Waves

There was chaos. 

All around the boy was chaos. But it was a welcomed chaos. Because now, they were no longer captives. 

The ship was rocked by the waves of the turbulent waters and the screams of the captors. Here and there, small fires were burning under the spray of sea water, their orange glows a defiance to the change of the tides. 

An older man came to him and unlocked his chains, pressing into the boy’s hands an item that gleaned in the moonlight.  

It was a dagger.  

The boy looked at the man. The man looked back. No words were exchanged, but plenty was said. The man ran back into the fray and the boy shook himself free of the chains. His first target was a sailor oblivious to his presence. The boy crawled forward and plunged the dagger into the sailor’s foot, eliciting a scream that warmed his heart. The sailor went down on one knee, and the boy stabbed the sailor right in the eye. The sailor went slack, his spirit gone from his body. 

But the boy wasn’t done. 

From within him a fire burned, and a cry sprung from his belly, the sound mixing with the cries of his fellow captors. 

The boy jostled between bodies, weaving when necessary, and cutting when chanced. A solitary figure shaking with fear was his next target. With no change in pace he jumped on the sailor and slit his throat. The sailor thrashed as he gagged on his blood. The boy put an end to it with a dagger to the eye. 

For every skin cut, for every scream heard, the boy’s fury only grew. For he remembered how these same men were the ones that dragged his mother away. They toyed with her, they beat her, they raped her. Then they threw her overboard like she was rubbish. 

And the sailors had the guts to call him barbaric. 

The boy was looking for the captain. The captain needed to die because he was the one that led all these men to the boy’s hometown. He would not go easy on the captain. 

Amidst the carnage, terror, and burnings, he found the captain trying to run and hide in his cabin. It only made the boy feel more anger and disgust. If he was the captain, why didn’t he stay and fight? Why did he run and let his men die for him? The boy gave chase, crashing into the cabin’s door just after the captain closed it. 

There was a loud bang, and a stinging pain as the boy looked at the blood suddenly flowing from his belly.  

The captain was holding a gun. He had shot the boy. And he had a triumphant look on his face. But the look turned into fear when he saw the boy hadn’t fallen to his knees. 

The boy was frothing at the mouth, his bloodlust channelling fuel into his will. The boy rushed at the captain, who dropped his gun in terror. With nothing stopping him, the boy poured out his anger on the captain and stabbed him. 

One. 

Two. 

Three. 

Four. 

Five. 

Six. 

The blood of the captain dripped and splashed all over, giving the manic look of the boy more fervour. But no one was there to witness. The captain was dead, his eyes nothing but the glassy orbs of a vessel devoid of its spirit. 

The boy’s energy was spent, the blood loss finally taking its toll. He dropped the dagger and laid on his back, his breaths heavy and laboured. In his diminishing vision, he saw feet rounding around and bodies dropping. He didn’t want to go just yet. He wanted to kill more of them. 

He struggled to stand until a voice calmed him. The voice told him he didn’t have to fight anymore. There was no need. When he tried to find the source of the voice, he was astounded to see the face of his mother. 

She was smiling at him. She said it again; he didn’t have to fight anymore. All he had to do was take her hand, and together they would be able to go home again. 

He sighed, a smile playing on his bloody face. He raised his hand up as tears clouded his vision, uttering the words he had wanted to for so long. 

“Yes mama… I’m coming…”