Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
A GIRL SITS, STARES AT THE STARS. They symbolize hope for her, when she looks into the sea of darkness, dotted with white specs, she dreams of a different life. She imagines that she's laying in grass, in front of a home. She imagines that inside, is her family. Her mother watching from the kitchen window, telling her to get inside.
The girl dreams of living in a big, white house with her parents and maybe she's have a brother, too. But, she knows she's not special. Her mother's never going to come back and rescue her from this imprisonment of life. Sometimes she wonders why her mother left her on the doorstep of the orphanage. Was she not good enough? Did she do something wrong? She feared she'd never know.
She knows that the other girls are optimistic, they stick to the idea that their mums'll come back for them. But the girl staring at the stars knows that her mother won't. If her mother left her without a second thought, then why would she come back?
She knows that she's all alone in this world. She knows that she's got no place in the world. But still, she manages. They're grim thoughts for someone of her age, but they're all she's ever known. When you have no one, your mind goes wild and drifts to unknown places.
She sighs and climbs down from the roof on a ladder. The girl silently curses herself for getting her hands sliced by the whip earlier, now they were wrapped in cloth and stung every time she touched anything. She silently climbs through a window that leads into the room she sleeps in. It's got about fifty beds in it, all girls that sleep there are in her age range. She's sure to be quiet, as to not wake the others. If she does, she'd definitely be in trouble.
She successfully makes it to her bed in silence and settles in. She closes her eyes and falls into a pit of darkness. The girl doesn't like to sleep. It's too quiet for her. It reminds her too much of death. It draws her in, she can feel a darkness pulling her in. She can hear voices, they call out to her.
They tell her that she needs to fulfill the prophecy, they whisper horrible things. The voices bounce around in her head, filling the silence in the room. She wants to scream at them to go away, to just leave her alone, but she can't. She knows that there's no way to rid her head of them.
The girl doesn't sleep often. Every time she closes her eyes, the whispers fill her head. If she manages to fall asleep, she has horrid nightmares. The nightmares are only flashes of scenes. She sees a wall. On one side is a lush, green forest. On the other, layers of rock, a mine. She hears men, singing songs. She sees flying ships, pirates, and young boys. A mine.
She doesn't know why she sees these scenes, they're not real. That kind of stuff doesn't exist in real life. She thinks that it's be rather exciting, living in a sort of world like that. Maybe in that world, she'd meet her mother. She'd have grand adventures and make friends.
Friends. That's what she needed. But she doesn't realize that. As far as she knows, she's the only one she needs. That'll all change in a few hours, not that she's aware of that though.
She finally manages to block out the voices, and she starts to drift into sleep. Then, in the silence of the night, she hears a creaking. It sounds like it's coming from the roof panels. She feels a stream of moonlight streak across her face and her blue eyes shoot open.
She rolls over and lays on her back to see what opened the roof panel. And as she does, she sees a man drop down and grab her. She tries to scream for help, but he's got an arm covering her mouth.
His grip on the young girl is firm and it stays until she's thrown onto the deck of a ship. Wait. A ship? In the air? She's confused. Is she dreaming? No, this was too real.
It reminds her of what she sees in her nightmares. Literally. A dark, large man walks up to her and roughly yanks her up by the arm. He walks up to the side of the ship, still gripping her arm.
"We need to leave now, we got the girl! We can't get caught in an aerial fight!" The man barks to the others. They immediately start to scurry around and soon, the ship's sailing through the air.
The girl turns her head to look at the man, fear laced in her bright blue irises, "where are we going?" He gives her an annoyed glance, almost as if she should know, but doesn't give her an answer. "So, uh, do you guys do this often?"
"Shut up kid, you're important, the Captain'd be upset if you don't make it whole." He doesn't even look at her while he says that. That just makes her even more confused.
Suddenly, he lets her go and stalks off. She's confused, until someone yells for them to hold on. She ties a rope to her small ankle, and braces herself for something to happen. In an instant, they're soaring upward, out of the sky, into the stratosphere, and then into the void that surrounds Earth.
The girl's weightless, she starts to float around in the endless amount of nothingness surrounding her. She can't believe it, just not that long ago, she was gazing at the stars that now don't seem that far away. The girl admired the stars, she thinks that they're grand. Each and every one of them has a name; in a way they're like humans. The stars help her to think that maybe she's not alone after all.
And, just as soon as they flew up, they're rapidly descending. The rope tied at her ankle to the ship violently pulls her back and she lands on the wood of the deck. She takes a moment to recover, and when she gets back up, she sees spheres of water floating around the ship. There's a variety of water-life in each of them.
She smiles and admires the beauty of it all. Maybe she's crazy, she doesn't know. She doesn't care. But she's glad to get away from the imprisonment at the orphanage. She tries to take another step, but the rope that's still tied to her restricts her.
She sits down, legs sprawled out in front of her. The girl unties the knot and pauses when the light disappears. Darkness covers the entirety of the ship and she quickly stands up. They're in a tunnel, and she can hardly see where they're headed.
She hears cheering, shouts, and singing from a collection of men. When they reach they end, they're in a canyon. It's the exact same place from her dreams. The same surroundings, everything. Now — she's really confused.
The ship they're on stops, and she looks up and squints at the blinding sun. She sees a big ship that's still a little bit above them. He introduces himself as Blackbeard and wow! what an original name!
He starts a speech, talking about rules and things that the girl couldn't be bothered to pay any attention to. He drones on and on while she just waits for him to shut up. After what feels like forever to her, she's sent into the mines with only a pick and no explanation.
Maybe she should have listened to the man. She looks around to ask someone what they're mining for. She notices one, a man with a navy blue vest over a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He's got brown hair with a simple hat over it and a face covered with dirt.
She walks over to him and taps him on the shoulder. He turns his head around with an eyebrow raised. She clears her throat, "What are we mining for, exactly?" He lets out a puff of breath and turns completely around.
She gives him a look of expectancy, waiting for him to tell her. "You didn't listen to the whole speech? You were the only one on the damn ship, kid," he lets out a small chuckle then continues, "We're mining for pixum. They call it fairy dust. It's shaped like a mineral and apparently it glows." The man adds the end with an unconvinced tone at the end. "Get to digging, kid."
