Light filtered through the small window. Alice groaned. The warm rays that she once found comforting and pleasant were hurting her eyes, and her entire head seemed to pulsate and throb. She was sitting on the floor, her back against the door, and she honestly had no clue on how she got into this position.
Looking up, a sharp pain radiating from her skull reminded her of the pirates. Like an electric shock, this information made he acutely aware of her surroundings and situation. Had the sailors beaten back the pirates? What was the condition of the ship? What would happen to her? The crisp silence provided no answer.
The ladder came into focus. Although she still could not recall how she got to the floor, the broken rung painted the scenario for her. She combed her fingers through the back of her hair, to crown of her head. They came back wet and sticky, covered in thick conjugated blood. Oh my, she thought, this can’t be good.
She felt around a bit more, wincing from the pain. Much to her relief, most of the blood was already dry, the big scab that formed knotting her hair and giving her an absolutely wild appearance. Supported by the door, Alice slowly stood up to assess the situation. Her dress was a Pollock of red splotches, and the doorknob, now covered in rusty red, needed a good polish more than ever.
Her fingers wrapped around the cold copper and she gave it a good wiggle. It was still locked. She opened her mouth to yell for help, but something in her gut warned her not to. Just like the atmosphere before the storm, the air was thick with something dangerous and sinister.
Studying her dress once again, she began to strip, almost automatically. She needed to clear her head, and to do that she needed clean cloths and maybe a hot bath. The smell of blood was overpowering her senses. Alice itched for clarity.
The men’s pants and blouse fitted her almost perfectly. She concluded that they must have belonged to somebody very young, possibly a cabin boy like the one that had brought her fresh cloths every morning from storage. The fabric was surprisingly comfortable and of good quality, and the pants reminded Alice of those she wore while riding horses back home.
The fog that clouded her brain was slowly lifting, and she was more able to focus on the task at hand: getting the door unlocked. Breaking the doorknob would be next to impossible, and would require a hammer of some sort, which she did not have. In fact, she wasn’t even sure if it was in her best interest to open the door, what could lie ahead did not rest easy in her stomach. What pushed her forward was the restlessness that came with doing absolutely nothing. It gnawed at her. It demanded action.
Her eyes focused on the rotting middle of the door. With a gently push it creaked and groaned, and the fibers easily pealed off. Although she was apt to do this task by hand, she knew she was at risk of hurting herself even more. The broken rung caught her eye. Broken down the middle, it formed a sharp point akin to that of a pickax. Unlike the rotting door, the rung was made from brittle, hard wood.
Alice took a deep breath, feeling the weight of the stick in her hands. With a sharp movement she jabbed the center of the door. Stabbing it again, she split its surface in half, creating a narrow crack. Systematically, and gathering intensity, she widened the gap. She thought about her predicament. Stab. Her loneliness. Stab. Her fear, anger, and uncertainty. Stab. Stab. Stab
By the time she was done, her face was wet and red, her hands shaking. She peered out the child-sized hole. The hallway was dark and uninviting, a draft whistling through the passage. She could only see a few feet down the hallway on either side. Taking another breath, and armed with the wooden stake, she cautiously stepped out of the cabin and into the dark.
The hallway smelled of mildew and salt, the floor damp with puddles formed from condensation. The faint aroma of gunpowder and burnt wood keenly reminded Alice of what had just transpired. Standing in the middle of the corridor, she let her eyes briefly adjust to the new lighting. Her chest rose and fell, the sound of her breathing being the only noise that occupied the space.
Very softly, she started making her way down to the hatch of the ship, one hand outstretched to the wall as a guide. With every step, she came to realize the gravity of her situation. When she was a small child, she had dreamt of adventure, her heroes jumping of the pages in her mind and making their way out of impossible situations. Even before she could read, her grandfather’s telling and retellings of his own stories set her heart aflutter. She wanted to experience what he had, but not like this, stuck in a damaged ship, her fate a dizzy blur just like her head.
Her outstretched arm forcefully hit some railing. Alice had to bite her tongue as to not cry out. Once she regained her composure, she realized she had made it to the stairwell leading up to the hatch. More quietly than before, she shifted the wooden stake to her left hand and began to climb up. Sunshine filtered through the gaps in the planks, and she could make out a bar across the door. It was heavy, and it took all her weight to unlatch the door. She braced herself once again, and with a forceful shove opened the hatch and let the light flood in.
The light blinded her as she stumbled onto the deck. Her headache returned. She stood there for a second, letting the breeze tuck at her cloths, before stepping, very unsteadily, forward. At first she thought she was all-alone, the silence deafening. But as her eyes adjusted once again, she made out the figures of a dozen or so men, their mouths agape and eyes wide. Her eyes searched for a familiar face but there was none. Pirates. The word rang in her head clear as day. Her stomach churned, and bile rose in her throat.
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