The Dacabre Killings

 05 ~ jett

*Unedited*
Jett

"Get off of me you big..." Harlyn threw me away as if I was some contagious disease. I just laughed, realizing how long it had been since I had displayed such a sign of happiness.

"You're alive!" I exclaimed, maybe a little too jubilant for her liking.

"Of course I'm alive!" Despite her angry façade, I could see amusement, maybe even joy, behind the dark green of her eyes. "What did you think? That I would die in that rain?" She scoffed. "Well you sure are—"

I didn't hear the rest of her ranting, due to my exuberance. Diving underwater, I felt invincible, like nothing, and no one, could stop me. Swimming back up to the surface, my lungs embraced a quick gulp of air before preserving it as I submerged once more.

My eyes swept the amount of debris from our rowboat littering the ocean floor. A shift in my feelings was all it took to dampen my mood. An unwelcome memory surfaced to my mind at the same time as my body did from the water. I sensed a flashback, and knowing there was nothing I could do to prevent it, I floated to a remnant of our boat, laying my head down to subside the waves of nausea.

"Jett?" For once, Harlyn sounded concerned. "Are you—"

I blacked out before she could finish.

  

The warm sunshine tickling my cheek woke me up. A sleepy smile formed on my face at the remembrance of today. The fishing competition.

I knew I would win.

Hoisting my body off the floor of our house, I looked out the window, surveying the sky. The sun had barely just awakened, the bottom of it's circle kissing the horizon. Its gentle beaming, not yet potent enough to be considered hot, evened the temperature of the left-over chill from the night. The sky, ablaze with the offset from the warm color of the sun, consisted of blues, purples, pinks, and a tint of red, all intermingling with one another.

Sometimes, I wondered how the world could look so beautiful but be so ugly at the same time. Almost like the promising catch of a net full of fish, only to discover they've all been poisoned inside.

A rare grin seized my face. That wouldn't happen to me today. For once, luck was on my side, and I would catch the most fish and win a sailboat, I was sure of it.

My hand lifted the chain strung around my neck, attached to a complicated gadget. My lucky charm. I was still in giddy shock at the good deal I had made for this piece. The man had promised it would bring at least a hundred fish, all edible, and all I had traded was a day's catch. I had to lie to my father, knowing he wouldn't approve of such doings, so I told him I had knocked the fish in the water. Although I had been punished by a day without food, it had been worth it.

A sleepy grumble emitted from my only parent on the dingy cot, a reminder that I had to get going in order to be there on time, or at least before he woke up.

Fetching some stale bread, I began to gather the materials, careful as not to stir my father. A man awakened from his drunken sleep was akin to climbing into a shark's mouth, something I never wished to do.