I woke up in the dark. I sat up and stretched my stiff limbs. I shook off the remaining tendrils of sleep and groped around in the dark for my boots. Having found them and put them on, yawning, I stood up. “Owch!” I had hit my head on something very hard and remembered the cupboard above my “bed”. Until a few days ago at this time of day there would have been light streaming in though a hole next to the cupboard but I got annoyed with the light waking me up early in the morning so I fixed it.
Rubbing my head I opened the door to my cell and walked up the creaking, rotten ladder which led up from our living quarters to main deck.
“Oi! Batboy! Get up ‘ere now! Your shift started ‘alf an hour ago!”
I sighed and unfurled my wings. I was unique. I was not like those stuck-up Iriads with their pretty feathers and flawless faces. No, I was pale with black hair and bright blue eyes and wings. Not bird wings though, Bat wings. I was an orphaned freak.
“If you don’t get up ‘ere now, I’ll rip those pathetic pieces of skin ya call wings to shreds!”
Clenching my jaw, I took off and soared up to the crows’ nest where the previous shifter was standing with his arms folded and two broken bottles at his feet.
“Glad ya cud make it Batty. I was beginning t’think ya weren’t commin t’see me.” He bared his rotten teeth in what I think was supposed to be some kind of smirk.
I ignored him and flew up just a little higher to the top of the pole where I could sit knowing that no one could disturb me. I remembered the hot sun which would burn me if I didn’t do something about it, so I clapped my gloved hands together and a translucent blue sphere encased my pale form. Inside the sphere it was cool as though I was in the shade and I liked it. I could make the sphere do what I wanted. On some days when I was really depressed I made it rain on other days I made it snow and once, a long time ago, I had tried to kill myself by creating a thunder-storm inside my sphere but it hadn’t worked, the lightening wouldn’t hit me.
After I worked out that method wasn’t going to work, I tried to jump off the top mast. That didn’t work either, at the last second; an invisible force stopped me from hitting the ground hard and cushioned my fall. After a few more attempts, I finally realized I couldn’t kill myself.
I then began to wonder if someone else could kill me. I purposefully got into a fight with one of the other members of the crew and he had stabbed me in the stomach. Although I had made no attempt to stop it, the knife seemed to bounce off an invisible wall and I was unharmed.
Once the crew realized I couldn’t be killed they became more wary of me and I became an outcast. They made empty threats and bullied me a bit, but mostly they left me alone. All accept one. I don’t know his name, but he wears gloves like me. He was the one in the crows nest before me and he likes to pick on me.
I clapped my hands again and the sphere disintegrated, I stood up, balancing perfectly on the pole which only just had room for my feet. Stretching my wings I launched off the pole. I opened my wings and soared over the main deck. Two beats of my wings sent me in a backward loop, when I pulled up I stopped and hovered in the air.
The sun beat down on my pale, delicate skin and I put my hand up to shield my eyes as I searched the empty, open sea which swirled below me. I loved the sea, so wild and untamed it reminded me of myself sometimes, not the outside me, the private Me, the Me who no one else knew about, inside I was an ocean of emotions and no one knew. Because no one knew this Me and because this Me had never revealed itself to anyone, and probably never would either.
Wait, the ocean wasn’t as empty as I had previously thought. Just behind the stern a small dot tossed helplessly in the constant anger of the sea. I flew down towards it and saw that there was something lying on the driftwood, which looked as though it used to be a boat of some sort, but it had been at the mercy of the sea for two long and now was barely recognizable.
A girl! The person on the wood was a girl! A young girl at that, about my age I thought. I was about to raise the alarm but suddenly I paused. The girl was young and the men on the boat were hardly civilized, I had seen what they got up to when we docked and I certainly didn’t want that to happen to her. No, the unknown rebellious Me was coming out and that was not allowed, leave her to the men, the Captain would probably look after her. What was I saying? The Captain was as bad as any of them, possibly worse. I made my decision and swooped down to the driftwood.
The girl was out cold and soaked to the skin with the stinging saltwater from the hash sea. She was wearing a light pair of summer trousers and a light summer shirt with a leather jerkin. “That’s good,” I thought, “She won’t have soaked up as much freezing water with the leather jerkin protecting her. Without landing on the makeshift raft, I scooped her up in my arms, she was incredibly light and she weighed nothing in my strong, ship-tamed arms. As soon as she was secure in my arms, I flew quickly back towards the stern of the ship and found the flap, which someone had left open when they had needed to go.
I held my breath and entered the stinking flap of horrors, but the experience passed as soon as I was in the hold at the back of the ship. I needed to hide her and fast. I saw a few crates which looked as though they might provide a good hiding place. I was right. One of them was empty and the next dock wasn’t for two weeks, which meant that they would stay right where they were untouched by any sailor.
I placed her gently on the floor of the crate and then scrabbled around for a sheet. I found some old rags which had been lying around. They weren’t very clean but there were lots of them so they would do for the time being. I wrapped her up in the scratchy material and closed the crate behind me. My shift was pretty much over now, so I flew back out the flap and quickly back up onto the mast.
“Oi! You lot down there! Next shift!” As soon as I had screamed that, I shot back down to main deck and slipped into the back storeroom.
~SishBee~
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