There hasn’t been so much as a whisper of wind for days. This cursed raft, made of what little dunnage I could salvage, drifts aimlessly across the sea—a prison of my own making. The sun, merciless as it is, beats down upon me, and I wonder if I’m destined to be nothing more than a feast for the creatures of the deep, my bones picked clean and scattered across the ocean floor.
Each day, I can feel the life draining from me. The burns from the flames have healed only to be replaced by the blistering kiss of the sun. No shelter. No shade. Hope? It feels like a distant dream now, something I may have once had but is now beyond my grasp.
More often than not, I find meself questioning whether I was a fool to leave One-Eyed Isle. Perhaps I should’ve stayed amongst the charred ruins, tried to carve out some miserable, solitary life in the wake of that awful tragedy. At least there, I knew the lay of the land, even if it was scorched black by Skalebreaker. Here, there’s naught but sea and sky, and both seem to be waiting for me to slip away.
The rations—what little I had—are nearly gone. Jigging has brought me nothing but empty hooks, and the hardtack I’ve got left has begun to turn green with rot. In better days, I’d have tossed it overboard without a second thought, but now it’s the only thing keeping me from starvation. Unless I can learn to survive on grog alone—a feat old Walley had managed for years, the madman.
I lie back on the rough boards of this makeshift raft, and the memories begin to creep in, stronger and sharper than ever. I can almost hear Mad Dog’s booming laughter rolling across the deck, the echo of dice rattling in Sal’s hands as we waited to see who’d claim the pot. Those were the days, weren’t they? When we were invincible—masters of our own fates.
But now… I think I may be closer to them than I’d care to admit. It’s strange, how the edge of death seems to dull fear, how the unknown ahead feels almost like a reunion. Aye, my friends, I reckon that day may be coming sooner than I ever thought.
