Eternal

Prologue

David's POV:

I don't know if I can keep my sanity anymore. I've gone through a lot lately and I don't think I can hold on any longer, but I must.

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5 years ago

'Mommy, I'm scared.' I cried. My mother held me close to her as I clung to her trembling legs. Tear stains were covering her beautiful face. I've never seen my mother so distraught before. She always laughed and wiped away my tears during the frightening thunderstorm nights. Now she stroked my head remorsefully as she stood beside me with her eyes hidden behind a cloth.

I looked around me and saw that there were so many people around us reflecting my mother's distraught expression. I couldn't understand what was happening but the scared expression and covered eyes frightened me. I lost my eye cover in the small boat that brought us to this ship. 'He's just a kid. He won't be a problem. If he is then I'll deal with him', the man with the scarred face bellowed to the other mean-faced men when one of them realized that my eyes weren't covered anymore. Everything and everyone scared me.

After sunrise, a man with rough features dressed in a loose, white, long-sleeved shirt and black pants walked out of a big wooden door of a cabin and scrutinized everyone with his harsh gaze. When his irises fell on a girl, about as old as myself, draped in red silk his features suddenly turned to shock but he quickly covered up his shock and returned to analyzing everyone on deck. Finally, he decided to leave but before he did so he removed the cloth covering the eyes of the girl in red revealing her auburn eyes. It resembled the eye colour of this mysterious man. The man grabbed her hand roughly and dragged her to his cabin. The girl did not even flinch at his roughness and followed him like an undead, expressionless. I never saw her again even though this ship never came across land ever since.

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3 years ago

I was 10 when I was brought to this ship. This ship became my home, a home that I loathed. My memories of my time on land were like a fairy tale but I stopped believing in fairy tales after my sister died in the war before my mother and I were held hostage in this new home- this pirate ship.

My mother faced the worst it all. She watched her own precious daughter die helplessly in front of her very eyes. She struggled helplessly as we were thrown to this pirate ship. And now, she faces the worst fate as she undergoes the torment of the filthy scums called pirates. I'm lucky because I came here at a really young age when I didn't actually register much of the things happening around as I never understood them.

I adapted to all the hatred and scourge inflicted by the pirates as a normal everyday occurrence. It was only after my mother told me the stories of our past outside did I realize that what I thought was a fairy tale was, in fact, a reality that I had forgotten I was entitled to. I remembered that outside this ship I had a 'life'. Thinking about it felt like a daydream. A lullaby.

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Present day

'You have to get out of here. See that ship over there. Swim over to that place. Tell them your father's name. They will take you in', my mother stated busily readying everything to send me off.

'But why won't you come mother?', I asked her earnestly for an answer I had been prodding her for, for the past few sunrises. I lost count of how long I had been living in this wretched ship. My mother told me that I was 15 now. Had I been here that long?

As always she acted as if she didn't hear the question. 'Go there. Tell them your story', she paused and then blurted out, 'Your father is there'. Whoa! That's new information, but I've been through so much that it didn't surprise me. I was turning dead on the inside seeing my mother suffer. The dead feeling reminded me of that girl in red.

I observed the ship in the distance for some time. Unlike this ship in which I grew up, there were no sails. No filthy white sails. It looked like an army ship. I remember seeing my father in an army uniform the last time I met him, right after the war broke out.

Time was running out so I hugged my mother and kissed her goodbye with a promise to return for her. She laughed at my promise but stayed quiet. I jumped out into the sea before anyone could notice me. I turned to look at her before swimming towards the army ship which seems so far away. No wonder no one noticed it there. 'Don't come back for me', my mother cried out over the strong wind, 'I'm going to live with Anita!'.

Darn it. I should've known. My mother is going to end her life! She is going to join my sister.

I gasped at this turn of events. I tried to swim back to my mother but the current was too strong. I wouldn't make it. I looked at her one last time as she stood watching me drift away in the sea away from the wretched pirate ship, away from the horrid life scarring my memories. She was wearing a white dress, its colour faded and smeared with dirt, the one she's been wearing since we ended up with this cursed fate. She had a smile on her face, a reminder of the beautiful face she once had now torn with scars of physical and mental torture. I made a mental image of her in my head. The last I will ever see of my mother.

I'm happy that my mother finally finds freedom, but the little life I had in me dies and I'm again reminded of that girl in red.

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A/N: This is the first time I'm writing a novel. I'm usually used to writing short stories. Hope you like it, my fellow readers. Hopefully, the book won't have such a serious tone when the main protagonist steps in.

Adios, my fellow adventurers!

Until chapter 1 ;)