A cool wave of air caressed her face.
Unconsciously, she turned the other way to avoid the unpleasantness, a low grumble resounding from her. Were it any different, she would have stood up and closed the window to stop the incoming chilliness of the outside.
On any other day, she would have turned up her heater, or go up to make some warm cocoa, as the sleeplessness was a natural friend to any other student, especially one who had to pull all-nighters as frequently as her to get all the missed out stuff into her head.
Yet, it wasn't any other night, or any different than the night before.
The crash, the storm, the waves, the sun, the shouts, the help, the attack, and more shouts.
The indignation, the frustration, the helplessness, the twisting fear, the numbness, the acting, the embarrassment.
All remained the same.
With another context, a different story, a strange plot, a new goal.
It wasn't the same level of stress like getting over a few exams. It was nowhere near the kind of experience, where one was held at gunpoint, playing with the little light of your life that could be easily extinguished by a shot of the not so proverbial gun.
Everything was new, but for the most, it all shared the same familiarity.
A constant. Something she needed. An anchor to remind herself that there wasn't much change. She wasn't sure whether it would help her keep her sanity at bay. It just had to do.
A constant in form of ever-changing mood swings, and frustration in not being able to do something.
Her eyes wandered around the room, eyeing the redhead lying next to her, then to the bunks with sleeping women, some empty, some occupied.
Another constant added to her list.
Sleeplessness.
Her mind filtered through a bunch of screens of previous actions. Some a few hours old, some a few days old.
Like helping to carry boxes from the deck to the cargo room. Helping with cleaning tables and the floor in the dining area. Sitting huddled in a group half-listening to some advice, half-hearing gunshots, loud yelling and cannonballs. Drifting at the sea. Panicking at dinner for messing up in front of an important guy. Having to eat apples and seeds. Adrenaline rushing through the veins, running away. Smelling the sea and a sense of peace.
Lying here. On a bed made of hardwood. A smell of salt in the air.
Breathing.
An unfamiliar, creepy feeling kept coming to her. It may not have been completely unknown to her, yet if she had experienced it before, it likely left a touch of airheadedness of a daydream.
It was unfeeling. Observant. Adrenaline-pumped. Empty. Leaving her heart racing at times, at another getting a sense of nothing.
A kind of...
Detachment.
A lack of grounding to the reality around her. Her soul having enough and getting the shit out of here.
Her mind outright told her: "No playing shipwreck, just a dream! Look! No feeling, no anything, no more worrying."
It reminded her of a marionette. Happily indulging the masses with a twist or a painted smile. Or an actor in one of these useless advertisements with stark colours and unnaturally happy families. Or the public in a TV show, watching, sometimes laughing or scoffing at proper times. Or a spectator that had to wait out the ads for the movie or show.
One had a role to play, a shitty one or a better one, the other simply was subjected to the role of a spectator, having to nod at the shown reality behind the screen.
At the family, played by some paid actors that also didn't value their role. Because why? It's just a role, an act, nothing else. The actor doesn't have to be happy, like the family. Just smile, wink, laugh, get paid, get out. No need to dwell on something created for pure merchandise.
Then how about another story. Of something more real. Of blood, shouts, accusations at a politician, who may or may not have done the deed. Or accidents, natural disasters, some declaration of sanctions or wars on the other side of the world, in another country, in another place, somewhere far, far away. Such a thing begs to fall on deaf ears.
Some may be concerned, some not much, some cry, some ignore, yet after a bit of time all go back to the normalcy of their life, having to take their eyes off the screen, that mostly shows parts of reality not touching upon their own lives.
None of them possesses a true understanding of the reality of the situation. No real attachment to the situation. Only a fleeting feeling filling them up to satisfy for a single moment.
Because how was a spectator to understand these feelings without being there, sensing the flowing emotions.
It was like a blind man seeing colours. A sense of it remained, yet not a true grasp of the concept.
A stray thought led her wandering eyes to the window above the sleeping women in front of her. A small one, hinged to the old wood, with some thin bars attached to it on the outside. However, something piqued her tired, and rampant mind.
Rays of the moonlight shining upon the flooring panels. It gave off a vibe of etherealness and illusory.
Whatever it evoked or however it may have seemed...
It didn't really matter.
"Rise and shine, ladies! Time for work!"
The loud voice boomed and echoed in the room. At least it seemed like that and a beginning of a rather nasty headache for Ann. Begrudgingly, she got up from her bed. And promptly crashed onto the floor.
"Well, well. Ain't you a ray of sunshine today?" The large grin on the heavily tanned woman with curly black hair didn't help to ease the growing stiffness in her body, much less the dull, yet growing headache. A deep frown settled on her face, which was warning enough to back off. Of course, it elicited a round of chuckles than serving as an intimidation tactic.
She would have growled and thrashed, only the remainder of courtesy and proper manners keeping her in check. As well as a pair of small, sweaty palms, touching her forehead.
Scratch that.
Rubbing, twisting and kneading into her face. It felt like...
"A massage?" she blurted out.
A bit of red crossed her vision, and the culprit showed herself.
"It helps. Stress, I mean," she said, her voice as quiet as always.
"Ah," she muttered. She felt too out of sorts to even comprehend what was going on.
The people moved in front of her, getting clothes, brushing their hair. Everything was slowed down to a painful degree. The clammy hands still dancing on her temples.
Somehow, the weighing feeling eased a bit.
"If you finished with whatever you've been doing, then I suggest getting yourself dressed. Breakfast won't wait for ya."
Automatically, both of them looked owlishly at her, which made the other sigh, the rest filing out to get some food.
"No, really, you two, no one will wait for you." They slowly nodded to her, which the woman took as a sign that she could leave.
Anna took the hands of Erika and turned around.
"Thanks, I think I needed that." It didn't take away the pain, but it added a sense of belonging. Thanks to small, trembling hands, in which blood pumped through the veins and flesh clung to her bones.
Anna gulped. And how strange was it that a simple existence in form of a redhead could ground her to the earth.
At some hour she would be solid like a rock, not pulled down by her thoughts, and the other she wanted to push the nearest person away and jump into the water. Unfortunately, the sole victim of those moods was Erika, who seemed not to mention or outright ignored any sudden outburst of Ann's.
Yet above all the issues bestowed upon her, the small girl's presence kept her from completely lashing out.
It was some kind of play. Like hitting a punching sack, although she hoped not to end up like a bully to the kid.
Having been together for only a few days, two absolute strangers, Anna and Erika wouldn't be able to indulge themselves and have a mental breakdown.
It was a delicate issue which was danced around. For the sake of survival and keeping a kind of dignity, Anna decided that she had to keep it together, for their developing relationship not to shatter.
Having been brought together by necessity, not by a friendly chat and years of further friendship.
It was a dire situation where they needed an alliance, a second soul, to escape the madness of loneliness and make it alive on the dangerous seas as honestly, two young girls, without any other support, travelling on the seas simply screamed: 'Kidnap us, rape us, kill us, loot us' Because they were the weaker ones, the smaller ones and less experienced.
It brought a bit of reality, even for a moment, to her.
"Really, thank you," she croaked out, her voice dry.
It earned her a blush and a shy smile.
True to her nature and grumbling stomach, the two, after rushing for breakfast, sat down at some table, happy to savour the taste of eggs and mashed potatoes. Anna's spinning ceased the moment she got something to eat.
"Who knew that food was the problem solver," she thought, her feelings slowly getting in control. Or at least what she knew of was control. With these, she called, mood swings, she decided to plan for a routine for the sake of her sanity and the sanity of Erika, because despite the disposition of an angel, the kid had enough worries of her own. The evidence being purple bags, hard grips of her shirt at night, the strained smiles at times and unnatural, for her, Anna deduced, stillness. Lifelessness of some kind. As much as she would have liked to help out, she herself had to do some solving to her mind, which brought her to the conclusion, that a psychologist would be damn useful right now.
As of now, Anna's main goal for today, next day, and the day after was a simple routine consisting of: 'Do this, take that, help with that, eat, shower, go to sleep.'
Like during a rough week at school or a bad day at work when whatever you did, it failed and you wished nothing more than to end the miserable day or week and simply start another one. Like a restart.
At this point, Anna was praying to end up on Busket island a bit faster even if she didn't come up with a solid plan on what she would do once arriving there.
Luckily she learnt a very valuable lesson after these days spent on the ship. It was whilst gulping down water to appease her stomach, that she came to another life-changing conclusion.
"Physics don't work, biology is absolutely different, chemistry- let's not go into that. Maths-who knows. But Murphy' law. Murphy, he is my new god for the world."
The thought of Murphy was not of unknown origin as she and Erika were cornered by 5 people of the ship in the mess hall at the table.
Maybe cornered was a bit of an exaggeration, yet undoubtedly it was far from comfortable being surrounded by people who had a too keen interest in what had previously transpired. It might have also be related to the fact that after so much time spent with strangers her mind wanted to kill of any kind of factor that could worsen her dull headache.
Conversations weren't that bad, though. At some point during dinner last night she and Erika gathered from a bunch of too merry shipmen that they would arrive at Busket island in 2 or 3 days. Ann was proud to say she got ahold of how long she had been in this world. Roughly 12 days, 8 spent in the loneliness of the wild, then 1 or 2 days with Erika, and lastly, they were rescued by the merchant's on the 9th day or something, meaning that the morning marked their 4th day of stay here on the ship. A bit chaotic regarding the days, but that was the closest to a time schedule she could organize. She was very proud to sum up the days.
Getting back to the situation at hand, the 'inseparable duo' was being surrounded at the table by a mix of happy, snickering guys, and a handful of passive ones who weren't much touched by the choice of table or companion.
The quiet munching and unwillingness of them to join any conversation seemed not to bother some exuberant member who launched into a chaotic bubble about some tale or something which didn't nurture her knowledge-wise.
She simply continued on nibbling at her mashed potatoes or looking at the portion of scrambled eggs.
Such simplicity yet what a delight.
She opted for strained optimism.
She might even throw in some too wide smiles for cordialities sake. All in all a good strategy if not for the very off-throwing question.
"Did you know that your little ship was thrashed?"
Her brooding problems left aside Ann, coupled with a very much startled Erika, turned her head to the towering muscled guy to her right.
"What do you mean by 'thrashed'?" Though at this point Erika's face revealed that the answer wouldn't be a good one.
"Well, smashed, destroyed, blasted to the sea. Pick your choice. There was some stray cannonball that actually nicked the side that had your little boat hooked on. And yea, the results are pretty obvious." He shrugged it off and dug into his own eggs.
And their hope sunk onto the bottom of the sea.
Anna's already shaky plan to continue the journey heavily relied on the stolen boat to get to another island.
Now that set them back at square 0 or even minus 1. She doubted they could afford to steal another boat without any repercussions. Their destination, Busket island, from what she knew was a thriving point for merchants and tourists, and with the additional proclamation of the Whitebeard fellow, stealing could be pretty difficult.
Looking on the bright side, they got help in form of the current vessel to actually get to Busket Island.
"By the way, did you hear how someone on the pirate's side got chewed out. Not a beautiful sight either," the guy in front of her had a twisted expression.
"Ah, yes, the blue one, saw him cursing out to heavens while scrubbing the WB's deck." It was the lady who didn't seem to be that surprised.
"Wasn't he the one who had a black eye?"
"Two, actually. Plus some bruises. Man, pirates seriously have bodies made of metal or something."
"Though that's not all. I heard he had a run-in with the commander." The young cabin-boy shuddered at the implications.
"And the reason?" it was the big bulky guy who decided to eat some more eggs but definitely sprouted a too interested expression.
"No clue," came from the cabin-boy. "But it must have been some nasty biz to get that roughed up."
Ann's face paled at that. Her meeting with the creature-like man wasn't anything of importance. Heck, even the commander made fun of her, right? No need to worry.
"Or some lost bet. Honestly, guys, you know how unpredictable pirates can be. And WB pirates? Nothing would surprise me with them," said the woman that stood up, an indication that she had enough of partaking in the rumour mill.
As she turned away, she quickly added: "Oh, and guys. I would be careful with the captain today. Heard she was in a pissed off mood."
After that, she walked off. Surprisingly the cabin boy let off a rather irritated sigh.
"And she tells me off for being a drama queen while she can just drop off whatever bomb she wants."
After having managed to survive the shaky in her mind breakfast, the two, nicknamed as the inseparable duo of bad luck, Ann being the main source of it, got down the deck to the what would be called 'laundry room'.
Back at home, she would call her house chores skills a relatively average grade with specks of ingenious destruction in the territory of the kitchen. Luckily the department of laundry wasn't much in danger. That is till she walked into the room and her life changed forever.
Till the day of her death, she would remember the awful smell and lingering goosebumps on her skin from the sight of endless piles of clothing. After overcoming the initial shock the two got a quick explanation that the untamed chaos had to be sorted by them.
Like women and men. Pants, shirts and underwear.
"Believe me, no one would want to have their stinking socks put together with the underwear. Especially mixing the male and female's clothes is a bad idea," told them a middle-aged man, his wavey hair sticking to his freckled-ridden face. He left them to their own devices with a few cabin boys who got roped into sorting.
In all her life, she never wished so badly for a nose-transplantation because of that awful smell.
Her displeasure magnified by her facial expressions managed to get the attention of a lean guy in his late teens.
"At least you're lucky to only sort that stuff. Better than washing it."
Her ears perked up at that. On her first day, in a show of utmost embarrassment, when she and Erika got their clothes washed, she realized that she didn't see any kind of washing-machines. It could be said that she was busy trying to keep calm after the roughish nurse violently chewed them out about proper health care. She shuddered at that particular thought, albeit it would prove to be useful whilst at sea.
She shook off another wave of getting lost in her own mind to take a better look at her surroundings.
A rectangular room with boxes of thrown-in clothing, which were to be given into other boxes with actual labels. It was only split into men, women, underwear and the rest. Above the piles of clothes were the few people and a diligent Erika, who, with a scrunched up nose and pinched expression, heroically worked through the various shirts and put them into the proper boxes. Anna wasn't much better, having to employ the same tactic as the redhead.
That experience would be marked down as the worst of all she had acquired in this world.
O Inspiration, thee with thy most wondrous baseball bat, where art thou? Lovest thou me? Or thou misprise me? Has thou abandoned me? Wherefore? Has your wrath been incurred by this humble advocate of thine? How shall I gain thy sweet mercy upon my mind?
I beg thy pardon, I plead thy forgiveness?
How shall I fall back into grace?
The answer to it remains silent.
To the readers' questions as well.
(Actual information:
If anyone was wondering when I can make another update:
My plan is to create a better action plot so it will take some to come up with a good idea. The time for my updates is listed in my profile. Fun fact: exams are hard. Don't recommend it to anyone. And for anyone who actually waited for this update of this fanfic.
I congratulate you the patience of a saint.)