A Pirate's Life for Mei

Caribs

On the bright side, Mei had found a boat and a way off the island. She hadn't escaped the island on her own, but at least she'd tried. She'd fought back against the system that had unfairly trapped her here and that, at least, she could be proud of.

On the other hand, she had just been captured by indigenous Caribbean folk who had poisoned her with curare and kidnapped her. Her breath came in very short jerks as the giant wooden canoe she was in slowly moved up and down large ocean rollers. And there was nothing she could do about it.

She lay there, utterly helpless as the time between rapid breaths grew shorter and the breathes grew shallower. Her eyes, stuck open, painfully teared up constantly in an effort to keep the sore orbs hydrated. At some point, someone closed them for her, leaving her in darkness. Her only sensation was a faint notion of the canoe's rocking movement. It was scary.

And then her breathing stopped altogether. Her chest tightened and a stab of pain grew within. And her fear magnified many times over.

She felt herself dying. She wanted to scream. She wanted to cry. But she could do nothing but stare at the darkness, scared out of her mind.

Then someone said something from the back of the canoe. Someone else shoved something into her mouth and pumped. Air forcefully pushed into her lungs. A rush of bliss! Then another. She was breathing! The movement jostled her eyes open again.

The device came into view. It was probably an animal bladder of some kind. Pieces of wood had been tied to either side of it and brown hands pumped the bladder open and closed. It was a bellows, like the kind you use with a fireplace. The Caribs were trying to keep her alive by forcing her lungs to work after the curare had shut them down. Did that mean she would survive? Maybe, maybe not. This didn't seem like it was the most medically sound procedure.

But it gave her hope and it kept her alive. For a moment. Her entire existence shrank down to that single breath being forced into her body and the glorious oxygen it gave her. She swung back and forth between burning pain and...less pain. Someone closed her eyes again. That was nice of them. She wondered why they'd bothered. Why care?

There was no way to tell how long the journey took, except that at some point, someone else took a turn at keeping her barely alive. She knew that because her eyes opened during the switch, only to be closed shortly after. She thought she fell asleep for a time, though she wasn't certain.

Now and then, her sense of touch would start to return. Then someone would prick her with a wooden needle. It didn't hurt much. But the numbness would rapidly spread again.

Eventually, they stopped giving her more curare. Her body very slowly began to regain function and she even started to breathe on her own again. And that was painful too. She felt the canoe hit land and drag to a halt, which triggered her eyes open once more. It also caused her to roll off the dead man under her and flop against the side of the canoe. The light was blinding, which only made her tear up again, but there was nothing for it but to endure.

The Caribs hauled their other prisoners out first, then Mei and the two corpses. They dragged her up the beach and through a patch of jungle, along a twisting path whose entrance wouldn't have been obvious to anyone walking by, let alone sailing by, even with a telescope. They didn't have to go far, only a dozen meters past a thick wall of trees and vines and leaves. Then they arrived in a small Carib village.

Wood and grass huts formed a circle against the jungle, doors facing the center. They were small buildings, simply made and with dirt floors. A large fire pit sat in the center of the village, unlit, while a couple of smaller ones outside individual huts burned low.

All the warriors that had captured Mei and the others had been male. For the first time, she saw females. They squatted and sat in small groups in front of the huts, working on crafts or cooking, and most were talking. They wore only skirts and feather or bead decorations, their breasts bare.