The Time of the Titans

Chapter 11: Loneliness

In the nightmare, there were pirates. They looked like naked red devils and their fearsome faces were grinning at me while I was paralyzed. Their captain, however, was not naked but dressed in a dark red gown, and he had a dagger – the only object from the dream that I would remember in great detail later. It was greenish and looked historical, almost theatrical. And the devil struck the dagger to my chest, causing great pain. I screamed but no voice escaped my mouth. Suddenly someone, or something, grabbed me from behind and pulled a bag over my head, and I saw nothing more.

What was it? Not from my earthly memories, for sure. More false memories, implanted? More bugs in the synchronization of memories?

I had been physically exhausted from the previous day's toil at the sea, and I think I had been the first one in the camp to fall asleep. Yet nothing prepared me for what I discovered when I suddenly opened my eyes. My lids were pierced by the rays of sunlight as the shadow of the precipice gave way to my first dawn in a new world.

The light first seemed too bright for me to see anything. I raised my aching head from the pillows. I found no dagger or wound in my chest. The seabirds were crying loudly. They were busy flying out to the sea and back to the island with their prey, to feed their hungry chicks or their partners still laying on eggs. But something was wrong here, something was horribly wrong.

Where was everyone? I rushed up and looked around. How long had I been sleeping? The morning was in full brightness by now. Our campfire was long since extinguished; no smoulder left. Mary Darling, Nurse Ellis and the girls – they were all gone. Where would they go without giving me a notice?

I looked behind and saw that at least Engineer Benson was still with me. I quickly checked his pulse and find out he was awake, trying to say something to me.

"What is it bro?" I asked. "Where have they gone?"

"Mike..." he whispered very weakly, and his eyes were enlarged with fear. "The demons..."

"What demons, Dave?" The quiet horror crept in me like fever.

"The red ones."

He was very weak, that was obvious to me. I had to find Nurse Ellis quickly. Where was Mary? Where were the girls? Where was Mary Darling?

"That was a nightmare, Dave", I said, about the red demons. "I have to find the others."

I also had to stay calm. To stay calm, that was the most important thing now. Calm, and rational.

"Gone", he whispered. "The red demons..."

I noticed something else now, and it overtook me with much agony. The bags that we had filled with food, water, medicine and tools, and which we had carried over here with great trouble – they were gone. Not everything, it seemed. One medical kit had been left, as if someone was thinking of Benson. The knife was still next to me. The crowbar was gone.

"Wait here", I said to Benson – needlessly, as where would he go. "I will check the boat."

It seemed like the rational idea. They had gone to the boat. Maybe we had forgotten something there that Mary or Caroline remembered. They'd taken the girls along because I was still asleep. Calm, Mikael, calm and rational.

I put the knife in my pocket and rushed down to the seaside rocks. But as I had somehow anticipated, the boat was no longer there. Gone, that too.

No, Mikael, no, this didn't make sense. Why would they go with the boat and leave us behind? Why Mary, what was this about? Mary would not do that, not leave without telling me. Why had I not woken up earlier? It was my fault, wasn't it?