The Second Stage

The Drift 14

Today, you find the rancid core.

It is a clear morning. You pace the black shores—the ones you first made landfall on—and sigh at the horizon. The floating shipyard bobs there, as far out of reach as out of mind. Weeks or months ago, it became nothing more than a skeletal silhouette in the mist. It holds no meaning now.

As you've come to enjoy, you dig your feet into the sand and wiggle your ankles. You burrow deeper and deeper until the dark grains of the beach cover your calves. Then, you lift them and they crack through the smooth surface. But when you lean onto your back and raise your toes skyward you notice something surfaced with them. Wrapped around your ankle is a strand of twine. An object dangles toward you.

You rip the necklace from between your toes; you cleanse it in the incoming waves, and as the surf blasts the sand from its face, you remember.

Long ago, when the tides swept you from your home, you wore such a pendant: one with the same carved driftwood anchor. Someone gave it to you. Who?

You turn the question to the clouds and an answer returns. Washed away on another raft, you once hoped to find them. You hoped to find them here. How could you have wished such a thing?

Your wide eyes return to the island as they cast a new light upon it. The red and orange leaves wave like flames from the treetops. The black grass on the hilltop thrashes as if enraged, every blade reaching for you, furious at their own roots. Your hand throbs as if something hides within it, and as you sift through the sand, it feels quite unlike sand. Fragments, you whisper to yourself. Fragments of what? As you claw through the strange porous gravel, your fingers trace the hard edge of something solid. You pull upward, and from the dark sifting substance, you drag a charred stick—a charred human femur.

When you first arrived, panic would have taken hold. But that is not you today. You stand and let the bone fall from your hand.

You don the anchor pendant and it falls over your chest—your center—it grounds your soul to purpose. Your gaze whirls back to the floating shipyard with eyes not of a trapped animal, not of terrified prey: you glare with the eyes of a predator. When you first arrived, you had not even the semblance of a plan. But that is not you today.

Now your goal is clear, your end is in sight. This day does not belong to some impossible force, some nebulous being you cannot comprehend. This day belongs to you. For when you first arrived, you deemed the floating shipyard a salvation lost, too far for reason. But that is not you today.

So you dive in.

Your toes leave the comfort of the sandy bottom.

So you swim.

Fierce is the ocean of an abandoned god. Gnashing teeth of water batter the air from your lungs. Try and try, they drag you under. But your legs and forearms float as wood and work as iron. You are reborn in the image of that island.

You claw at the water and the water gives, over and over, until your wounded hand strikes that which does not relent. Your weary eyes float upward, and lo, you have arrived.