The Ballads of The Skeleton Crew

The Ballad of The Gone Girl (3|4)

(№3.4)

But what the girl definitely sensed the next time, after the scraps of hard, enduring winter had passed and the light seemed warmer, brighter, upon the return of the most famed Crew at that times, was that at least one of them was evidently serendipitous to see her again, curiosity mixing up in the pieces, perhaps the only confusion and curiosity they admitted a glimpse of, wondering how she could still worship them like gods, further entangled and skidding only nearer to darkness.

She sat on the edge of the rocky cliff with pointy rocks eddied like a lion proudly baring its teeth, hoping for her to jump just like many had before and would do again, engulfed by the stream and mangled remains washed by the constant sea. She'd applaud after each song, then at the end of their stay, the girl had the opportunity to draw out paper and ink pen, arrow and bow to leave a message, getting only better and finer at aiming.

She always met the deck, one time accidentally would have almost pierced that infamous blue lantern and shatter it in result – she was quite acquainted and friendly, if one could ever call it that, with whatever creatures residing on the boat, but amity and enmity both knew limits and the transition points when to turn from one to the other – but thankfully missed by a few inches.

It was almost a habit, to wake the next morning, after not realising when or how she fell asleep, blades of grass nicking her nose and rock boring into her back until she could not tolerate it anymore, unto waking fully, always spotting her arrow returned to her feet, always a letter written in blood waiting for her there in trusting fidelity.

She smiled, blushed and hid for the rest of the day in the forest, to not cross over the planted plague, misfortune, misery for the villagers and as long as avoided would leave her be unscathed, one time being a gigantic wave destroying the entire village, not beyond repairing some houses but not fully, so to not have them flee altogether, as they weren't done with them, oh no. One year, a few fishermen went missing, until their corpses had been found in the main water supply with dead fishes forced down their throats, looks plastered on their rotting faces matching those in bewilderment who found them – the fountain at the market – for the villagers to stomach the horrifying concept of drinking scraps and pieces of their bestest of friends for weeks without any clue whatsoever.

The girl stayed completely to herself now, isolated almost precisely from her people with a mind in goal, only making sure the second day after her 'friends' arrived her father was still alive, which he always was. She didn't know if she could forgive them if they murdered him next, succumbing to just another plague, her father abandoning her after a decade of trying and forcing and fake playing, but her father, forbearer nonetheless he was.

Sometimes, she'd talk to him, but eventually stopped, as their little talks almost every single time resulted in him throwing a very heavy object after her and his daughter to destroy his furniture in an anger attack, shouting the malicious truth of what a hopeless loser he made himself to be.

Their relationship was complicated, you could say. The easy answer above would be she'd absolutely forgive and forget, should the Skeleton Crew decide to finish him off. She'd pardoned them gladly for any plaque, any death they brought or hungrily inflicted themselves. She might be protected, saved and curated by the nasty nuisance only steps away, but just as anyone entrapped into the maddening, sickening schemes of the Skeleton Crew to receive her respectful punishment in far more cruel fashion, captured into gruesome nightmares she could do absolutely nothing to flee, wishing she'd be dead and rotten just soon. The Crew wasn't human after all, and any flicker of faintest emotion was a twisted role, a ploy, a facade to get what they wanted. The girl wasn't important at all, marginally an obstacle to be bent, a cause to be atrociously corrupted. The means to an end greater still to understand not yet.