Rapture [Ver. II] •SNEAK PEEKS INSIDE•

CAPITULUS II | MARKED for DEATH

He couldn't sleep.

Worse, he couldn't manage to wrestle himself into the stupid hammock he'd fallen out of in the first place.

His restlessness lasted the night. His body ached to hell and back, and stiff with a chill that came from the night. He managed only an in-between state, toeing a line just short of sleep where he still had no reprieve from his many discomforts. Sometimes his thoughts dreamt up some reason for the cold-some moments he could've sworn he lay in ice cold sand, under a full night sky, with the shore at his feet.

But it wasn't real-and every time he tried to steer his thoughts onto a path that might give him a clue, it always veered into a sort of semi-dream.

He wondered if, maybe, his wounds were infected. The pain teetered between numbing and agonizing from one moment to the next. It could explain what he kept seeing-the things he knew weren't real despite how they seemed.

Light eventually bled out into the room, and with it, gold.

It was all gold-seeping from every corner, every split in the wood. It was so clear now that he was kept by pirates-he was sure that not even a privateers vessel could carry such an exorbitant amount of treasure. Magnificent pieces of sculpture and armor stood blanketed by strung jewels that resembled dew along the tendrils of a spider's web. He'd never seen anything quite like it-at least, he thought as much.

Trunks lay open and overflowing with jewels, coin, and valuables-something he'd surely assumed at some point to be more myth than truth. It didn't seem feasible for a ship to carry so much weight in just the treasury. Yet, there it all was, a myth come true. He wondered where it all came from-how much blood it had cost, or if the pieces were simply smuggled.

The ship rocked heavily, and a loose mountain of coin shifted like sand, sounding of rain. It seemed quite warm in the sun, the golden glow radiating from the coins and trinkets. It was all too inviting-and he couldn't quite resist.

He'd spent the night chilled down to every aching bone, skin tight with goose flesh and bruises, sun burn and new scars. Now, in the day, he inched toward the warmth.

Coin was metal, and metal was hot-just being in the sun was both ecstatic and not enough, so he joined the pile of gold, where it sifted around his wrists and knees.

So warm.

It burned, almost. He remembered a sun that scorched his skin, but the night he'd just survived was full of miserable cold and damp-to sit in the light even pained as he was, felt worthwhile. It melted every tense muscle, dulled every sharp pain.

With every shift of the tide, he sunk further into the gold.

...

He woke with such a heavy fever that the air around him seemed to distort with heat.

"Move him over here..."

The coins disappeared from under him. He was in someone's arms-they jostled him enough to stir nausea within him.

Everything was cooler now-at first, a painful shock, but quickly melting into relief. His body shook in reaction to the change.

"He was already sun sick before, but after laying under the port glass like that..."

His eyes opened only slightly, where he saw pieces at a time-red hair, beside him. A taller, broader figure, lowering him into the hammock.

It was uncomfortable, and so he shifted, groaning with dizziness, nausea-why did he feel like this?

"We're lucky we had any-though Viperess damn near flayed me when I tried to take it, said she was savin' some for-"

"Focus, turn him over."