Chapter 4 - A Cold Awakening
***
It was hard to describe the feeling Vlad was suffering in those moments, but since he lost his vision and believed he was done for, moving straight to the Abyss for all the inhumane and sadistic crimes he committed,
Something he was aware of himself, going through a headache that he couldn't explain by origin.
'Is this how it feels to wake yourself in Hell? Argh, it feels as if my whole body has been plunged into the sea, unable to move.'
'What? Move? Wait, I can't feel my body. Something is up here, wasn't I killed in battle?'
The ringing of his ears, as if he was once again staring at the blinding sun that took his senses away, right in those moments slowly his ears could start picking up the voices of people that were ruthless and cold in tonality.
"Abandon the ones who can't make it, and the ones who thought are of importance. Especially the one whose body I broke into pieces. Feed him to the sea monsters for all I care."
'Feed me to the Sea Monsters? I've plunged into the River of Hell making my way to the last layers of Hell, standing side by side with Juda and Nero?' asked Vlad rhetorically in his mind, still finding it hard to open his eyes, as if there was a blockage inside his brain that didn't allow him this action.
Usually, such cases were triggered by head trauma, which was caused by the man in question who boasted about breaking the bones of someone.
Vlad then felt a vague sensation that he translated in his inner self with someone touching him, and before not long, the sound of water splashing could be heard repeatedly, with clearly having people heeding the orders of the one sounding "domineering".
*Splash*
*Splash*
.
.
*Splash*
"With that piece of shit, we'll be cleaned off the heavy bags, captain. Our journey supplies are also shrinking, so it is a good decision of yours to take off dejected goods until reaching Valent."
"Obviously, I only care about my profits since no one would buy a disabled boy. Throw that trash before I kill him myself."
"Yes, captain."
Vlad immediately felt another weird sensation, which he couldn't explain, but it was clearly gravity that pulled on him, planting him in the water from the height of 15 meters that the ship was transiting, not even giving him a chance to figure out what happened.
The body of a young boy that was only 9-10 years old that had a lifeless state of motion, from a large height that was akin to a building, started plunging down until the boy made full contact with the dark-blue water, evaporating in the water like most of the bodies of the kids who still had motion in their bodies.
*Slash*
A chilling cold commenced his damaged brain that didn't give to his neurons enough sparks to fire up his body functions, and unlike the other kids that simply began drowning, Vlad was emotionless in everything that was happening to him.
He was trying to figure out a way from this infernal challenge thrown at him to survive without having motion to one's body.
'Cold! This is water if I don't drown first, I will freeze to death later for sure. But I can't be worrying about that now. I got to calm down and keep my breath until I start getting to the water's surface. Afterward, we'll see what I can do next.'
The water entering his ear canals already filled his brain that he could only hear his thoughts and only that, but not form him the other victims of this tyrannical act panicked and entered in the dangerous trap of not knowing to swim and instead of surviving one by one they drowned, with only another boy surviving, keeping his body afloat.
"HELP! SOMEONE HELP US!" shouted the child in a desperate attempt at attracting some attention to his cause, but he was in the middle of nowhere, with the cold Ocean being his only companion and maker.
However, as he was screaming his throat out, he noticed that slowly a body of another comrade in suffering made its way out, and while he at first was shocked to see Vlad made his way out, he got scared shitless by how still he was with his abyssal black eyes staring at the sun, yet they weren't focused out, as if he was blind, his face was fully bruised, with wounds that weren't fully closed.
The salt of the Ocean was like acid to Vlad's bruised body, but he simply couldn't feel anything, unlike what he wanted to always remark, that he was indifferent to pain.
Right now he started feeling some anxiety, not knowing what was wrong with his body.
He couldn't see anything, while his body also didn't function properly. Only his hearing worked irregularly. Sometimes he would hear some buzzing, while other times he would hear a fear-inducing scream of a child that could crawl up the skin of any man,
Nonetheless, the boy, who was the only one to survive the initial panic, and knowing how to swim, began pedaling toward Vlad, still trying to gather his attention in a way.
"Charles! RESPOND, CHARLES!"
"NOO! Don't tell me he is dead? But if he was dead, he would be sinking in the water."
Reaching Vlad, he waved his hand at his face but couldn't notice any change into the young body full of hideous bruises while on the other hand, Vlad was pondering on what was happening to him, while his ears continued buzzing, almost overshadowing his thoughts by how powerful it got.
'Quiet down, I can't even listen to myself. Curses, is this what I deserve? Being sent to Hell? I sinned so severely that Satan doesn't even allow me to open my eyes in punishment?'
Those questions filled his mind, but in a sense, it also occupied him in not descending into madness, as most people would have embraced the darkness he was currently, giving up on the fight.
Nevertheless, he wasn't left without hope, as the maddening buzz his ears had calmed down, and in a weird interval, he finally could hear dimly, the voice of a boy that was calling him with a name he wasn't familiar with, which immediately sent the first alert in his mind, with a big question.
'What happened. Why is this boy calling me Charles? Something isn't right, but I can't tell what is wrong.'
The boy tried to get some signal from Vlad, but without success, as if he was dead and while he was preparing to go save himself, no longer wasting his energy on screaming for someone to save him, he stopped and gave Vlad another look, talking to himself.
"If he was dead, he wouldn't be floating like this, instead, drown like the rest. He must be sick after he suffered that torture. I can't abandon him. He did so much for me, sharing his food with me."
After building his response, the boy who was slightly taller than Vlad took him by his fragile body that showed signs of malnourishment and began swimming toward a direction he thought was the closest islands.
The more we swam, the more tired he became, and he began crying, feeling his despair building up.
"My hands and legs hurt so much, I can't continue. I can't even see an island to guide me."
He stopped from swimming, which was one of the most fatal errors one would make in a marathon. Stopping his legs turned even number from the muscle stress he built up, that his facial expression changed to pure pain.
"Child, be calm and take it easy."
He looked at Vlad, and his initial pain was washed away by the feeling that he wasn't alone in this, but when he looked at him, his eyes were still not focused, while his body was unflinching, like a lifeless vessel.
"Charles, can you hear me? Are you alive?"
"I don't know, boy. Am I truly dead? I could hear you from 30 minutes ago, but I couldn't speak to you. Tell me what happened to me as you recover some of your energy. Also, tell me your name."
"You forgot about me? Have you lost your memory from the beating you received?"
"I don't remember anything, but I know that my name is Vlad, not Charles. Whoever is this Charles had a miserable life, but he died today."
"What do you mean, Charles? You are alive." inquired the boy, who looked at Vlad as if he ingested some rotten fruit.
"Sigh, it doesn't matter. What is your name?"
"Arik. Do you really not remember anything?"
"No, so you better make sure to tell me what happened to me." replied Vlad at the insistent questions of the boy called Arik, and with his question thrown in the lap of the boy, he started sharing about the recent events, and who they were.
'I see, I was, or better said whoever Charles was, got an unlucky treatment of being punished on the wimps of a sadistic psychopath. To think people's standards would drop so low nowadays. Wait, wait, something isn't right. I have a deja-vu right now.'
"Arik, tell me do you know what Europe is?" asked Vlad while he remained motionless, staring at the sky like a blind person.
"No, what is that? I never heard about it. Is it an Island?" responded the boy without a glint of a lie in his tone, as Vlad's ear canals started working in better conditions, where it was decent enough to allow him to hear him normally.
'He doesn't know about Europe? Could it? This feeling I have experienced in the past is within my reach, but what is it? Let's probe a bit more.'
"Are there a lot of pirates on the sea, am I right, Arik?"
"Yes, since the death of the Pirate King, many people, even the ones from my village, have taken to the sea in search of this treasure. Why do you ask? Haven't your parents left you in the care of someone else so they could search for the treasure?"
"Arik, I don't remember anything."
"Ahh yes, sorry. Maybe if I respond to your questions, you will get your memory back since you are smart. You can get us out from the sea without having sea monsters killing us."
"This Pirate King, what is his name?"
"Wow, you really don't remember a single thing. Everyone knows his name. Gold Roger is the name of the Pirate King."
"Gold Roger … Gold Roger … Gol D. Roger. I see, so this explains my deja-vu."
"Did you remember something? You've got your memory back?" asked the boy, curious, only to hear Vlad decline in an emotionless tone.
"No, it is empty up there, also a lot of darkness."
With this response, he turned silent, ignoring the boy's questions and worries. Entering into a conversation with himself, as he spanned out the information he gained thus far from the boy and making the connections with the familiar information sitting in his memory.
'Those "Emperors'' were after the tails of a certain someone called Gol D. Roger. It can't be a coincidence of names. I know no person in my life to have such initials on their names. A connection has been drawn on that point. The information about the Pirates, from what those two slaves told me, there is such a thing, a battle between Pirates and Marines. Half a connection since I can't fully agree with this point.'
'The last point is the child's lack of knowledge about locations from Europe.'
'Conclusion? I have been sent into Hell, a hell made of bodies of water with a large number of islands. But how? I was sure dead because of that damned peasant.'
'Hah, I have to survive and get the hang of this new environment.'
.
"Charles, I will start swimming again. Keep your breath if some water hits you since I am not the best swimmer."
"Remember what I told you, take it easy and be stable. You'll steadily lose less energy swimming. Also, don't forget to breathe in and out. Steadily and without panicking."
"Understood. I have the feeling that after you get hit in the head, you've turned smarter than before."
Then Arik began swimming calmly, no longer worrying about sea monsters after listening to Vlad convincing him that his worry over such big variables would be energy wasted for nothing. Both of them would be dead if what he remembered correct from the two slaves he interrogated would prove truthful.
On the seas of this world, there were lurking deep down, humongous monsters that could swallow entire islands. Such beasts were reminiscent of the Leviathan of the Bible.
They made some progress, but the young body of Arik that suffered too from the wounds inflicted by the Pirates who, in fact, were slavers proved to hinder him right now.
Arik wanted to push himself forward, to progress a little bit more, but his tiredness started nesting itself in the boy's mind, who dropped his weapons like a valiant warrior, resting his head on Vlad's upper body, floating together taken by the currents of the sea to the unknown.
It was an outcome he never foreseen or even contemplated, and for the entire hours that were spent in this chaotic way, he was at the mercy of the wind and waves that carried him in the darkness he was still suffering, but something unexpected came into his ears, the voices of people.
"OLD PATRICK! We got some kids floating on the sea."
"Dead?"
"Probably!"
"Then forget it, continue the journey to Picodras!"
Inside Vlad's mind, still with his own thoughts keeping quiet so he would alert any hidden monstrosity underneath his body, instantly reacted and shouted with all the strength his broken body allowed.
"Wait, don't go! We are alive! Please, save us!"
"Ohh, this is really a surprise. Who would have thought I would see this in my old age. Have you heard the boy? Lagos, go pick them up."
"Yes, father." replied a man who was in his early 20s with short hair and a decently, appealing body who, after taking his shirt off, jumped in the Ocean.
Swimming toward Vlad and Arik, and after he reached Vlad and Arik, who was starting to wake up, he could only watch the bruised body of Vlad.
"Boy, what happened to you? Who could have done this to you? In such a way?"
"Pirates. I am someone they disposed of, being thrown on the sea." responded Vlad, unable to see who the person rescuing him was.
"Careful, Lagos, so you don't aggravate his wounds." shouted the old man with long silver hair and a small scar on his cheek on his clean, shaved face.
"I know, father, it is not my intent to harm this child more than he already is." responded the one called Lagos while placing Arik slowly on his right shoulder.
While in Vlad's case, he took him carefully at his chest, starting swimming just with his legs toward the medium-sized ship that anchored.
Once on the main deck of the ship, all the sailors of the ship looked initially curiously at the newly arrived boys, but once they saw Vlad's bruised body, whose legs had some twists to them, in a similar fashion being his arms made them frown and curse the ones who could deliver such a treatment to innocent children.
"Make way, let me see our new recruits." said the old man who climbed from the captain's cabin toward the main deck and immediately frowned once his eyes spotted the mess Vlad was, however besides the broken state of his body, he noticed the unusual way he had his eyes open, and once he checked his eyes, he saw no light in them, only an abyssal hole.
"Child, can you see my hand?"
"No."
"You were born blind? Or you got hit in your head?"
"Yes, gramps, Charles was hit really badly in the head that blood started oozing from his head, nose and ears."
"My name is Vlad, not Charles."
"Understood, little Vlad, we'll go with what you wish. Do you remember anything else noteworthy?"
"Blank." replied Vlad, calmly, which made him look even scarier to the sailors, who couldn't imagine what pain this child could have been in.
"Another question, little Vlad, your body. Can you feel it?"
"No, however, I felt the cold temperature, so I don't think I am paralyzed."
"You even know about those things. Child, you are intelligent. I can feel it from the way you speak. Hah, you probably said something that angered those brutes that got you into this mess. Sometimes it is better to keep quiet when facing psychopaths."
" … That I can agree with too. Mister, I have a worry that my body will turn sick if I don't get dry. Can you help me, please? My life has already been endangered too much. I can't risk anything."
"As you wish, my child. Lagos, take the boy to the medical room. I'll try to operate on him and arrange his bones."
"You'll do what?" asked Vlad from where he was resting on the floor, like a log.
"Simple, I will put all your bones in the correct anatomical structure, and all you have to do is pray that they connect together to heal up."
"BOYS, YOU CAN LOWER THE SAILS TO PICODRAS!" shouted the old man in an alerted way, watching Lagos pick up Vlad carefully, while Arik, who recovered a bit since fainting, followed after Lagos in a worried manner, sticking up with his friend, making the old man smile a bit.
However, it was a bitter smile.
'Boy, all I can do for you is this. The rest is up to your body.'