LIFE 13: TILL MORNING

"Dreams do come true, if only we wish hard enough. You can have anything in life, if you will sacrifice everything else for it."

― J.M. Barrie

I doubted that I would ever understand my curse, to be so removed from any hope of an afterlife that I would live such an awful immortality.

Life after life, I was forced along a track of misery, reinvention, and experiences that some would ever imagine, let alone live.

I had fought the very fabric of reality, killed those that would seek to pervert death itself, and put to right wrongs that had existed for millennia.

I had been hero, villain, and savior too many times to count now, and enjoyed it only so often.

And now, in yet another life, I was drowning.

Usually I awoke in a life either through birth or through sleep, but now I woke to the world beneath the waves, the crash of a storm far above as I felt the waters crash and scream from the lightning dancing atop it.

With no great agony I swam upwards, my bruised hands reaching up to break the surface of my prison and set sight on the dreary life of night, my soaked eyes bracing to the frigid air.

A ship, one far detached from the modern world, with sails black and fearsome, stood illuminated in the storm.

With the waves throwing me ever onward, I fought against the current to reach the ship, a blessed salvation from the carnivorous sea.

Finding a strong and able rope dangling from the side of the vessel, I heard screams over the raging winds, calls for action and speed to combat the disaster I now found myself tangeled into.

With no regard for if I was walking into danger or something far worse, I pulled with all my might to scale the side of the ship through its wild motions, the rope burning my skin as it tossed me around through the air.

With great difficulty and no little effort, I finally found myself being pulled onto the ship by strong hands as someone realized I was there.

"Thought we lost ya there lad!" A disgruntled looking man yelled to me over the fierce winds, his hair unruly and tangled as we took cover against the bow, others of similar standard running and working across the deck as rain fell upon us like stones from a cliff.

"Where am I!?" I called back to him as he held my shoulder to ground me, my arms thin and weak as I took stock of my surroundings, the man so much taller than I was that it was clear to tell.

I was a child, once again.

"Must have hit your head lad, we're on the Sea Devil! Capn says the storm's not set to last, so find yourself a safe spot and ride it out!" The man said in turn as he began to run down to the cabin, the figure of a man highlighted against a captain's wheel lit up against the bright sky above us, the storm exploding the world around us as water billowed down onto me.

Unlike the few times that I took the place of someone else, there was no flood of memories or explanations, merely the storm and the grizzled men around me.

It was clear that I was in no time that I had known before, possibly even before Arno or Morris, though I had great doubts I could be as far back as Walsei. Only later in that life had naval pursuits grown anywhere near as advanced as the ship I found myself on now, evidently one of the crew judging by the words of the man that had helped me aboard.

Shit, I was probably a cabin boy, or some other embarrassing job as a young boy wasn't essential or even useful to the running of a vessel of this size, yet alone wanted.

However, I knew I wasn't on a privateer's vessel, as these men around me were definitely not of the King's Navy, or any other to sail the seas, something far different than the crew that I had once called my own.

Seeing the black flag flying over my head, the scuff and filth of the men around me and the kraken that sat affixed as the figurehead, it was all too clear.

I was a pirate.

1672.

King Charles the II and Louis XIV were off waging war and tyranny over their neighbors and men and monsters were profiting off their lack of notice as the seas became a battlefield of epic and treacherous proportions.

Interestingly enough, I didn't have a name in this world, having been called boy from birth to rise, going fourteen years without being called something other than an insult.

Looking for a way out of the drudgery that life had been at home, I had caught the eye of a man in a marketplace and eagerly begged to join his crew on the open seas, to change my luck around and take rather than be taken from.

Avery Compton, otherwise known as Erdrich, was amused and took pity on the poor boy and offered him a spot on his crew, not too harsh or cruel of a place considering the time.

Traveling in pursuit of a sunken vessel that left but a single survivor, Captain Compton had led us on a star chart that led to dangerous and vile waters, but the Sea Devil had persisted until a storm began to brew and strike the Earth.

The Men had panicked and ran to their posts as the heavens began to scream down on us, and through the chaos of the storm their youngest member had been thrown into the brink as many had before him.

Doomed to a watery grave, that was where I came into the picture, literally hoisted out of the darkness below and into a world rife with conflict and merriment.

What a time to find myself in, where personal hygiene was a joke and civil rights were a pipe dream.

Had to be better than dealing with the Plague…

"Make way for the Capn!" The first mate, a man by the name of Blainery said with conviction and boom as Compton made his way down to us, the men freezing in their places as the sun beamed down on our heads.

Such blistering weather after a terrible storm, we had no luck at all on this damned voyage.

"We wavered through the storm, but our troubles do not cease. Still we're some days away from the wreck of the Maria, least where we've heard it went down. Keep steady lads and we'll be there by journey's end and the richer for it." He said sternly yet warmly as he gestured to the crew who only nodded in turn, Blainery following the captain back off deck as the crew grew to whisperings.

Most wondered what the Maria carried, the selfish King's most prized vessel having been struck down mid journey to France, and all it's untold fortune lost with it.

The one survivor had spoke of horrors and tragedy, yet that did nothing to convince the pirates of the seas to ward off, superstitious they may be, willing to lose out of a payload that big?

They were not.

I found myself becoming friends with the doctor of the crew, Charles Stafford, an educated man that had fallen in with Compton and eventually joined him on the seas, and he remained one of the few good conversationalists on board that I didn't mind talking with.

From literature to happenstance, he and I found ourselves conversing when neither he nor I had work to be done, and it made things much more bearable over all, having a kindred spirit to burn time with.

I was too weak to do hard labor, too young to be trusted to make able decisions for the crew, and not yet mature enough to be allowed to partake in any of the goods we had gotten thus far.

How I longed for a single glass of rum, yet I had somehow found myself on the one pirate crew too virtue driven to let a boy drink…

My luck would never cease to amaze me in its horrible nature.

"So Mister Stafford, did the man say what made the Maria go down?" I asked the doctor, the two of us sitting below deck as the day went on, neither of us needed as the men had found a rare moment of rest as the winds fared well.

Knowing Stafford was one of the few that would know, my mind had been eager to learn what had driven one of the finest ships in Britain beneath the waves.

"Well young Harrison, in all likelihood it was a ship much akin to this one, but that man… he had spoke of a horror from a world beyond." The doctor said then with some bluster as I sat beside him, my head whirling in thought at that description.

Of course I had devised a name for myself, as this life had been nameless thus far, the crew referring to me as boy or lad beforehand.

I wouldn't choose boy as a name after all I had lived, so I merely adopted a name for my own.

Harrison James Black, a fine name and one I had taken before, and the crew had eagerly said it fit me well considering the times.

However, this talk of horrors intrigued me as I had spent several lives hunting and purging the world of evil, and had considered myself a pro thus far at saving lifes.

"Did he describe this beast doctor?" I had asked then in interest, wondering if I had landed in another world where a Kraken or some other foul creature traveled the dark waters around us.

Stafford looked at me then in wary, obviously thinking of whether to divulge such horrors to a mere boy, but his urge to finish the tale won over.

"The man, in what moments of sensibility he had, spoke of a boy. Not much younger than you actually, with brazen hair like fire that lept on the deck of the Maria. The men had been confused, asking after the boy and his name. The man said that this… boy, laughed at them then, this cold and menacing giggle, and they… the men were alarmed as an army of lifeless bodies climbed onto the ship, and dragged each and every single one of them off into the sea. The survivor had been the first mate, who watched as the boy walked to the captain, and asked him a question as they pulled their swords. Apparently the captain answered wrong, and the boy grabbed hold of the man, and flew off with him into the air.

The last crewmen looked on in horror as the boy lifted the captain far into the air, the poor soul struggling and flailing in the boy's arms, before dropping him."

The two of us sat in silence then as the world around us shook with every wave, and I just considered the frankly morbid tale I had been told, and just groaned at the fact that Compton obviously had heard the same story.

Despite the fact that this was just asking for trouble, of course he decided we just had to hunt down a ship that had been decimated by literal monsters.

So much for fortune and glory, as all it seems we sailed for was a watery grave.

The days passed in such a way that it made keeping track difficult, a crate below deck becoming my way of passing time as I made a new etch for each day aboard.

I had spent fifteen days on the ship, completely unaware of what day or even month that it was, only knowing it was early in the year and the season had yet to pass over into the next.

I knew we sailed on the Atlantic, but where in those waters I had no way of knowing, merely that the days were long and the waters just as violent as I had come to expect.

Of course, some days were a blessing and clear skies and calm nights were found, but others we fought against nature itself to continue on our way.

I had sailed this very ocean once more, but then as a captain of prestige and with a crew much more skilled than the one I found myself in now, but I did find a certain charm in these men.

They were honest and hard working, life having given them grief at some point and they found that making their fortune on the tides beat whatever worthless ventures they had pursued on land.

Honestly, I had no real reason to fight or seek something else, as I found this a beautiful opportunity.

To sail the seas during the Golden Age of Piracy, long before things would all go horribly wrong and the oceans would be tamed by ruthless greed and bureaucracy, to live free and fast on the waves.

Of course, it would be even better if our captain wasn't determined to sail into seemingly cursed waters where a nightmarish apparition sank and destroyed all that wandered into its cove.

I had wondered if it would be better to simply Imperio the captain, have him change his mind and sail for safer waters, but a damn curious part of my mind wondered what the demon that had struck had really been.

Curiosity did in fact kill the cat, but satisfaction would always bring it back.

We were still a few days out from Verlerrie cove, the place that the Maria had been said to go down at, but I could not displace this feeling of dread that had sunk into me.

I did not have any exact reasoning behind it, aside from hearing the story of the damned crew, but I felt something… familiar set into my bones.

The Captain assured us that all was well, that ghosts and specters were the things of madman ramblings and that it had been a crew that took the Maria down, and that we had no reason to worry as we could defend ourselves well enough from any foolish ships that dared face us.

Listening with bated breath, I knew the death of the Sea Devil would not come with cannon fire or some other battle of blood or fate, but much more sudden and cruel.

And still, the Captain and crew stayed in high spirits, most of the men eagerly following the captain's example of discarding their worries in favor of something more valiant and useful, such as keeping the ship stable and living as we sailed on.

Each night, I merely turned over the story Stafford had told inside my mind, wondering of what beast or ghoul could do something like it had done.

Command legions of the dead at their beck and call, to fly as able as any bird, and to arrive so silently and wickedly as it supposedly had.

Only a laugh being spared at the screams and fear of the poor men it had slaughtered.

When Stafford had been so kind to pass onto me a gift, I found myself with a journal to keep a log, and a quill to mark it with.

For once, I was quite thankful for the strenuous lessons McGonagall had forced on me of proper etiquette and penmanship as I had found myself in too many a life where a pen had been but a wished upon concept rather than useful reality.

Fortunately, as the crew fell so swiftly behind the captain's guiding hand, there was no hint of mutiny among the crew and none so much questioned his direction and goal.

However, that might actually be a bad thing, as if the tale the doctor had told me of a devilish child slaughtering a crew in the night like it was a mere game was true, then the ship was doomed and us along with it.

However, much to the fortune of the captain and his crew, they weren't entirely doomed to their fates, as they had been so very lucky to receive the one person that could tip the tides.

Me, if I wasn't too smug in thinking, as I had lived for a collective thousand years or so, and I doubted that a ghost and some zombies would be enough to take me down.

They hadn't yet.

"All hands on deck!" Captain Compton had yelled out into the night, the men suddenly springing into action as before our very eyes a sound had broken through the merry singing of the current ditty, dragging us all back to harsh reality.

We had been sailing as usual, but the Captain had been proud of us finally reaching Verlerrie, the crew's spirits high and rising as drinks had been had and the morale had never been higher.

The First mate had been scouring through his spy glass for any sign of the Maria's wreckage as I had merely been giving a hand to anyone that needed it, when things had turned for the worse.

Through the sound of joyous calls and song, a shrill voice echoed out into the night.

A youthful and vibrant sound, but cold and sharp as the crew fell silent, some holding their hands on their blades as the ship slowed to a crawl.

Looking off into the night, I began to pull my magic together, a faint red glow growing in my hands as I looked around, not afraid of revealing my talents as I had been before.

The crew feared the supernatural, as any sane man or woman should, but I no longer felt such a hesitation. If I could save them from whatever specter of the night wavered, then I would easily gain their allegiance and have no need to worry.

Looking after the alarmed sound to my right, I laid eyes on a new addition to the deck, a young boy not too dissimilar to myself now stood before me.

The boy was a redhead, similar to many I had met before, but the ragged and weathered rags that clung to him were far from normal.

His skin was pale as chalk, dark veins traveling along his body as I took notice of the clawed fingers that rested at his side, a curved and broken blade tied to his waist.

With blood red eyes that spoke of madness and joy, the boy looked directly at me then, the crew making not a single sound as he took a step towards me, blood staining his emerald attire as he came ever closer.

And laughed.

This horrible and frightening thing, more of a maddening giggle than anything let loose by happiness or glee, but something menacing and painful growing from his throat.

I was shoved aside by one of the men then, his blade drawn as he took a swipe at our laughing intruder, only to pause in fear as the impossible happened right before our eyes.

The cutlass, sharp and well managed as it had been, shattered to pieces on the boy's stone-like skin like it had hit the densest diamond.

With an alarmed breath, the man took a step back with his hilt in hand, as a silence fell over all of us as the boy's laughter finally cut out, and he let loose a whistle.

Before we could even react, all around us figures began to rise up from over the ship's edge, pale and undead as they drew closer.

Rather than men of death and gore, these were mere children of all kinds, boys of varying ages that ran towards us with blades as fierce as the hunger in their eyes.

The first boy just watched in glee as his minions began to tear through the pirates, but I was not going to let the same fate as the Maria's crew suffered be repeated onto us.

With no thought onto the matter aside from cold focus, I held my hands out to the boy and called out over the screams of my fellows.

"Bombarda!"

An explosion rocketed out from my hands, a beam of crimson light blasting clean through the chest of the monstrous boy, his innards clear to see through the hole I graciously left in him.

And yet as his blood began to pool below him, he just stood there and laughed at me, as unbothered as if I had blown nothing but air at him.

"Avava Kedavra!" I cried then, overcoming my hesitation to give another attempt at putting this beast to rest, only for the emerald energy to wash clean over the undead monster before me.

Then, it just smiled at me, this terrible and joyous thing, this look of sick amusement in his eyes.

Like… it was funny that I would even try.

And before I could even process what his refusal to die even meant, he stepped closer to me then, his nightmarish face coming to rest on my shoulder as his cold grasp rested on my hand.

"You're not ready yet."

And with all the grace of a bow to an audience, he ripped off my hand as surely as if it had never been there, shaking it through the air like it was a toy rather than a blood soaked palm with wild fingers flailing.

Looking on in horror, I just held the stump to my chest as the beast stepped back from me with this childish glee to his gait.

And with a last twisted look to my face, he threw the hand off of the ship, the waves swallowing it whole as he gave a demented smile to me in parting.

It was as I cried out from the surprisingly violent pain, that all went silent around me, not a single breath aside from my own filling the air.

The boy in jade rags was gone, as were all of his minions, and everyone that I had come to know was just as dead as they had been.

I was utterly alone aside from the bodies of the dead, lost and adrift in the waves after a fool's errand to find fortune in the death of those that had suffered before us.

Now, we shared their fate, and I was the sole survivor of yet another burial at sea at the hands of a beast far more cruel than I had imagined.

I had lost, and yet another ship had been lost to the laughing demon.

And the ship began to sink.

"The Second Star to The Right. Shines in The Night. For You..."

Lost Boy's Log:

So, I've been carrying two separate story ideas while I've been writing Jackpot, both lives inspired by fairy tales.

One, a horror tale based on the seas and the land where no one grows up.

The other, a more light hearted f/f story in a land where nothing makes sense.

I flipped a coin to decide which to write first, the other being held off till later.

It landed on heads, so Till Morning was brought to light.

I really wanted to write a story with a bit more grit and seriousness than Jackpot, and thus we have arrived here. Hope you've enjoyed.

- Oscar