S. Welles - To Ocean's End

And I wasn’t alone in this specially-concocted nightmare.

I slowly turned around, reluctant to face my company after all that’d taken place. Amphitrite sat astride one of Poseidon’s kelpies, a white water horse with a golden mane and huge golden hooves. The rolling waves parted to crash around her and the kelpie. It pawed the retreating surf.

“Welcome home, Dyne Lavere,” Amphitrite said in her sensual voice. “You have bent. My punishment I’ve prepared will break you, that I promise.”

“Leave my crew alone! Keep my curse between you and me. You’ve take so many lives already. Please.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I am the sea. I spare and claim lives as I see fit. Never forget your place in my domain for a second. I give up so many creatures so you humans may eat of them. You’ve no place to tell me when to take back. Now,” she said in a calmer voice, gesturing to Newport. I faced it, dread filling my chest with ice. “You try to hide how much you care about your birth home with detachment, but you can’t deceive me. What better way to break you than to raze your last link to the days before your curse?”

I spun to face her again. “You wouldn’t!” Her air of superiority didn’t waver in the least. “How can you even think of doing such a thing? All the people who live here are innocent!”

“I would.”

Sea monsters began marching and slithering out of the surf and heading inland, ignoring me. They kicked up sand, shook off water and eyed the historic town with destruction on their minds. I didn’t recognize a few types of monsters but they had to be from one myth or legend or another. One of the things marching out of the water was… Tethys. He walked right by me, fixing me with a smug grin before continuing inland. I watched helplessly as they tore down the nearest castle-like homes and continued northward, dragging any and all unfortunate locals into the sea, Tethys working right alongside the monsters. My home was farther north, closer to the dock I moored at every visit, yet farther inland.

“Not all monsters are covered in scales. I’ve churned up the bottom of the sea for some of the nastiest. Don’t take too long to get home,” she said in a tone that didn’t care how long I took. “And if you go alone to defend your home, I can assure you a storm will claim your ship and your crew, hurricane season or not. Heed my advice and I just might show a little mercy and spare them.”

The kelpie stomped a hoof and a huge wave rose behind it and Amphitrite. I wanted to run but all I could do was stand there and watch with morbid fascination. The wave crested high overhead as the sunlight shined through it and more monsters kept marching ashore.

“Don’t forget to hurry.”

She and her mount melded with the wave as it crashed and sent me somersaulting backwards, until my back hit something hard and flat. Might’ve been the road. But when I realized I no longer heard water roiling around, I opened my eyes. I could see nothing but black. I felt around and found the edges of a cot. The smell of metal, sea water, and anti-septic fluids filled my nose. So I was awake. I patted down my torso and felt no pain or sutures. I was whole again. The relief was bittersweet. I also had an IV attached to my arm, but the needle was no longer under my skin. I peeled off the tape, then got up and blindly felt my way to one corner of the container, the far one opposite the door. That was where I had plates of food sent up to me. I could smell bread and melted cheese when I got close. I wasn’t hungry but I needed every ounce of strength I could gather, so I sat on the floor and wolfed down cold meat-lover’s pizza and guzzled the electrolyte mixture Mido had left me, then, with a flip of two levers, sent the empty plate down so they’d know I was awake and well enough to eat.

Amphitrite was right about Newport. I’d watched over my home for almost three hundred years, finding solace in the place every time I visited. Even though the locals hated me, Newport would always be home. I didn’t want anything to happen to it. It was the only un-erasable link to my pure human past. Now Amphitrite was threatening to destroy that as well? That was a real low blow.

I couldn’t help but fear this punishment really might break me. My hands were shaking already. I got up and felt my way to the door, then used my command over water form two giant hands and wave at whoever was piloting my ship.

I spent the last three nights of lockdown building strength and worrying about Newport and my crew. I paced when I couldn’t help it. Otherwise, I forced myself to conserve energy. I was feeling weak from the extensive repairs my curse had mended. Rapid healing didn’t just magically happen—well it did, but not without payment of energy and materials. I’d lost a modest amount of muscle mass, enough to feel weak and fatigued. I was feeling decent physically by the last night, but still a bit weak, like my muscles had atrophied.

Mentally, I was a wreck. The army of monsters from my nightmare were ever present in my thoughts, along with Amphitrite’s warning not to dally. How would she factor in my lockdown? I feared her thoughts on that were, “Oh, well. You should’ve timed your escape better.” My imagination generated all sorts of crushing scenarios I struggled hard to block from my conscious thoughts. I didn’t want to envision my home being anything less than intact. Even though I didn’t spend much time there any given year, it was still home. Home.

The day after I repaired and regained consciousness, Cancer checked on me from outside the container. I informed him that he’d saved me from a temporary death. He was just as relieved as me, then warned me that Jacobi was still being an ass to Jessie. I asked him to leave me alone after that. Didn’t tell; asked. That’s how stressed I was. Rammus could deal with it. I didn’t want to hear about any crap while in lockdown.

When I wasn’t stressing over the perilous state of my home, I was brooding about my crew. Sam had family in Newport. They were going to die if we didn’t get there fast enough. If they died, then Sam would lose the most important people in his life, and it’d be all because of me. I couldn’t let that happen. I’d do everything in my power to prevent that from happening, including to tapping into the power I hated using. The sacrifice of my humanity was nothing compared to the loss of family. I didn’t want to have to face Sam after him losing those he loved most because of me.

Thinking about Sam and his family got me thinking about my life and all the people that had come and gone through it. So many people would’ve been better off if they’d never met me. Working in the shipping industry attracted its own hazards, but my curse? All my attempts to pretend to live a normal life as a normal person had resulted in the death of thirty people. People like Jersey and Mike, who died to other hazards, weren’t among those thirty. I’d cremated so many people in my two hundred and seventy seven years, and I hadn’t forgotten a single name or nickname, where they died, or when.

I carried the guilt of their deaths every day. Some days the guilt overwhelmed me. Other days it was no more than a poisonous whisper. I’d tried so hard to keep every last one of them alive. I could’ve tried harder if I’d been more willing to use the power of my demon form, but no. The selfish need to preserve my humanity had cost thirty lives. More, really, since I could’ve saved Jersey and Mike if I’d used my demon powers. God, I could’ve saved so many more lives that way.

I would not make that same mistake in Newport. The thought made me squirm, but the fear of more loss overrode my own wants for once.