8. All Roads, part 2 #2
The edges of my box darken. I press my bloodied fingers to it. Is it dark from my blood, or water? The ship continues to list and the darkness spreads.
“Aletheia!” I call again, louder. Frantic. I beat the box with all my might, but it doesn’t come free. I have no nails left to tear at the edges.
The dark color spreads. The ship moans.
Can I drown? I do not breathe, my heart does not beat. No, I will not drown. It is far worse—I will starve. Slowly, over many days, stuck at the bottom of the sea in a box.
I wrap my arms around myself to stop from shaking. Why am I shaking? I do not feel cold. I feel only the moisture as it seeps into the box. I reach for you, screaming in my mind, in my soul.
Do I still have a soul? Did I abandon it on that temple altar with you? No, I gave you my soul. You hold it, close to your dead heart, always tender and careful with it.
And this is how I’ve repaid you. Forcing your hand because of my foolish, impulsive nature.
We will sink, together but apart. I will know my last days only in agony, both from hunger and from separation.
I would give my life to save yours in that moment, for surely you share my fate. If you were free, you’d save me.
I slide open the peephole and water pours into my box. I slam it shut, my fingers shaking.
I hold myself tight and pretend it’s you. If I’m to die, then let it be in your arms. I hum the songs of the temple, the words of worship heavy on my tongue. That goddess never saved me like you did.
I change her name to yours.
I pray to you one last time, that you might live. Escape.
When the sun rises, my eyes grow heavy and I sleep, glad at least for this mercy. A pity that it is the longest night and the shortest day, my reprieve will be short-lived.
But it is something.
Water seeps into the pores of the box. I cannot read my book, it’s covered in blood and destroyed. Hunger eats at my stomach, begs me to claw my way free. I hear only the heartbeats of the fish and the creatures of the sea. They will not sustain me, even if I could free myself from this box.
Once, perhaps on day two, I try to escape again. The box is now full of water, my movements slowed by hunger and the water. The walls give little and do not break.
The sun rises and I fall asleep, floating in my eternal coffin.
The hunger is unlike anything I’ve felt before. It claws, it digs under my skin. I shake and moan, sobbing, screaming for freedom or death. Death it is, I think.
Not so long ago, I thought myself immortal. I cannot be injured, I will live forever, I will not age nor know sickness.
But I can know hunger. I do know hunger, and I know it will rip out my insides before I see death.
I wake again. I am beyond pain. It hurts to move my fingers, it hurts to turn my head. What is the point? I will never touch your face again, I will never hold your hand. We will never feed together.
The box shudders, or maybe I do. It tilts and I am slammed against the walls of it, my senses too dull to fight.
Noise is funny underwater, it sounds so close, yet so far away.
There is a hammering—have they come to claim what was left on the ship?
To find who died? But I hear no heartbeats, and I wonder if I am dreaming.
You said I’d never dream again. Perhaps I am dead, then.
The side of the box is gone. When did that happen? I move my hand to the opening, my fingers splayed against the edges. Another piece of it falls way and pain erupts across my hand. My fingers are smashed, but so is the box.
When I see your face, I know I am truly dead.
Is this the last grace given to the dying? To see the one they love? My speech is garbled by the water, but I try anyway.
“I am sorry,” I say, I sob, I writhe. “I am tormented by what I’ve done to you. All you’ve done is for me, and I ask for more. And now look: I am dead. Please tell me that you live, that you are not dead here with me.”
You say nothing. You grab my wrist and pull me from the box. The hole is small, the sharp edges of it digging into my skin. It shreds my clothing. There is very little blood left in me. We swim through the debris of the sunken ship until we are free of it.
My head is above water, but barely. Overhead are stars, stretched across the heavens. How long until I am with them? No, there is no place there for me. Me, who desecrates temples for my own gain, who spat on the gods. They’ll never put me in the stars.
We slide through the water. I’m clutching something—is it you? It’s too firm to be you. My cheek rests against it, my fingers unable to grip it too hard. It’s what’s keeping me afloat.
Our movement is slow.
“Kick, Melinoe,” you whisper to me. “We’ve much distance to travel.”
I try. A few times I’m jolted awake by the pull of the water, by my head sinking under the waves again. The sun isn’t too far off—perhaps an hour or two. The lethargy of hunger and loss, the promise of the sun…I cannot help.
“Come,” you say, and there is fear in your voice. Fear for me, or for you?
“Leave me,” I groan. “I won’t make it.”
The sun threatens us.
“Open,” you say. I am not on the water, I am on the shore.
Blood trickles across my lips, onto my tongue.
My first few swallows are weak, feeble. Blood coats the cracks of my throat.
I grab the human, pull them to me, drink them dry.
I don’t care that they will die. I care only for the blood that hums through my veins.
“Stop,” you say. I let go.
“Run,” you command.
I stumble, but I run. Sleep drags at me. My belly is full of blood, the sun peering over the hills. I fall and you drag me up.
My eyes close, the threat of the sun too near. Pain erupts across my face, a great burning like I’ve never known. It forces my eyes open. They’re blinded by the burn of the sun.
Then it is dark. The pain doesn’t abate, but it doesn’t spread. I am blind, my eyes burned from the sun, my face blistered and raw. I scream and thrash, my raw throat tearing open.
“Sleep,” you say. It’s not my arms around me, it’s yours. My body isn’t pressed against a box, but into the dirt. “We are home. I told you I’d keep you safe. I promised.”
“I’m sor—”
Sleep takes me at last.