Everyone kept walking past with quickened pace and darting eyes

So as a child I stopped and stared at the ocean by my side

All I saw at first were bits of wood so I

Very nearly left the site with the passers by

Up off the beach I took one more glace when something caught my eye

A great ships mast and wooden wreckage floating with the tide

Then I saw the rotting nightmare hand and I was terrified

And though it scared me half to death I could not close my eyes

I looked and saw an ocean filled with men who were once alive

I stand on the boat watching, just watching as the small rowboat rows steadily away, away from me, out of my life forever. I want to scream; only I can't. I open my mouth but no sound emerges, I am helpless against my own screams, helpless against the growing storm, helpless against the rowboat getting smaller and smaller and fading into the distant horizon.

Maarse wakes with a jerk, her eyes are puffy like she had been crying through her nightmare wracked dreams, her frozen mouth open in a silent scream, and covered in a cold sweat that chilled her like no sea air could. Sitting up with her head in her hands she feels the boat beneath her, its constant rocking and swaying like a mothers arms rocking a crying baby back to sleep.

The storm that had almost claimed the trading vessel had passed and she knew that the seas would be calm and placid now, though she could not help but tremble. The dream, it had been so real, too real, too often she saw the saw scene, too often she woke about to scream a name that trickled from her mind as consciousness found her. She stared at the ceiling for what seemed like hours before sleep came for her once more, and sleep she did uneasily at first, slipping into more fitful dreams that always ended the same, the name disappearing into oblivion light a shadow at sunrise.

Memories could be so harsh sometimes. Maarse spent hours sometimes on her small bunk just trying to remember her life before the boat. Trying to remember her parents, all she really knew was when they had died she was sent to live with her waxy faced grandmother who always had the same sour expression on her face, the grandmother who would never answer her questions. “Only people without answers ask questions Maarse, do you want people to think you’re stupid?” Her grandmother’s shrill voice still echoed through her head. “No Grandmother.” She would say, then curtsy politely which always brought the same forced smile to her grandmothers’ lips, the only smile she ever wore.

It was years after being on the boat that Maarse had realized her grandmothers’ true nature, the hateful old crone was the reason she had spent the last ten years of her life on the sea. Her own flesh and blood had sold her, a ten year contract that was finally over, they would be docking at her home port in a matter of hours.

Far from exited however as she made her way to the deck she remembered leaving, just as their ship was sailing out of the harbor something caught fire, another ship, the people on the boat became twisted shadows their screams echoed through the night and barrage after barrage of fire arrows hit the burning ship, illuminating for just a moment the insignia on the archers armor. The king’s insignia.

Her captain stopped the boat and waited for the next tide. Maarse was let off the boat for one last taste of freedom, though kept a very close watch on. There had been pieces of burned wood in the port for many months, no one was sent to clean it up, no one noticed the existence of the pieces, or the bodies. No one claimed the dead, no one mourned, and everyone walked hurriedly by the wreckage as if looking upon it could send death upon them all. Then one day, the last day Maarse would have on land for the next ten years the bodies disappeared, rumors said that a mysterious group, one that opposed the king had buried them all in the dead of night. No one knew if it was really true, but Maarse had been hurried away from a public burning of people condemned for the act.

Reaching the deck she took a deep breath of sea air, but to her surprise smoke choked her lungs. Her eyes began to water as she coughed; the acrid smoke turned her throat to fire. Looking for the source of the disturbance her watery eyes caught a glance of the shore. Thick black smoke billowed from the towns square, screaming once again piercing through her ears. As the boat sailed steadily towards the port of the town Maarse had once called home she had never before wanted to stay at sea.