What Comes Ashore (Completed)

Four

The sun hung low, bleeding into the horizon, and the air on the ship was thick with sickness and fear. We stood huddled close together, but not from camaraderie—this time because none of us dared get too close to the others. The coughs from the sick were louder now, more frequent. People we had known all our lives, people we had trusted, were becoming something else. Not yet like Bjorn, not fully, but more like him than us.

Gunnar glanced toward them—three of our crew who sat slumped against the railing, shivering despite the heat still in the air. Their skin had turned pale, their breaths shallow. They muttered under their breath, their words drifting into the rising mist.

"We have to do something," Ingrid muttered, her eyes flicking between the sick and the rest of us. "We can't just wait for them to... for them to become like Bjorn."

"They're not dead yet," Gunnar snapped, though his voice cracked with the strain of it. "They're still our brothers and sisters. We don't kill those who still draw breath."

"Then what?" Ingrid's voice rose, a tremor running through it. "What do we do when they turn? When they come at us like Bjorn did? Do we wait until they're clawing at our throats?" We had all seen what happened to Bjorn, but none of us could speak it aloud. The memory of his wild, empty eyes still haunted me. The people lying there now—I couldn't look at them without thinking of the times we had fought together, laughed together. They were still here. But for how long?

I stared at them—at Kjartan, whose breath rattled in his chest; at Vigdis, who had once been the loudest among us, now a quiet, shivering heap against the mast. They were dying, that much was clear. The sickness had them in its grip. But to end it now, while they still breathed?

"They're not lost yet," Gunnar said, softer this time, as if saying it loud would make it real. "They could fight it off. We've seen people recover from worse."

"You didn't see Bjorn," I muttered, the words spilling out before I could stop them. "None of us can fight it." The silence was heavy, and the only sounds were the labored breathing of the sick and the scrape of their boots against the wood as they shifted, their bodies slowly betraying them.

"We can't let it get to that point again," Ingrid said, her voice steadier now, though her eyes were wide with fear. "We can't wait until it's too late. If they turn like Bjorn, we'll have no choice."

Gunnar's hand tightened on his axe, his knuckles white. "I won't kill my own."

I said nothing. I didn't have the words. All I knew was that the sickness wasn't stopping. It was creeping through the ship, claiming more of us each day. And we stood there, paralyzed by fear and loyalty, too slow to act, too afraid to admit that those we had sailed with were already lost.

"Then what do we do?" Ingrid pressed, her voice tight, desperate. "What's the plan, Gunnar? Do we wait until it's too late? Until they're tearing us apart?"

Gunnar's face hardened, but his eyes were dark, unsure. "We'll wait. We'll wait until they stop breathing." It wasn't enough, and we all knew it. But we didn't have the strength to say otherwise. We didn't have the strength to do what needed to be done.

Night fell like a heavy blanket over the ship, dragging the air into a thick, uneasy quiet. The sick huddled where they lay, their breaths shallow, interrupted only by the coughs that echoed in the silence. They hadn't gotten any better, but they hadn't turned either—not yet. That was the cruel part. The waiting.

We couldn't let them roam free. Not after what happened with Bjorn. But we couldn't harm them either. Gunnar had made sure of that.

"We tie them," Gunnar said, though his voice was low, like he didn't quite believe in the decision himself. He stood over them, axe in hand, but there was no strength left in his grip. His eyes darted from one sick person to the next, never resting too long on any one of them. "We'll restrain them. They won't hurt anyone if they can't move."