Lost
The years have passed and with them what I was. I'm a watcher now imprisoned in flesh, sinew, wood and sea. Every day what's left of me is stretched, pulled, further into the livin' vessel of condemned souls. Every tug is renewed agony, every movement I am less, I am dying without end.
I am locked away like his heart was in the very depths of me. I see, but rarely am I seen. Nor can I reach out. More and more I can say nothing even when I wish to. The last time- the last it happened seems so long ago…I've lost time. It might've been today and I would not know.
Bootstrap and a new one. How I loathe seeing a new one. This one was young-too young to be another soul, another to share my fate, another to mourn for.
"So I'm to understand what you did was an act of compassion." said the young one angrily."
"Yes." the young one softened. "One hundred years before the mast. Loosing who you are, bit by bit. 'Till you end up, end up like poor, Wyvern, here." I inwardly hung my head and closed my eyes after seeing the boy's expression. " Once you've sworn an oath to the Dutchman, there's no leaving it. Not until your debt is paid."
It rang bitter and true. "I've sworn no oath."
"Then you must get away." Bootstrap said echoing my hope for him. The boy unfolded a ragged cloth,"Not until I find this. The key."
The key! "The Dead Man's Chest," I moaned summoning energy I thought I had lost to wrench forward severing some of me that had fused. Bootstrap watched in amazement-so rare was the occasion.
"What do you know of it?"
"Open the chest with the key and stab the heart." I urged, and then another voice reasoned with me. I would only cause the boy more hurt. "No, don't stab the heart. The Dutchman needs a living heart or there'll be no captain. If there's no captain, there's no one to have the key."
"So the Captain has the key." I had said too much. What had possessed me to even try! "Where is the key?"
It was too late, but I would not-could not have him share my fate. It was the fate of one who had tried, "Hidden."
"Where is the chest?"
"Hidden." I had ruined him. Foolish, curse-ed old man you've done it! You've killed him…No, no. I shouldn't have. I withdrew. This time willingly and it was only too happy to receive me. It is something that now I regret. I know not what became of him. I didn't see him after that. I can only think he is lost. Hopefully not as I am.
My birth name if I ever possessed one is lost. There is but one name I am still called. It is name that has never left this drifting craft to my knowledge. A name they speak of when they contemplate their own fate on this Flying Dutchman. A name they hope never to be with what hope they have left. I am Wyvern.