His lips were cracked and swollen. His skin felt rough and raw from the salt water, the cold wind, and the relentless beat of the sun.
Laying in the bottom of the boat, time was irrelevant. The rocking motion could be soothing, and at times, sickening. Had the sun fallen when he last had been awake, or was it the same day?
He had become intimately familiar with almost every inch of the small dinghy; every seperate plank, the slivers of wood that rose from the rough wood, the fraying spots on the hemp ropes. He had learned after the first day of little to no wind that the small piece of planking that covered the stern was just large enough to create a shadow that was a welcome relief from the noon-day sun. Albeit, only his head fit in the shade. During the times of rest when the wind just wouldn't form, he covered his exposed skin with his white robes and listened to the lapping of the waves on the wood.
He floated in and out of reality. At times, on the threshold of sleep, he was walking barefoot in the cool stone hallways that he had grown to know so well, or swimming in the freshwater pool that rose from the rock upon which the school was built.
Other images flashed through his mind in strange sequences; places he'd never been to, places that couldn't exist. Floating stone and blue light in the sky. These, he pushed away when he woke to full conciousness- but as the hours passed, he began to accept the strange visions as a part of his suffering. He no longer had the energy, or the desire, to even try to seperate reality from imagination .
Come what may. He was at the mercy of the wind and the sky. So come what may.
He drifted in and out for hours. The sun fell once more, the stars appeared cold and glistening in the firmament, before being hushed away again by the rising of the sun. All the while, he swam without anchor to reality in his own mind, floating in an ethereal sea of fevered dreams and sluggish visions, mixed with broken memories; and something else. Something not of his own making. But who could tell, out here? Where the sea and sky met without opposition, melding into one another, eternally indifferent to his plight...
He opened his eyes again. The gentle rocking had stopped. How long ago, he was unsure; but it seemed like the world had tilted drastically to one side, as he was rolled onto his shoulder. Had the sea itself abandoned it's traditional planar form?
His limbs were reluctant to obey him, but eventually he mustered the energy to scooch out from beneath the plank of wood situated at the stern. The toga was wrapped about him, stiffened with salt, and he struggled weakly until he was finally unbound. Using the sides of the little dinghy, he pulled himself into a sitting position. Every muscle ached, even into his joints, into his bones. Cracked lips and the driest throat imaginable plagued his fatigued body.
Once sitting up, his head began spinning, everything went black, and he had to fall back into the boat to stop from throwing up, or perhaps fainting. Recuperating briefly, looking up into the unblemished, slate-grey sky, he regathered his senses and as much strength as he could, then with fresh resolve pulled himself back up.
To the left, there was sandy beach. On the right, it was just a mirror image. And in front, landward, there was- nothing. The sand rose to a bank, then met the equally bleak sky. There was some hardy grass eking out life atop the bank.
He stood, knees weak. His toga fell off of him, and he stood bare to the piercing breeze that nipped at his skin. For a time, he didn't stoop to cover himself with his fallen garb; He just looked out, down the beach that stretched off into the distance before transforming into high, stony cliffs.
Then he turned, still standing in the boat, and looked down the other end of the beach. It was nearly identical, but with the cliffs rising much quicker to greet him, being not so afar off. These cliffs were shorter, and the waves whorled and swirled at their base like hungry serpents, or something equally as malevolent which lurk in sailor's darkest dreams.
