Vengeance

"Throw her overboard!" The captain yells at the sailor. His voice carries across the ship, sailing past the crew. The sailor nods and gives the woman he's holding captive an evil smile. All around the crew cheers, holding up their swords and blades in vicious support.

The old sailor leans into the poor woman's ear whispering, "Women can never be found on board. They're bad luck after all." He leans back and the woman screams at the top of her lungs. All she wanted was to be a part of the crew, become a sailor herself. The sailor quickly punches her gut, knocking the wind out of her and effectively shutting her up. She almost falls flat on her face, being tied up at the ankles, but the sailor catches her just in time. She struggles with her wrists under the ropes and makes a silent prayer to God. It's a foggy day, the air thick with moisture, giving the entire ocean an eerie feel. The air smells of rot and fish, a classic sailors hideaway.

The sailor starts to push her towards the end of the ship across the creaky floorboards, ready to throw her overboard. The ship is quite large, something the Captain takes great pride in, and the trip takes a minute or so. The woman struggles under the man's grasp, but isn't quite able to make any progress being the sailors strength from years of work on board. Once the sailor gets to the edge of the ship, he leans back and glares at the woman, clutching a thin blade in his hand to make sure she doesn't run. He snarls at her. "May this be a lesson to all women." He pauses a moment to consider her then narrows his eyes. "Never come on board." And with these final ruthless words the sailor kicks the woman's back, pushing her forward with great force, right over the edge of the ship inhabited my men. Plummeting to the water, the woman lets out a screech which fills the air and would give one the chills, causing the crew to fall into dead silence for a cruel moment, but then her cry for help is abruptly cut off by the sound of a huge splash as her body hits the water. And with this last sound, the crew erupts into a fiery cheer. A nearby sailor offers the man a beer, and the two toast at a job well done, for they have murdered an innocent woman so their ship would not be cursed with the horrible legend of bad luck.

Underneath the ship, through the fog and under the teal water of the ocean, the woman struggles under the ropes, scratching her wrists and ankles in the process. She plummets to the ocean floor, her breath quickly and cruelly running out. Her long blonde hair comes in waves over her face and her loose clothing swish through the water, obscuring her view. The few fish around her quickly swim away in fear and the woman is left alone in her final moments. She's tempted to gasp for air in a last attempt to live even when there is none to save her. A few moments of struggling later her breath has completely run out, and she feels time seemingly closing in on her. The woman's struggling slowly dies off, entering a type of drowning state one reads about in books but rarely remembers. Her arms lie slack and motionless in front of her, and her legs are straight like a needle. The salt water starts to enter her body, and it slowly fills her lungs, scratching her throat as it travels down. In a few moments, the woman's powerless life will come to an end. The woman's entire life seemingly flashes before her eyes, almost like she's reliving her past, and she can feel her time running out. As her life replays in her mind, darkness starts to come into the woman's vision and she shuts her eyes in a last effort to escape reality. Doing her best to prepare for the inevitable, she sets her mind blank, the pain seeping in. Just as the darkness consumes her, she feels her body change in a way no professor or philosopher could ever explain. Nothing magical, no, a darkness surrounds the woman as her legs that are tied together merge into a tail that will help her swim. Her lungs transform to filter air in the water. Through this darkness, her eyes shoot open as she somehow takes an enormous breath, but it's too late, for the darkness has already taken over and the woman isn't awake to realize she's changed, for better or for worse.

•••

"When the ocean tides sweep along, taking you with them.
Riding high with a sweet goodbye I never knew I loved them.
All along I've said hello when there was nothing there to see.
Riding high with a sweet goodbye I never knew I came with them."