Fools, these Mortals

First Day Sebastien Chapter One

A beating heart had never battered so sour a hateful rhythm than mine. I was still alive and it tasted bitter. Sea water purged from my lungs and throat, spilling onto the sodden obsidian sand. Coughing fits quaked my entire wet frame. On regaining some sense, I scanned my surroundings through blurred vision and deaf ears, too fragile to be of any use. Daylight highlighted a foreign land, a sense of doubt crept up on how much time I had lost since the night of the tempest. I tried to observe my position until my body's instinctual urges to further expel the fluid interrupted me. Raw retching filled the quiet quaint coastline as the subtle waves lazily lapped against my limp legs.

Each new surge of the sea water splashed against my face, forced the fog of fragmented memories to replay behind my eyes. The roar of the winds, I was powerless to fight back against. The blasts of cannon fire competed against the moans of the ocean; no amount of gunpowder could win against the tidal waves, threatening to capsize all the ships. As my consciousness grew more alert, so too did my body crumple in remembrance of being tossed about on the ship, readying a lifeboat. A last-ditch attempt to save us. To save Viola. The hollowness in my chest had taken hold, convincing me that we couldn't ride out such a storm, but we could lose our enemies. The ones pursuing us. I had never been closer to death than when both ships, against all odds, were overcome by fire. Spreading from the entwined masts and broken oars, our fate was to sink together. Grabbing a desperate hold of the sand, I lifted my head enough to see if Viola had made it to shore as I. But along the coastline were unmoving bodies of sailors. My bitter heart engulfed into flames.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood to attention as I caught the wet shuffling of feet. I wasn't alone. I turned onto my side, bones stiff from the cold, and sat upright on my bruised knees. The tide threatened to knock me with each battering wave of assault. Its beatings caused painful aches to every joint. Salt water burned tears from my eyes, scrunching what little vision I had. Forgetting my soaked skin and clothes, lack of a weapon, and the cold, snowy, barren plain that dominated the horizon, I focused on the newest threat. One thing captured my blurred gaze. A few feet away was a crouched man, perched on top a dominant singular rock, nestled in the sand banks. From this distance, I couldn't make out the weird markings along his skin of strange patterns, but his single item of clothing was that of a simple rag covering his modesty. Definitely not a member of my drowned crew.

"Did you save me?" I asked the impossible. No man should have been in those depths and survived. Let alone during a tempest that destroyed my ship.

"Yes," a scratchy, coarse voice carried over the light breeze. Even though salt blinded my vision, my hearing was becoming clearer each moment, and the voice that responded wasn't human; my mind easily picked the unusual speech pattern and the awkward rolling of their tongue. Instinct was never wrong. "I was charged to rescue you by my master."

"You shouldn't have bothered." I couldn't control the bitterness that crept within me.

I glared daggers at the creature that took me away from uniting with my twin sister, devoured by the tempest. I couldn't join her. At least not prematurely. All gods frowned on such actions. Emptiness would be my companion now. There was nothing that I could do but allow the tears to fall from my damaged eyes. All but numb to the salt and the reluctant onslaught nature of the tide. Let the coastline rip my body in half, for my soul was already cleaved in two. The searing burn in my chest gave the proof. This wasn't living. I was now cursed with a half-life, to endure till my last breath.

Staring back onto the sea, the fire and smoke remains of the two ships burned in the distance further along the coastline, though the sand dune horizon blocked what lay beyond this beach to the other. From this distance it could be detected that one was grander than the other, and better fitted with cannon weapons, but it too was no match for nature's attack. The wood's crackling cries echoed to the shore, ahead of the debris making its way to land. Floating eery and quiet, the remains of both crews rolled passively with each wave's undercurrent. The dead drowned was storming the beaches.