Faking one's own death was easy.
Enduring the sea's wrath was not.
Red was the sky the night I relinquished my title as Captain to my first mate. With the clouds high over the horizon and the stars so plentiful one could reach out and drink them, the future promised to be ripe for opportunity.
Then the thunderstorm appeared. All the knowledge accumulated throughout the centuries shattered by the unpredictability of nature. It goes to show how us humans have a long road ahead to mastering our environment.
Regardless, I survived.
Some part of me wondered if my life was attributed to luck. Luck, in the barest essence, is every poor man's chance to be emperor. And chance, in its rawest form, is a roll of a fixed dice behind closed doors. A lucky chance will not clothe you or feed you, nor keep you from dying.
Therefore, it was not luck that kept me alive, but my own burning will to live.
As I lay here in the coarse, dry sand, however, I feel as though I am floating in a state of half-death. Teetering precariously on a plank separating ship from sea.
Spending countless days rotting in the open waters is not healthy of the human psyche. It takes time to relearn how to coordinate hip and knee joints, even longer to balance movements, but I ultimately get back on my own two feet.
First things first. If I don't find food, and promptly, this starving belly will consume its own flesh. Only then will I be no more.
Its scent reaches my nostrils first: a sweetness wrapped in loamy vegetation. Followed by the faint murmur of grass…
The rabbit hears nothing but the sound of its neck being snapped in half. My blades make quick work of it still-twitching body: snipping off parasites, peeling off fur from skin, precisely puncturing its bladder and emptying it.
Once the rabbit turns golden over a fire, I devour it wholeheartedly. Utterly concentrated on eating that, as I am sucking the glistening fat off my fingers, I sink my teeth into them by mistake. The sharp sting of blood makes the meat taste heavier.
Halfway into my first meal in days, I am approached by a large cat. Ears pricked forward, it keeps an arm's length distance apart but sniffs me cautiously. Only when it pulls in its chin is it clear that my scent has been recognized. We are not friends, but we are not enemies.
Our gazes meet briefly, and with it passes a silent understanding. Once I toss my cooked rabbit to the feral cat, it leads me to a stream hidden behind dense foliage.
After being baked and battered by seawater, the sight of sparkling, drinkable water almost brings tears to my eyes. Almost. I dip my head into the stream and drink until I feel my stomach distending.
Nourished and content, I sprawl over the grass, stretching my limbs as far as they can go while I soak up the warm sunlight.
Suddenly, I realize what I had just done. Eating prey with my bare hands and lapping water from the ground, in addition to rolling about in the dirt! I had behaved no better than a beast!
When I took up the captain's mantle, I swore to myself I would never go back to those wretched days. I am a human. I will carry myself like one.
I peer into the stream—and wince. What a sight for sore eyes. The next few minutes I dedicate to correcting my appearance: from patting down my hair so it gently hugs my face to raising my collar so it covers my neck, I ensure that I will come across as harmless. Vulnerable, even.
Lastly, I adjust my eyeglasses. Small cracks have begun creeping into the lenses like foxing on an old mirror. And cracks will only get bigger.
"You have the eyes of an animal."
Whenever I glimpse my reflection, I hear those words. Approximately two and a half decades have passed since she finally turned her back on me, but the lucidity of her voice makes it seem like the past I had left behind occurred only yesterday.
Nonetheless, I must proceed with the next step of my plan. There should be a town nearby. I will figure something out there.