Chapter 17: Remembrance
The rocking of the boat and the calming sloshing of the waves gave Aalik a sense of peace and familiarity. There was not a worry in his mind as he felt the early summer sun warming his face. His mind was content, a clean slate enjoying the moment. Then someone gave the boat a light, insistent tap, intruding Aalik's rest.
"Hey wake up, we're here, you don't wanna miss it," a familiar voice whispered kindly.
Such was the surprise of hearing said voice, that Aalik immediately got up from his lethargy and saw the crisp image of his father, sitting beside him in their old fishing boat. Aalik's sheer mixture of disbelief and joy fell flat to the man, who was entirely focused on the water below and their soon to be catch swimming in it.
Aalik asked no questions, nor did he give much thought to what was happening. Any traces of doubt faded from him and were replaced by a comforting feeling of acceptance.
"Couldn't sleep before we left huh?" his father asked with a knowing smile.
"No, I couldn't," Aalik responded groggily, his voice cracking as it welled up with barely contained emotion.
Aalik's father turned to face him and ruffled his hair, as he gave him a warm, kind smile. "Had a bad dream again didn't you?"
Aalik shook his head and wiped his tears with his forearm.
"Come here, take a look. This ought to brighten you up," the man said while gesturing Aalik to sit by his side.
Aalik sat down and stared at the water, seeing the large, fleeting shape underneath. It swam close by to his father's lure but it never quite bit, as if it suspected it to be a deadly meal. The man did not mind the fish's cautiousness however, in fact, as Aalik knew perfectly well, his father always enjoyed a good challenge. After all, food always tastes better the harder you work for it.
"That's a crafty one, how long do you think it will take?" the man asked Aalik, without taking his sights away from the eventual catch.
"How long you've been at it?" Aalik asked groggily.
"About five minutes," the responded before giving it a second thought. "Make it six." "A minute tops then," Aalik said casually.
"Better hope you call it right, I'm first served once we get home if you aren't," his father responded mirthfully.
Aalik rolled his eyes playfully. "You know I've always been right when calling it dad," Aalik shot back, while staring confidently at the ever-clearer shape of the fish, a fat, juicy and most importantly, enormous, prize winning Halibut.
Aalik's father chuckled and shook his head, before his face turned serious once again. The man's hands tightened around the fishing rod with anticipation, as did every bone and fiber of his body. "Remember Aalik, no matter how slippery or stubborn the catch may be, or how badly the sun burns up your face, you always-"
"Have to wait, till the right moment comes its way," Aalik completed happily and nodded. His father smirked with pride.
True to Aalik's words, it took less than a minute for the Halibut to bite the bait and in one swift movement; his father pulled and threw the humongous fish into the boat. The fish shook and struggled, shaking the boat thanks to its sheer size as it did, but it eventually gave up and stopped.
Aalik admired the sheer size of their catch, just as much as he thought of the sheer amount of food it would yield for weeks to come. "Told ya," Aalik chuckled.
His father laughed heartily as he got up, put down his fishing rod and proceeded to unwrap the sail. "What that's it? We're not coming back with just one fish, are we?" Aalik asked.
"One?" His father responded with befuddlement, before pointing back at a net filled with medium- sized cod. "Got a bunch of those while you were out snoozing. You should really give early-sleeping a try Aalik, otherwise, I will never heart the end of it from your mother."
Aalik could have sworn the net was not there when he woke up to begin with, nor the rest of their fishing equipment, but he quickly chalked it up to his lack of sleep and nodded contently at his father's words. Then, an idea occurred to him.
"Hey dad! Let me try it. It's still pretty early," Aalik said.
His father did not appear to hear Aalik's words as he kept on unwrapping the boat sail. It was only when he was more than halfway done, that his face showed a hint of muted surprise. "Oh…of course!" the man responded unevenly, as if breaking out of a trance.
Aalik paid no mind to his father's change of inflection however, and instead went to pick up the fishing rod, place the bait on the hook and throw the line into the water. His father sat back next to him. "Maybe I'll catch an even bigger one this time huh?" Aalik commented as he saw yet another large figure swimming close by.
It was too quick and swam far too deep to make it out fully, but Aalik's confidence remained undeterred. This was going to be a catch the village would sing about for months or even years to come.
"And have it drag you underwater? What are you crazy, you want to catch a cold that badly?" his father scolded him jokingly.
Aalik smirked back and his father ruffled his hair once more. Minutes passed on and yet, Aalik cherished them like years. There were no words, only the waves, seagulls, the flapping of the boat's half-unwrapped sail and the ocean's calm; all music to his ears. The fact that the even larger, now perfectly visible Halibut was closer than ever made his heart scream in further joy and his smile became as wide as could be. Things could only get better. Then, father stood up.
"What happened? What's going on?" Aalik asked, surprised at the suddenness of the movement. His father however, did not respond.
Thunder rumbled, startling Aalik and sending a shiver down his spine. No longer did he care about the prize-winning Halibut, less so when it swam away. Aalik immediately raised his sights and felt a pit of fear and worry grow deep in his stomach. There it was, covering the entirety of the clear, blue sky. Stormclouds, gathering, foreboding and heading straight for their boat, which was but a speck in the massive, open sea.
"DAD!" Aalik screamed and stood up, dropping the fishing rod into the boat floor. His father, meanwhile, scrambled and hastily unwrapped the rest of the sail. Luckily, the winds were on their side, and pushed the boat away from the approaching storm. Unfortunately, for them, the waters were most certainly not.
After a flash of lightning and rumble from afar, enormous walls of water suddenly rose from what used to be a tranquil sea, relentlessly slamming the boat, as to sink it into the briny depths. Aalik's father did not give in to the ocean's pull however. With the help of his trusty paddles, he pushed the boat forward, adding to the strength of the wind.
Aalik on the other hand, did little else but watch, as the drops of water turned into a downpour. His legs wobbled and his heart pounded, as he stared at the mass of rumbling clouds above covering the sky.
"AALIK GET DOWN!" his father yelled. Lightning crackled and thunder boomed once more. Aalik dropped into the boat floor, closed his eyes and covered his head and ears. It helped little. The ocean became a cacophony of thunder, wind and crashing waves, ringing deep inside Aalik's ears. He dared not open his eyes, being the only place where he remained safe and sheltered from the storm. What was all but a perfect day crumbled away at nature's fickle whims and became a nightmare, one Aalik could not, and never did, escape. At least, until the storm suddenly ceased.
Aalik remained still. It was not out of fear however, but rather, disbelief.
"Aalik, Aalik! We're here, we're safe, we made it!" his father shouted and laughed with joy.
Aalik's disbelief faded with his father's words. He slowly opened his eyes and felt the sun's warm rays caressing his face once again. He picked himself up and looked around. Much to his surprise, the sky was as blue as it had been moments before and his home of Fitcherdorf was closer than ever, less than a quarter of a mile away. Aalik laughed as his eyes began to well up, the nightmare was over.
"Well…that was an adventure," Aalik's father said while he kept on paddling the boat towards the village.
"No kidding. Mom's gonna ground me till next summer when she hears about this," Aalik responded, but soon after his relieved smile disappeared, for there was something wrong as he further stared into what he had thought to be his home.
The village was deserted. There were no boats, people or even the faintest signs of life and most importantly, his mother was not there waiting for them to arrive by the boardwalk. The pit in his stomach returned. Something was terribly wrong and this feeling only grew when his father's sudden, erratic movements made him turn around.
"Dad?" Aalik asked, concernedly.
His father did not answer; he simply kept on paddling with a noticeable jerk to his motions and a vacant stare.
"…Dad, are you ok, where is everybody? Mom should be out there waiting for us by now!" Aalik pressured on.
Aalik's father stopped rowing, but his hands and arms trembled, as if he were trying to keep himself from doing so.
Aalik grew distressed and approached his father with caution, now feeling out of place somewhere he once thought of as familiar. Before he could have gotten any closer, his father's head began to shake uncontrollably along with the rest of his body. Aalik froze and stared, horrified.
Then, suddenly, his father stopped and turned to face him with a cracking neck turn. "…N…no," his father answered with a hoarse, dried-up voice, as he began to shake his head with much difficulty, and making twice as much sickening noise.
Aalik flinched and fell into the boat floor. Not only did the change in his father's voice startle him terribly, but also the sunken look in the man's eyes, as well as the thinner, pale and almost paper-like skin.
After a moment of unease and silence, Aalik's father began to paddle again, but this time he turned the boat around, back towards the open sea. The man's bones and joints cracked and popped as he rowed, prompting Aalik to cover his ears and cry for him to stop. He did not listen.
Aalik looked back and saw the empty village becoming smaller and smaller, as his father pushed them away from it. Then, all went white and the deafening explosion of thunder that followed shook Aalik from the inside. As quickly as it had disappeared, the storm returned.
"DAD, WHAT ARE YOU DOING? TURN BACK!" Aalik screamed, as he tried to hold on to the mast while the waves slammed and tossed the boat around. His father kept on rowing.
A gust of wind struck them, ripping away the boat sail and nearly flipping them over into the savage waters. However, while this plummeted Aalik into an even greater state of fear and dread, his father was undeterred.
"WE HAVE TO TURN AROUND DAD!" Aalik yelled and pleaded, to no avail.
A lightning bolt struck the water mere feet away from them, sending a chilling surge of energy through Aalik's skin.
"PLEASE, WE NEVER MADE IT BACK! PLEASE DAD, LISTEN TO ME!"
"NO!"
Upon hearing his father's scolding, Aalik ceased his cries. The man's voice was still weak and scratchy, but there was a definite sense of authority to it, one that Aalik knew left no room for debate.
"I NEVER MADE IT BACK!" his father shouted, sending Aalik into a catatonic state.
Memories coursed through Aalik's mind, memories of that terrible day, of that fated moment where everything changed. He always dreamt of it being a nightmare; that everything would turn back to normal when he would wake, but it never did.
"BUT YOU DID!" Aalik's father cried out as he pushed against the waves, ignoring the snapping of his arms and the deterioration of his being.
Water and tears mixed in Aalik's face, for he knew this to be just that, a nightmare, a tormenting repetition of that very same day coming back to haunt him, and he could do nothing about it.
"AND YOU WILL AGAIN!" Aalik's father yelled resolutely with a smile and tears of his own.
Aalik pretended not to hear and closed his eyes, keeping the tears at bay. His body went limp on the floor as he waited for the moment to come. He could feel the rising of the water in front of them, and did not need to see the colossal wave to picture it, as it was an image imprinted in his mind ever since that day.
Aalik felt the slow rise of the boat as the wave picked them up like a giant would a rag doll. His stomach tensed in anticipation, and unconsciously braced himself for what would come, despite having experienced the feeling countless times it took was the blink of an eye for the ocean to swallow them whole, and with it, the world turned silent. There was no more.
Aalik screamed, coughed and gasped for breath. He was laying on a cold, dark floor, surrounded by an endless void and could not see farther than the tip of his own nose. After calming down, Aalik tried to piece together his foggy memory right before the nightmare, earning nothing but a splitting headache. He caressed his head and groaned, only to realize just how wet his hair was as was his face, his clothes and satchel.
At first Aalik pushed back the notion, but it slowly became harder and harder to do so. Soon his memory recovered and he could finally remember the moment when he crossed the wall's threshold, beyond his own volition, when the void pulled him from every direction and the sun's warmth, as he woke up to see his father's face.
Aalik stood up, fighting back the pain and fatigue, and heard a familiar sound coming from his satchel, one that he had not heard for a long time. He immediately opened the bag and grabbed the compass inside of it, and though he could not see it amidst the total darkness, he could still feel and hear it perfectly well.
The lack of rust, its fine details no longer marred by the passage of time, and the unmistakable sound of its pointer moving around, all as it had been when he first laid his eyes on it, all those years ago. At that moment Aalik knew, it had been no dream. His eyes began welling up with tears and a quivering smile grew on his face.
His hiccups and sobs filled the pitch-black void, as he tightly held the compass close to his heart, fearing that it would disappear at any given time. His father's voice resonated in his soul along with the movement of the compass pointer. Aalik cherished the memory, knowing it not to be an illusion.
"A-AROUND! ABOVE! EVERYWHERE!"
Aalik heard the map's shrieks and warnings, but he remained calm. He lifted his head and looked around. As he did, a shape from the corner of his eye caught his attention and so he sharply turned his head to face it.
It was humanoid, grey and completely still. It had empty, black holes for eyes and mouths and yet, somehow, it glared directly at him. Aalik felt the map shiver. Without warning, countless more of the shapes began to appear throughout the entirety of the void, some near, others far, but all with their eyeless visages focused on him, a boy lost in the void. The map kept on shrieking.
"EVERYWHERE! EVERYWHERE! EVERYWHER-"
Aalik, unfazed, placed a protective hand over the satchel and ceased the map's incessant worries. He closed his eyes and focused his mind, as he tightly gripped the compass on his chest. He pictured the bright sky and beaming sun, pictured the morning haul beside him and his father, and saw the vivid image of his mother waiting for him to arrive by the edge of the boardwalk.
The path became clear. Aalik moved forward, passing through the shapes without a care in the world, as if they did not even exist. The beings kept on bearing down their ghastly, eyeless stares, but it was for naught. Aalik paid them no mind. He knew his path. He had to move on.
The father gathered his pages and looked at the time. He grimaced. "Wow…I really went overboard this time huh? Let's call it a day," the father said with slight worry as he stood up. "Want me to leave the light on?"
"No thank you, I'm alright," the son responded before letting out a stifled yawn.
The father squinted his eyes with mocking disbelief, before shifting back to a kinder look. "Let me know if you can't go to sleep, I'll vouch for you if your mother gets angry about it," the father chuckled warmly.
The son smiled back as his eyelids began to droop and fall. "Goodnight dad."
"Goodnight son."