A Century Ago

The End Of The Beginning

November 9th, 1855, The Caribbean~~

        "Father! Father! Mother has just finished cooking dinner!" Alastair said, his shouts echoing up and down the staircase, hopefully reaching he room his Father was sitting at, in the top. His hands were trembling furiously , the beat of his heart out of rhythm. The pulsing of the pressure reached his temples.

        "Father! Mother has made, such an extravagant meal tonight! You really should come and sit down with us. Your anvil can wait, now can't it?"

        There was no answer, just silence. Eerie, dead silence. Alastair could barely even here the pots in the kitchen sizzling against the searing stove, and the buttered bread rising in the oven.

        "Father! You're food will get cold! And Mother will surely complain if don't come down to eat quick enough!"

        Footsteps grazed the floorboards only a few meters above Alastair's head. Their house was greatly in need of repair. 

        "Aye, ya shank, I wouldn't miss my wench's cooking for a chest of gold!" Alastair's Father, William said, laughing and wheezing, and surely coughing as he leaned against the railings. "Actually, I'm not quite sure if I'd eat, or have a pile of gold. Chests of gold can buy a meal, can they not?" William looked into Alastair's eyes with intense focus, ensuring that his son would reply with the obvious answer, in which he did. William slapped Alastair's back.

        "Now that's my son. I'll call down some of my mates, and we can feast. But first," He stripped his leather boots off his reeking feet. "Clean these. They have them darn devil barnacles attached to 'em."

        Alastair nodded with startling obedience, and grabbed the boots hurrying away. Missing a meal wasn't what he was afraid of. It was his own death. And what had happened to his eldest sister, was surely one of the most horrific deaths in the history of demonic sins.

*******

 Someone shook my shoulder with intense force. "Alastair...Alastair, it was just a dream! You-you're safe with me, I promise!" It was Shasta. I immediately recognized her startling voice, the tenderness of her beaten and burned hands.

 I rubbed my eyes groggily, and tried to sit up; but the fire in my stomach only burned more, my limbs were aching like swollen bags of acid.

 For some reason she took my hands into hers, like it was supposed to make my life easier. If only.

 "Alastair...we have to get out of here...I heard footsteps...someone trampling through the grass clumsily. We have got to get out of here before it's too late!"

 I rubbed my eyes again, finally prompting myself to let the wretched world seep into my sight.

 "Keep your voice down, Shasta." I said, demanding. "Who knows, they might be listening to us right now, like how Night Owls listen to the very victims they'll eat soon after."

 She nodded her head, her dark brown hair muddled with blood, and dirt caked into her forehead. Her green eye reflected the color of the plentiful plants all around us; they tied her in with the gift of nature and healing. Her blue one was nothing but the color symbolizing wit.

 We both heard just wind. Breezes that just breezed right above our heads. We were lying on our stomachs, and my ribs were starting to ached, the muscles in my arm starting to throb with pain.

 I was starting to think that Shasta hadn't heard anything, but her fear. We had been hunted all the night and day before; I couldn't blame her for the misconception.

 And then we heard whispers. Whispers coming from only what I thought could be two people.

 The rustlings of three.

 The movements of five.

 The sounds of over a thousand.

 I glanced at the map that had been seared into my right palm, the tin compass I held in the other. We were in a territory that Pirates had labeled; "No Mate's Ship. Only Skeletons." I shuddered, making contact with Shasta. She was barely trembling, her eyebrows were knit. She lifted a finger, and touched it to her mouth.

 Silence. Or else we're food for them.

 I nodded slightly, not wanting to trigger the blood fest. I tried my best to respond back with just mouthed words.

 Food for them, yes. The Cannibals of Courescetta.

 Shasta lowered her hand back down, her hand hitting the water canister, hollow and empty. The noise echoed across the canopy.

 And then our chances blew away like the dead leaves in the deceitful season of death.

 Someone called out with a high pitched scream to our left. We all knew it was the call of Shasta and I's burial.

 Then another cannibal screamed, and then hollered, his noises going from high, then to low, like the wave bringing in some, then leaving the rest.