RIBBONS • SIX OF CROWS

4

Dreams were supposed to tale you somewhere nice. Her mother had told her once that when you laid your head down to rest, your mind went to drift amongst the clouds. It had always sounded so whimsical and peaceful.

The girl now longed for the loving caress of her mothers fingers through her hair, the scent of lavender and the feeling of her brothers arms around her.

But Violet felt no such warmth. Only a deep, devastating cold seeping through her clothes, like knives in her skin cutting so deep it crept right into her aching bones.

It stole the air from her already fragile lungs, numbing her fingers.

Her vision was a mess of darkness, her body weighed down by something heavy, water lapping at her jaw, her ears, muffling everything around her. Not that she could make out anything other than her quiet crying or the crashing of the sea.

Her breath clouded in front of her face, rapidly, as she clawed at the heavy objects holding her down in dull panic.

But the weight above her was too heavy, slimy against her skin as she tried to get grip to shift it off.

The water lapping at the side of her face nearly reached her eye as she turned her head, trying to see what was holding her down.

Her eyes fixed on a blue pair, wide open and empty, staring right through her soul.

Her breathing hitched.

The face was youthful, with straight hair plastered across hos forehead, nearly falling in his unblinking eyes. The skin around them was bruised, his cheeks shallow, lips blue and parted slightly.

The water rising over whatever platform they were lying on flooded into his mouth and receeded but the child didn't even flinch.

Whimpers left her throat as she fought against his arm slung over her torso, clawing at his slippery skin until she could shove it off, suddenly filled with adrenaline as the shock began to set in.

In her panic and scrambling, she heard another cry, and convinced herself it was her mind playing tricks on her. Because the boy lying against her side was not alive, nor were any of the others piled ontop of eachother in a careless heap.

They were dead.

The rotting stench rolled her stomach as she coughed into her elbow and attempted to push away from the corpses.

In the echo of the grave night, faint crying from a boy met her ears as she fought to lift her head, her body feeling too numb and terribly weak to even try.

When she tried to reach out through the tangle of bodies for something, she recoiled. Her arm fell through water as she tried to grapple for something to hold onto but there ended up being nothing there.

A scream ripped from her throat as she fell into the depths of the water as she thrashed out to reach up for something to grab to pull her back up.

A murky black clouded her vision. Her lungs burnt as panic overwhelmed her, her legs desperately kicking, arms raking through the unforgiving water to break the surface.

For a brief second she felt the reprieve of air against her skin, the world clearer as she gasped for a quick breath, but the unpenetrable depth of the sea dragged her back down with a vengeance.

She fought for what felt like forever until what little strength in her legs and arms faded, too quickly for her little mind to even catch up, and the water stung her eyes and burned her throat just before something grey and murky burst into her vision.

Something pulled her up, freeing her from the water just enough for her head to break the surface.

The soft skin of her numb fingers dug into someone's back as she suddenly became wracked with choked coughing and spluttering as her forehead slumped against their bony shoulder. Just by the feel of his brown jacket, she knew it was Kaz, and he held her just as tightly as though if he didn't, he might never see her again.

And he had expected to see her body lying next to Jordie's, eyes unseeing and hollow, or felt he'd have to search the entire heap of corpses until he found her little body, a glimpse of that red ribbon, just so that he could know-

Their crying and breaths came out fast as they clung to eachother like a lifeline in a sea of death and misery.

Neither knew how long they remained that way, but at some point they had no choice but to move as her shivering grew concerning. It almost snapped the boy out of it.

Everything onwards came back to Violet in wild flashes of memory that she wished she could have left behind at the bottom of the unforgiving sea, along with the body of her oldest brother, for safe keeping.

She recalled the fact she could not speak, and Kaz had instructed her with a hoarse voice not to look. She knew what at, but it had already been too late by then.

She recalled linking her arms around his neck and burying her face into the back of his shoulder, her eyes scrunched shut as Kaz tried swimming them back to the harbour. She didn't dare look to see how far they had to go, didn't dare look back at the rotting corpses they left behind, didn't dare speak a word - not like she could if she tried - her mind only on the terror clinging to her bones like the water surrounding their bodies.

She recalled the striking pang of fear each time the water crawled higher up her jaw, towards her mouth, threatening to drag her down again, and how she would hold tighter to Kaz with a whimper and pray to the Saints only her grandfather had ever believed in.

The exhaustion and weakness of Kaz's limbs threatened to drag them both down, but he could not let himself falter, could not let his sister drown. All he knew was that he had to get them to shore, he had to, because Jordie was gone now, and that meant the job of protecting what was left of the Reitveld family fell on him.

What a tremendous burden for a child so young.

So he had told Violet not to look, not to open her eyes, and to never let go of him, not even when he knew that he could not swim them back to shore without something to keep them afloat.

Little Violet had never known what it had taken for Kaz to get them back to the harbour that night, and of that he was glad.

Perhaps he feared she would see him differently or never look at him with the same adoration ever again. How could she? It plagued him constantly, so how would it not haunt her? Little Violet, who always felt things too severely. Too sweet, too hopeful for this life.

At one point he knew he had to let go of his brother - but a selfish, childish part of him wanted to never let go even if his mind screamed at him to do so. The feeling of his sunken in skin beneath soaked clothes, slimy, slippery, icy, it would stay with him until the day he stepped foot into his grave.

The only thing that got him through it was the pressure of his sister with her arms around his neck, her face cheek against his shoulder, the sound of her quiet crying that kept his anxieties from wondering if she had gone quietly into the night too, and he would be alone.

He wasn't alone, and he had to let go of one sibling to save the other.

He had dragged them up onto the harsh pebbles of the shore, digging like knives into his fragile shins and palms.

The second he could, he wrapped his arms around her small frame and pulled her away from the water as though it were poison.

She did not raise her head and cemented against his side to cling to him like a lifeline, a trembling wreck just like himself.

And despite the fact he suddenly could not bare the contact of her against him, her cheek against his neck as she tucked her face into his shoulder, her sobs growing quiet now as she became catatonic - all he could focus on to get him through it was the warmth of her rapid breaths on his skin, the trembling, the tightness of her arms around him - all signs that she was alive.

The Reitveld name had died in the harbour that night for Violet and Kaz to live.