The Gloomcatcher

11: Battling The Tempest

O R E P H N I L

    Orephnil now realised why the pirate ships had changed their course. They had seen the storm coming.

    The tempest had descended upon the once-mighty ship, now reduced to a mere plaything of the unpredictable, raging ocean. Thunderous waves crashed against her sides like nerve wrecking slaps, sending shivers through the hearts of the crew who clung to anything that offered even a semblance of stability.

    Orephnil clenched the railing of the ship as rain lashed against his face, his knuckles white as he gazed out at the raging storm. They have come for me. He thought to himself, horror written on his face.

    The churning ocean mirrored the turmoil within him, a chaotic reflection of the storm that had unraveled his world.

    "Reph!" He could still heed his mother's voice but it was as though coming from the water itself.

    He had been hiding for far too long. Days had went by, years had passed but he was still the small, eight years old boy he was. The stream of flowing water, the memory of his mother's scream intertwined with the roar of thunder overhead, a wail that had pierced the air like a dagger, continued to reverberate in his ears. It was the sound of despair, a manifestation of the grief that had gripped and etched itself into the very fabric of his being. He couldn't escape it, no matter how far he fled.

    You killed your mother. Your existence is an abomination.

    The shadows seemed to dance around him, whispering secrets and condemning truths of his ownself that he had yearned to run away from.

    The weight of his actions pressed upon him and even though his father, the King of Filhayal, Ophir Hennetthor never blamed him openly, his gaze always burnt with a cold fire that chilled the young prince to the core and he knew it from then on that his father still brewed a silent resentment that cut deeper than any sword. Afterall he was nothing but always the incompetent Crown Prince. Whatever he did was never enough. His mother, however had seen beyond the flaws that the court deemed insurmountable and yet loved him all the same.

    He was the architect of his own family's tragedy. He remembered the once-revered halls of the palace that after the Queen's death had whispered with the ghostly echoes of unfulfilled expectations and shattered dreams-from which his mother had desperately protected him-and he killed his only hope, his only support.

    At last, the waves had come to take him. He would pay for his sins.

    "OREPHNIL, I'M TALKING TO YOU!" Neriath's scream seemed to have jarred something inside him as she shook him wildly and he was back-no longer eight, smiling, care-free, splashing, dancing in the waters until...

    "ERIL, WE HAVE TO FIND ERIL! DIDN'T YOU HEAR ME THE FIRST TIME?"

    The young stowaway girl, Eril Brightdoom. He had to find her before she would get lost within the bowels of the ship. Orephnil rubbed his face, shaking his head in response. He pulled himself together, falling and getting up everytime the ocean jerked the vessel.

    Rain slashed horizontally, driven by the howling wind, as Orephnil darted, belowdecks, he navigated the labyrinthine corridors of the ship. The wooden planks creaked and groaned with each shudder of the vessel, threatening to tear itself apart like a flimsy paper. People hurried out of their chambers, doors slammed and sprung open with the winds. He was twice pushed down by groups of people but legs still shaking, he got up again.

    "Eril!" he called out desperately, his voice echoing through the dimly lit passageways.

    He looked inside all the cabins, thinking she might still be hiding but she was no where in sight. His heart pounded in rhythm with the storm outside, and he couldn't bear the thought of a frightened child alone in this chaos. It reminded him of his ownself. The time when he was alone by the flooding river, crying for help.