I Am The Sea || Choi San

rescue

A man, dressed in a dark pair of pants and a thick, wooly shirt, stands in front of Theodora. His jacket is raggedy, and he stinks of alcohol and gunpowder. His hair is stringy, and greasy, tangling into his long beard.
There is a cutlass hanging on his side and a gun in his hand.
He bends down to look at the girl and his breath makes her eyes water.
"My, my, my," he says, "Aren't you a fine dime?"

Theodora recoils into herself, trying to pull her night gown as far over her body as possible.
She feels incredibly exposed under his hungry stare, slowly traveling up and down the curves of her body.
He grabs Theodora by her arm and she starts screaming. Her body moves on instinct, as she kicks at him and tries to crawl away from this man, but it's to no prevail.
He's strong, stronger than her.

He picks Theodora up off the floor and drags her out of the dressing room, yanking her after him by her upper arm.
He hauls Theodora into her chambers and drops her onto the floor, and for a moment she doesn't realize what she is looking at.

But then the puzzle pieces slowly start fitting together and Theodora is screaming again. A voice leaves her throat that doesn't seem to be her own, as she screams her name.
Lucia.
Her eyes are open, but there is no life in them. Her fiery hair is spilling on the floor around her, soaking up the giant pool of blood leaking from her side. Her skin is ashen and cold. There are huge holes in her chest, her abdomen.
It doesn't feel like her when Theodora puts her hands on Lucia's face, pulling her head onto her lap.
"No," Theodora cries, "Lucia, no! What did you do? No, no, no."

She whispers and screams her name, but Theodora knows it's not going to change anything.
Lucia's body is already going stiff.
Faintly, she recognizes another set of shoes stepping into her rooms. The two men are talking, but it doesn't get through to Theodora.
She cradles Lucia's body in her lap, wiping traces of blood from her blue lips, rocking herself back and forth.
"Please, come back," Theodora whispers into her ear, "Don't leave me."

Theo takes Lucia's hand into her own. It's cold against her fingers like it never was before.
Something in her rips open, shattering like a glass vase falling from a shelf, and tears stream down her face. They fall onto Lucia's own cheeks and, for a moment, it looks like she's the one crying instead of Theodora. When she wipes them away, her fingers leave bloody streaks on Lucia's skin.
"Alright, now that's enough," the man with the long beard grabs both her upper arms and starts pulling Theodora away from Lucia's body, "Shut up, you filthy brat."

Lucia slips out of Theodora's grasp and falls onto the floor. Her body is in an unnatural position, her legs at an abnormal angle. She looks like a puppet tossed on the floor, a porcelain doll that fell off a shelf. She looks inhuman, and Theodora presses her eyes close.
She doesn't want to see her like this.
She doesn't want to remember her like this.
Her body shudders when the man pulls her to her feet and she stumbles forward, hitting against the vanity table with her hip.
Pain shoots up her side and down her leg, but the man shoves her forward.

He leads Theodora down the staircases and into the entrance hall.
Men she's never seen before have gathered boxes worth of jewelry, candlesticks and picture frames cast in gold, cutlery and goblets set with precious stones, and all of the food supplies from the kitchen. Caskets of wine bottles and barrels of water are being carried out of the house through the front door.
"You scoundrels," a booming voice calls over the working men, "We're departing in an hour! Anyone not on board will be left behind."

"Captain," the man holding Theo pushes her to the floor, "I got something for you. Found her in the rooms upstairs."
The captain is a tall man in a dark blue coat adorned with golden buttons.
There are chunky braids in his dark hair, and a deep scar on his right side of the face that cuts through his eyebrow all the way down his cheek.