S. Welles - To Ocean's End

“Wow,” Mido said with a grin. “You got a ‘thank you’ out of Captain. That’s a rare feat.”

Jessie shrugged as she returned to her coffee sitting on the table.

“Yeah, yeah,” I said flatly. I finished my electrolyte water and got up. “I’m gonna go check on everyone and see how they’re doing.” Crackers in hand, I munched on a few along the way to the cabins, my spirits low.

I checked the left side first, using a palm lantern to illuminate their bunks. Most woke from the light intrusion, and I gently shook the others so they’d roll over and I could see their faces. All of them were thrilled to see me up and about again, and they all admitted to feeling a bit weirded-out by my recovery after seeing me shot in the head. “Just one of the perks of my curse,” I said with no enthusiasm as I worked my way to Scully’s bunk.

“Still,” Ed said, “it’s such a relief to have you back.”

“I’m glad to be back.” As much as I wanted to lift my curse, I couldn’t deny that I wouldn’t have enjoyed dying on them like that. Jacobi, Sam, and my three techies put on clothes and gathered outside Scully’s cabin. Cancer and I went in and he paused, giving me a studious look.

“It’s pretty gruesome, Captain,” he said. “He’ll live but he’ll be explaining what happened to him to everyone he meets.”

“Go ahead.”

Cancer pushed aside the curtain and carefully removed the bandages mummifying Scully’s head, then he stepped aside.

I held up my palm lantern and winced at the sight. “Ouch.” One side of his face looked like a red potato that had been gnawed on by rats, then sewn back together. He had one semicircle of sutures that went from the corner of his mouth, to eye, to ear. He had a second semicircle half the size, along with a line of sutures circling his ear. His face was moderately swollen but at least full of color.

“You did a good job patching him up, Cancer. Hopefully he’ll look badass, instead of bad, once it scars over.”

Sam said, “He’ll be gettin’ more ladies than Jacobi after he tells them his story.” The others chuckled.

“We’ll see about that,” Jacobi said in good humor.

It got a smile out of me. “Has he woken yet?”

“Yes,” Cancer said, “but I’ve been drugging him to sleep through every night. He’s gonna be in agony for another week or so.”

I sucked in air through my teeth. “Go ahead and wrap him back up.” I sidestepped out of his way and faced the others, all of them with their heads in the doorway. I ached with empathy but I hid it with a serious gaze. “Is Tethys and his entire crew dead?”

“Yes,” Sam said as the others nodded. “They got what they deserved.”

“That they did.” Even with justice meted out, it brought no joy, no grim satisfaction. Instead, I felt hollow. These men kept piling on the scars for doing honest work. At least we’d never have to deal with Tethys again. “Sam, are we fully supplied and ready to head for Dakar?”

“We are, Captain.”

“Is everyone mentally ready as well?” I made eye contact with each of them in turn. They were all bruised, cut up, and sore, but that was often part of the job description.

Ted said, “Definitely, now that you’re back.” The rest voiced their agreement.

“Good,” I said. “Go ahead and start showering. Mido’s working on breakfast. We’ll push off after we eat and get back on shipping schedule. Let’s go make some money.” My crew visibly brightened up with the morale boost and headed for the showers. Nothing like a healthy routine to bring things back to normal. We all needed it to keep us distracted from thinking about Australia. I headed to my bunk with my half-eaten package of crackers and started rummaging around my cabin for my gun and its holster. I felt incomplete without it and I couldn’t carry it on my person until my trench coat was washed, but for now I just wanted to know where it was.

Once I concluded that it hadn’t been stowed in my cabin, I headed to the weapon crate sitting against the wheelhouse. I pushed around swords and grenades in search of a wrapped-up bundle but I couldn’t find it. Panic rose in my chest. My rising heart rate wasn’t helping my wooziness.

Footsteps headed down the wheelhouse stairs. “Whatcha lookin’ for, Captain?” Sam said.

“My gun. Where’d you put it?” I pushed aside a few grenades and found the bottom of the crate. When Sam stayed quiet, I looked up. He was frowning. He ran a hand through his greying hair. I slowly stood, filled with dread. This silence was bad. “Sam? Where is it?” I had a sinking feeling I already knew.

He swallowed. “Gone.” He took a breath and sighed through his nose. “The quasis took it.”

I stared blankly at him. It couldn’t be gone. After two hundred years of carrying the thing around, it couldn’t be gone. I shut the crate and looked at it, my mouth ajar. It just couldn’t be…

“They jumped in right after he fired. You just hit the deck. It’s probably for the best.”

I shook my head, then more plopped than sat on the crate.

Sam put a hand on my shoulder. “Think of it this way: now we don’t have to worry about quasi-children anymore. The whole crew can relax about that. All we have to deal with are other humans and your curse.”

“Sam, I—” He didn’t understand. I reclined against the wheelhouse, my heart sinking to a new low. Amphitrite could’ve told me right then to wait a thousand more years before trying to lift my curse and I would’ve felt less depressed, so long as I had my gun. “Where do you think my mind goes after I sustain a fatal injury?”

“I don’t know.”

“Take a wild guess, and when you pick something, change it to something ten times worse.” The nereids’ cackling echoed in my mind.

Sam lapsed into silence as he scrunched his brows. He studied me hard. “A really bad nightmare? I don’t know, Captain. I haven’t the imagination to guess such things.”

I looked out over the lightening port. “I don’t know where it is exactly but I’m certain it’s nowhere on Earth—at least not on this plane. I go to a cavern called a cenote, and it’s full of aquatic monsters. They tease and taunt me, and kill me over and over just for fun. I’ve been there four times now. Each time they try to keep me there as long as they can. On top of that, they try and force me to transform, which I have to do in order to escape that place. It’s twisted irony.

“I learned this the hard way when I committed suicide long ago. I thought I could beat Amphitrite at her sick game and just kill myself between lockdowns so I wouldn’t have to deal with the waking world. Instead, my soul ended up waking in that cenote. At first I thought it was a bad dream. I didn’t believe what the nereids told me. But once it dawned on me that I really wasn’t going to wake up, they told me how to leave their place.” I looked up at Sam. “It’d felt like only hours had gone by, but by the time I recovered, five years had slipped away. This time I’d been there maybe minutes but days went by for all of you. It’s so jarring to come back to a world where so much time has gone by without your awareness of it.”

“I’m sorry you’ve gone through all that.”

“Don’t apologize. Amphitrite is the one who owes me that. I didn’t ask for this, or for her to save my life in her own twisted way.”

He nodded. “Well now I understand why you try to avoid dying as much as the rest of us.”

“Which brings me to why I’ve kept the gun all these years.” I heaved a weary sigh, gearing myself up for the confession. I spoke haltingly. As much as I wanted him to know, it was still hard to admit. “I’ve been keeping the gun just to use it once.” I looked up to gauge his reaction so far. His bushy brows were scrunched with confusion. I turned my gaze back to the port. “Holding onto it gave me hope that I might get my curse lifted one day. If that day arrives, I’d use the gun to finally help myself die, like all men are supposed to. I’d put an end to my unnaturally long life.”