasses your trousers, which had been pulled completely off sometime during or after your beat down. It’s a mystery that’s quickly solved however. The man, your **** and the possible father to your possible future child, stands and walks to the knife, letting it scrape the stone as he picks it up. He then walks to a dark spot near your feet and pulls from it your dark trousers, materialising them before him like a double shadow in the dappled light. Finally, with all the nonchalance in the world, as though it not only normal, but expected, he steps into them himself, pulling them up to replace the ripped shorts still lying on a beach somewhere.

That’s not good. None of this is good; not a single bit; but now you’re denied even your own trousers on this damned island, and for all its not good already, it somehow got even worse.

You need to run, to the sea, where you should have run before; to get off this island and away from this man as quickly as possible. You scrabble to your hands and knees, and then unsteadily to your feet, blinking your eyes and trying to figure out which way you came. Do you want to go back that way? This is an island; don’t all ways lead to the ocean? You pick a direction and run for it, though admittedly, it’s more of a limping stagger. The tall man, who had finished his self-examination runs to intercept you.

“No. Whore. No, you don’t.”

A painful ripping tug of your loose hair tells you where his hand is, staggering you back and throwing you to the ground again.

“Come on. Up. Up. We’re goin back.”

He reaches for you and you put up an arm to shield your face, shying back. He takes it, grabbing your wrist and tugging you to him, as though you’re ready to leap back onto your feet. All that happens is he spins you around, tugging you like a limp sack and scraping your skin across the rocky ground.

“UP!” He tugs again, giving you no time to comply. “Up! Gods! I’ve fucked goats less trouble than you!”

Your hand is dropped and he steps closer, looming over you like some tyrannical master. You don’t get time to raise your hand again.

SMACK!

The impact ripples through your bruises and manages to do what a close fist didn’t, splitting your lip and washing blood into your mouth. He hits you again and again, one handful of times, and the luxury of passing out does not come. Only the humiliation.

“P-please.” He relents, your shaking hand warding his dark shape back. “P-please.”

It’s begging. You beg him to stop and you mean it. You’ve heard people begging for mercy before, usually at their sentencing under the Guards justice. It always sounded so hopeless and was rarely answered with mercy. You weep at his word.

“Up.”

He hauls you up by the arm, this time less angry, but no more caring, and you stand swaying nakedly on your bare feet before him. He looks up, near disinterested in you, and after squinting at enough of the stars through the branches, he picks a direction and points you to it.

“Move.”

The walk back is painful, and not just on your bare feet. He insists on walking behind you, lantern in hand and dagger at your back, leaving a dark you shaped shadow that marches opaquely before you. It’s more than one branch that hits your face as a result, but each are laced with the soft caress of leaves, while the promise of far harder strikes from behind keep you pressing forward. It’s an arraignment that suits your captor just fine.

“Mmmmm. You lookin for another, miss? Cuz them hips are beggin for it.”

By design or coincidence, it’s comments like that that keep you moving quickly, and they rise again each time you have to stop or slow to get around some obstacle, usually accompanied by a squeeze or a slap. By the time the sandy shore and the lapping ocean overcomes the bushes and trees, you are near in tears again, his comments literally guaranteeing another **** and his stance close enough that you assume it to be imminent.

Instead, he marches you along to the docks you saw previously, and when people come running to meet you both, your heart collapses in on itself. He presses the knife, as though sensing your desire to run.

“The hunter returns!” He waves his lantern to the men as they slow. “Barein fresh fucked gifts!”

“No. Please.” You swallow, standing naked in the moonlight before a half dozen men. The look in their eyes…Gods, please no.

“Please what, you stupid whore?”

He shoves you forward into the waiting hands of one of the men, who quickly grabs your wrists.

“Hello there girly.”

He smiles down to you with a leer. Another man pipes up.

“The fuck man?”

Your **** answers. “Caught er, fucked er, brought er. What’s to know?” He walks past them with a swagger, forcing them to follow. “Where’s that bastard with the cat-gut? My back’s killin me.”

The moment wood planks come under your tired dragging feet, another voice sounds, deflating all the surety from your capture.

“This him? Her?” he quickly corrects himself. The man, who looked old yet dangerous, walks toward the group with a sure stride. The sabre at his hip is the clear reason the lanky leader of your group pauses; it rests at his hip as though he was born with it. “Hand her over.”

“’s’cuse me? Muckfucker?” The words come from one of the men, a safe distance of several men away from the old man.

A smile twists the while beard of his face in response. He almost looks like the old guide who brought you here, but thicker with muscle and with skin more ironed of wrinkles for it.

“Captain says all captives go to her for interrogation.” He sounds almost fatherly, teaching the man with a side of promised discipline. “So, ‘Hand her over.’”

“_Your _captain. She’s ours. Fuck you.”

Ours? The men are at every side of you, and while only one hold on, they all feel suffocatingly close.

Before the older man can respond again, another man steps up behind him, and another, neither of which go unnoticed. It’s at this point, **** for some way out, your roving eyes notice how all the men about you (save one) are dressed in red and yellow colours, while the old man is in mostly white, with a big red sash about his waist. If what you learned in that dim and distant memory, where you had the knife and the upper hand, is true, then you’re looking at Captain Roland’s and Captain Wendy ‘Go’ Washkin’s crewmen respectively.

Captain Washkin’s man, sensing his outnumbered state, steps aside.

“Careful now. Don’t want to regret this later.”

You’re marched up with the others.

“Grab another whore old man. We’ve got ours.”

The words echo in your head, and the image and knowledge of what’s to come makes you sick. A hot prickle of sweat dances across your whole body, and for all the sea air is full of heady brine and scents of old fish and wood oil, it’s the smell of the men on all sides that fill your head; it’s the smell of unwashed bodies and stale booze mixed with violent unrestrained urges. You know how this ends. It ends like it began; pinned, with a man…fucking you, like a whore, only this time it doesn’t end with one man seeding you. Every one of them…

They talk among themselves, with words you are too numb to hear.

“-tight as fuck-” “-total whore-” and “-beggin for it-“ are some of the snippets stemming from the most familiar voice.

The poison vial is still at your thigh. If your hands were free…could you? Men and women of all kinds watch you as you pass, but you barely see them. The sands pass below the boards, until the docks wood is suspended over the churning waves. One of the great ships docked is your destination; a galley and a prison. It’s big enough for hundreds. You can hardly breathe.

“Ok, it’s time to stop there lads.”

They turn, and by their grip, you turn with them. The old man stands on the docks, sword drawn. He’s not alone this time.

“I told you that all captives caught sneaking on to this island -my captain’s island- get sent to her for interrogation.”

“You wanna start something old man?” Again, the one that spoke for the group was positioned furthest away, but this time he’s not alone.

“Is this like that ‘Blacky’ shit? Fuck that. We don’t gotta do shit for you.”

Perhaps trying to make piece, a third man interjects.

“You can have a piece when we’re done.”

The old man shakes his head, smiling, disappointed.

“Captain wants captives untouched, otherwise interrogation is harder.”

The lanky man who had most definitely touched you, steps close and does it again, grabbing your bruised face.

“This look untouched!?” Fresh blood drips from your lip. He switches spots, shoving his hand between your legs, and you squirm as he tugs your thigh, showing your raw lips. “This look untouched!? You missed the boat mate.”

Near to their ship and the crucible of your no doubt horrific gang ****, the men about you stand with growing confidence, especially as more faces show up. The old man still smiles though, the men at his back armed and ready, with what look like more in the distance.

“Hope you enjoyed it bean pole, cuz if you don’t hand her over right now, I’ll cut ya right down to size and leave ya with naught but a cunt of your very own.”

“You gonna try for it? Bet you know all about cuttin balls, what with you handing yours to yer whore captain!”

The old man smiles wide and shrugs his shoulders. ‘Well, I tried’ the gesture suggests; the smile suggests he didn’t want to try very hard. He takes a few steps forward, causing the unarmed to back away while the reinforcements step forward with oars and ropes and wood, quickly joined by others from the ship with more deadly sharpened steel. Others, in red and white, come running down the dock length, some bearing arms and others grabbing what they can. Before you can count them, you lurch forward.

The man who had held you during the walk had let go to find a weapon, and the man whose back you had not cut nearly deep enough, has thrown you forward, like an object, looking to tangle the old man with your body before leaping forward and finishing him.

It doesn’t work out that way.

Instead, the old man put out an arm, catching you by the chest like a battering ram, and shoving you right back into the one who did the shoving, collapsing him to the piers walk in a tangle of limbs. The ridiculous notion of them fighting over you, only to toss you back and forth between them, comes alive in your mind before dying just as quickly, snuffed out by a sharp pain in your side.

You look down, seeing in time the hand, the dagger, the man who knew you with stolen intimacy shoving you aside. The blade slips out from the flesh of your belly.

It had been a clear accident, him trying to catch you or more likely deflect you to the side. It doesn’t matter. It hurts. It hurts more and more, with each second you look and each fresh gush of blood. Yours isn’t the first scream. Others fight and fall, and no eyes are on you. Some drop, and some limp back. From the ground it just looks like chaos.

You hold your wound and do all you can, crawling, to the side, away from the flash of swords and the stamp of feet. A hot splash showers on you, a man falling for the last time. More men run, some away, some towards. You grab the pier edge and pull, sliding yourself forward, over, down.

The sea, cold and angry and loving, comes and catches you in your fall, scalding your open bleeding wound with its salt grip. It was hard to breathe when you crawled, and now it is impossible, making you sink deeper and deeper. Others fall, and some swim and some don’t. Some mirror the half-hearted strokes you use, your arms weak and the water heavy. The sea currents pull at your limp body, quickly taking it and robbing you of your control, but not like _he _did; it’s like a mother, cradling you even as you’re in pain.

As you leave the island behind, a familiar sensation overtakes you, floating in a void outside of yourself. While before, you had awoken to it with confusion. Now, this seems more…natural, the waters of the sea a perfect transition from life’s struggle to whatever such a state of peace can be called. You close your eyes, their last sight the silent waves, rippling with the moons light and mudded with the dark storm clouds spreading from your belly. This didn’t go as planned, -nothing did- yet somehow, this dark and emptying moment, seems the most natural thing in the world.

You don’t feel so sad anymore.

Your arms and legs still, and like the waves themselves, like your sight, darkness rushes into your ever busy mind.