Ink battling Saltwater

The awakening

First, all she could think of was the horrible pain in her leg. Was this death?

When she regained more of her consciousness and her eyes started to flutter open, a hard hand opened her mouth a poured hot soup-like liquid down her throat. Her throat caught on fire but she actually got better from it. The pain in her leg died away. It felt like it used to be, normal.

She slowly opened her eyes.

Another pair of dark eyes stared back at her.

Her green eyes widened and she prepared to scream.

A strong hand covered her mouth, and with put a finger to his own mouth, he silenced her.

Aurora found herself in a cave, surrounded by the natives. A cauldron made of stone simmered behind her. An old hand pushed the young male native away and the witch revealed herself. Aurora who had the memory of their last encounter in fresh memory, tried to back away. She couldn't.

"... Maga crines cum ardentibus..." The witch chanted slowly.

Aurora was too afraid to say anything. She looked down on her torso and found various of necklaces made of small craniums and teeth. A unfamiliar weight on her head told her she had some sort of headgear.

"Oh please, no." She whispered. "Don't let them sacrifice me too!" She knew if they put her back in the jungle, she could never survive. The crew and the filmteam had left her already, not bothering to bring her body with them. She was suddenly filled with anger towards the crew, the filmteam, Ann, Jack, Jimmy and Thomas Englehorn!

The chanting grew louder and soon were drums companion her song.... Maga crines cum ardentibus... Dunk, Dunk, Dunk... Maga crines cum ardentibus... Dunk, Dunk! Dunk!

The witch stroke her damaged leg with complicated moves. Aurora's eyes almost fell out when she realized that her leg looked normal. They had healed her! She had no idea how the hell they had managed, but somehow they did.

The witch turned her face towards the sky and howled, soon all the others followed her. The shrieking sound was horrifying. With a snap of her finger, the witch silenced all of them.

"Ruber crinis." She held her hand out to Aurora, who didn't know what to do, should she take it? Did the witch want something?

Aurora shook her head. "I'm sorry I don't..."

"Ruber crinis!" She demanded and clenched her claw like hand together.

Aurora stared into her milky eyes and couldn't look away.

The didn't give up, instead she put a sharp stone into Aurora's hands and grabbed a strand of her hair.

Aurora stared questionably at them. Why did they give her a sharp stone, a weapon? After a few seconds, she came around and figured that they probably wanted something in return for saving her life and healing her leg. With a feeling of doing something utterly stupid, she placed the sharp stone against a strand of her long hair.

The witch howled once again, creating a complicated sound with her tongue. Natives around her started to dance. They all seemed to be genuinely happy.

It all stopped once, hundreds pair of eyes turned back to her. Slowly, she cut through the strand surprisingly easy, the stone had been sharp as a knife. Aurora handed the strand of her hair to the excited witch. The witch smiled wide with her bad teeth and bad breath, she kissed the strand of hair. Aurora watched with a mix of disgust and fear. What kind of ritual was this? The music from the drums increased, the natives danced and the witch chanted again. "Potestatem."

The light of the sun hit Aurora in the eyes. Her headgear fell down in her lap, she examined it, a crown made of enormous teeth. Two natives grabbed her by her arms, pulling her up, she thought she was going to die.

"They took my hair and now they're going to kill me." She was absolutely sure of it! But when they released her outside of the cave, she started to wonder. Aurora stood in the light, only five meters from them, she took a small step back away from them. They didn't seem to mind her disappearing, instead they clapped their hands.

"Potestatem." They continued to sing.

She took another step back, turned around and began to run. Another sound from them chased her, their laughing. She glanced backwards as she ran over rocks and saw them laughing at her. It was a raw insulting laugh.

Aurora reached the gate again and from here she knew the way back to the boats. She prayed that they wouldn't have left as she heard a monstrous growl coming from the shore. In the corner of her eye, she saw a Tommy Gun on the ground.

"It might be helpful." She said to herself as she checked the ammo. She still had 10 shoots left.

Aurora ran barefoot over the rocks, the way back to the shore. She stopped immediately as she saw the back of that giant ape. It was about to reach out and slam it's fists into the boat in the water. Aurora recognized Ann, Jack and Thomas was about to get smashed. With a large gulp, she unsafe the weapon and aimed for it's neck. The bullets reached their target.

"He, you big dumb ape!" She shouted and waved with her hands, trying to attract attention. The ape turned around confused. This small moment of unfocused amount of time was all Thomas needed, Carl too.

Thomas fired the harpoon, making the ape growl in pain and turn his attention to the boat again. Carl used this opportunity and threw the last and remaining bottle of chloroform.

This time it reached its target and the effect came quickly. Ann screamed and cried in her boat as Jack tried to calm her down. The men rowed back to help people in the water into the boat and to get Carl and Aurora away from the island, back to the Venture.

However as the boat reached the shore again, Thomas stepped out and walked with fast steps towards Aurora with a strange look in his eyes. Aurora's anger kindled and as they met on the rocks, beside Carl, they both were angry.

"You!" She started accusing. "You left me to die there, saving your own skin!"

"Have you any idea of how hard for me it was to leave?"

She shook her head, almost like a dog. "No, it wasn't, you simply walked away!"

"I thought it was over." He explained.

"So, I'm not worth enough too..."

He interrupted with increasing anger and grabbed her both upper arms. "We're chased by an enormous ape, how easy do you think it is to..." Thomas defended himself.

"Get off me!" She growled and broke herself free. The anger flowed through her system. She saw red and wasn't able to think clear. Aurora walked past Thomas and Carl, into the boat and sat down beside Ann.

Ann put an arm around Aurora. "If it wasn't have been for him, this shouldn't have happened." She said with a tired voice.

"Pardon?" Aurora asked just as tired as Ann. She stared unseeingly at the crew as they started to structure Kong's journey to the Venture and eventually to New York. Carl was ecstatic and practically danced in euphoric joy. "I knew that the luck would turn back on me!" He said over and over again. "I can show the world that there's still some mystery in the world. He's always been King of his world. But we'll teach him fear! We're millionaires, boys! I'll share it with all of you! Why, in a few months, his name will be up in lights on Broadway! Kong! The Eighth Wonder of the World!"

Aurora watched with unseeing eyes as the anger disappeared and left her feeling nothing. She barely comprehended that Ann sat sobbing beside her in the boat and as they returned to the Venture. Someone told her to move her things out of the cage she had been sleeping in for weeks and into the small room she had woke up in after almost drowning in her search for Jimmy. Speaking of Jimmy, he sat alone and silent in the crow's nest when they had returned back to the ship, he just stared straight into space, mourning Mr. Hayes, the closest person in his life.

Aurora also mourned with the rest of the people on the Venture. She and them had lost people they cared about. Memories of Lumpy, Mr. Hayes and the rest of the lost, flashed in front of her eyes. People who were dead and gone. She isolated herself on the room.

::::

"Men.. and women too. I've said it before, but I'll say it again. We're millionaires!" Carl said one night as all the remaining people ate dinner.

A few mutterings were heard. No one was interested in making money anymore, everyone wanted to wake up from the horrible nightmare they had suffered.

Carl looked around at the uninterested people. "Oh come on, I do this for the poor souls of the dead! We'll always remember them and I promise that after everyone's got their part of the profit, we'll donate the rest to their families!" Carl assured them with a business tone.

"Sounds like something we heard before." A crew member muttered.

"I beg your pardon?" Carl asked sharply, turning to the man.

"How can you only think of money when so many have died?" Aurora asked out load with a raspy voice. She hadn't talked in days and wasn't used to hear herself. Aurora stole a glance towards Thomas, he stared into the table, clearly regretting this whole voyage. Aurora didn't blame him, he had lost a big part of his crew and it wasn't going to be easy to find a new crew, despite the depression. When they were going to reach New York, many, maybe all of them, would leave him, leaving the Venture as a ghost ship. For the first time in days Aurora felt something except anger and emptiness towards him. She felt sorry for all the things that had happened.

Jimmy interrupted. "Donating the money to the families isn't going to bring them all back. Some of the dead men didn't even have family..." He said with an empty voice. Clearly referring to Mr. Hayes.

"No, it's not going to bring them back..." Carl admitted. "But they died for something they believed in. We're not going to allow them to have died for nothing! We're going to make them heroes, stars and unforgotten." Carl finished his speech. "Trust me, it's going to get better." And finally finished of with cliche words.

Aurora didn't believe him in that moment, no one in the room did. But she had no idea of how right Carl was going to turn out to be.

::::

Aurora stood in the fore of the Venture. The climate was turning colder as they got closer to New York. Memories washed over her as she gazed unseeingly into the gray water. The faces of Choy, Lumpy and Mr. Hayes flashed before her eyes again. Their dead faces, the remains of them and the horrible pain in her leg, the awful last hours... in the small amount of time she thought she would die and last the back of Thomas walking away from her, leaving her to die alone. Aurora felt trapped... she did not know what to do with her feelings. One second she wanted to punch something really hard, the next moment she wanted to break down in tears. The despair pulled her apart.

She looked down on her now healthy leg, wondering if this whole journey was just a dream. A very long dream she was going to wake up from soon. At this moment she would do anything to wake up to her boring life as an unsuccessful writer. Speaking of writing; she hadn't touched her dear typewriter since they reached Skull Island and she hadn't wrote a single word on her story. At this state in her mood, she could never give the story a happy ending. She was gladly going to end the story with despair, killing of the captain or the shipwrecked lady. There it was again; the anger!

With shaking fingers she lit a cigarette. Aurora had always hated the smell of cigarettes and had no plans in starting smoking although the nicotine somehow calmed her down. She inhaled with shaky breaths and cursed herself for the smoke. It tasted horrible but she couldn't stop.

Her finger shook more as she tried to take it away from her mouth. Her lips trembled and she almost dropped it on her coat. As a result of forgetting her trousers and shirt on the island, she now wore her old skirts and blouses and felt rottenly. Aurora hadn't spoke to Ann in days. Ann was at that stupid ape's side, Jack Driscoll had locked himself into his room and Jimmy was nowhere to be seen. She had lost all of them!

"Dammit!" She swore and brought the cigarette back to her lips. "Why do things have to be so bloody hard?" Using her mother's saying calmed her down again., but the thought of her dear mother brought back painful memories. She had left Aurora to early, Aurora hadn't been ready to say goodbye at the age of 19 years old and still wasn't.

The tears rolled down her cheeks before she realized that she was crying. Aurora dropped the cigarette into the ocean and leaned on the railing as she sobbed. She tried her best, but she had lost so many! Not just the dead one, also persons who hid from her and avoided her eye contact. All she heard from them were whisperings.

Aurora hid her face in her hands and her shoulders shook in the sobs as she felt a hand on her right shoulder.

"How are you?" A voice with a German accent asked.

Aurora immediately wiped her tears. "Go away!" She told him with a raspy voice. She didn't want him to see her like this when she completely had broke down. She had worked hard to set up a strong and unbreakable wall around herself and didn't want him to demolish it.

"Not in your current condition. It looks like you're going to throw yourself of the Venture." Thomas replied fast.

She clenched the railing as he tried to move her away from the fore of the ship. "No, leave me alone." She said with a weak voice.

Apparently he didn't listen to her and slowly and methodical bended her fingers of the railing. "It's for your own good." He told her.

She shivered as his words and breath hit her chin. His arms were wrapped around her, holding her struggling arms next to her body. He was too close, her arms were covered with goosebumps and it wasn't from the wind.

"Calm down." He told her as he almost dragged her to the door. When he released his left arm to reach for the handle, she managed to break free from his grip.

She placed herself a few meters away from him, with her back against the wall. "I said; get off me!" Aurora told him sharply and worked hard to build up her wall, not letting him inside again. A feeling of deja vu washed over her. She said those exact words to him earlier.

He didn't move nor speak. In fact he didn't even blink, until he reached out an hand. "Come with me."

Tears welled up in her eyes from the sweet gesture. She hated herself for not being able to reach out for him too. One part wanted but another stronger part told her to leave. Leave him and go.