Road To The Moon [one-minute stories]

Losing Sight of Shore

A really looong note...sorry guys have a lot to explain.😇

This is going to be a lot longer than my usual Micro Fiction stories, due to the rules surrounding the Historical Fiction SmackDown competition, where I participate in.

Rules, some say they are there to be broken. I think you can better find a way around it in a much more 'creative' way. I mean this story starts in the point in time when land is first sighted (which was a rule )..but it isn't their destination ;)
See what I mean, you can follow the rules AND be a little rebellious at the same time.

And you know who else was a master when it came to bending the rules a little; Christopher Columbus.
He is one of the most controversial and interesting people when it comes to explorers of the 15th century. The guy wasn't stupid, nor was his discovery of America dumb luck, BUT he also wasn't the visionary people make him out to be. I mean, most people back then KNEW THE EARTH WASN'T FLAT. They found it out centuries earlier.

And although he is the one who gets all the credit, it's not like he was the only man on this voyage. But history makes it feel like he was. For instance, on 21 October about 2:00 in the morning, a lookout on the Pinta, Rodrigo de Triana, spotted land. But Columbus later maintained that he himself had already seen a light on the land a few hours earlier.....sure you did.

Point being, Christopher Columbus was a man, history has painted in many lights, hero, colonist, enslaver but he's a man never the less, who has brought forth many terrible and good things and he was never the only man on this journey. So, in the alternate journey I'll focus on the other men who really accompanied this famous explorer.

And now onto the story, because it really matters who lives, who dies and who tells your story.

"Land Ho!"

The two words any sailor craves more than anything in this world. A sound sweeter than any wine, more desirable than any woman.
My hands clamp around the wheel until my knuckles turn white when the shape of a large rock cuts through the rolling fog.
The sun wouldn't rise for at least an hour according to our calculations but the dim light of dawn already revealed a steep coastline straight ahead. Rocks standing like walls in the ocean, taller than any building.