In a fateful moment where their eyes met, a feeling of electricity comes to him in a sense of familiarity. He remembers a distant past from those eyes, the eyes that are full of emotions yet behind is the clarity of its emptiness.
The surrounding feels aimless, as if there is nothing else in the room but him and the unknown person in front of him. The sound of waves is clear in his ears, the memories of her flashes in his head. Axel oddly feels something between them.
His eyes met here hazel one, still groggy and in daze. Trying to analyze the place and situation, shaking her brain for any kind of memories of this place. The captain's eyes shifted to a hostile and stern look as he stare at the stowaway.
"He's awake."
Axel stated which made Calev look up to meet the hazel eyes full of concerns.
"Do you feel anything?"
He started asking questions, usually asked by Zeki to his patients whenever they wake up. He asked more different questions regarding her conditions in which she replied confusedly.
"Do you know where you are."
This time the captain asked, his eyes still lingered in her confused ones.
She examines his face, taking it in and trying to gain any memory of his face. Upon realization of who she is facing, her eyes darken with fear and panic and almost immediately back away from him and hit her head with the wooden headboard
She looks at both men in front of her, sensing danger from them as the passed events comeback to her in an instant. Her eyes shifting from both men, not quite sure of what to do.
Her body shakes, hands holding herself in an attempt to guard her. Axel's eyes scared her, eyes tearing up ready to beg once again not wanting to be tied up once more.
"Please..." she croaked, not knowing what the right words to say were. The stares from both men suffocates her, her ability to breathe seems to be forgotten.
Upon her begs, Calev feels something pull him. Like an immediate response, anger starts to run through his veins.
Mostly it is concern, and the anger he feels comes from the realization that he is part of what scares her. In a repetitive cycle, he has no answers to why he is acting and feeling this way, all he knows is that he doesn't like seeing her the way she does in front of him.
"Im sorry captain, its seems like you have to go. Sh—he is scared of you"
Calev started looking at his captain, Axel contemplated first.
The eyes of the stowaway makes him step back anyways and so he leaves them both. Quick to tell Calev to have a meeting early in the morning with the stowaway.
When he left the sickbay, his thoughts came back like flood rushing in to enter. The way the stowaway begs for the life that he can possibly take away, he feels worse than what he knows he already is. Those helpless eyes, the sound of the begs, reminded him of how lowly he had become.
At the top of the pinnacle of this pirate life, he feels the lowest when he gets to be reminded of the thousand of memories where cries and begs are the only thing he hears right before he had killed those people who owes him.
" He must be really telling the truth."
Axel contemplated, standing in the starboard as he leaned into the railings. A cigar in his mouth, deeply breathing the sea breeze and the coldness of the night.
" No memories."
Those two, a pair that makes him sarcastically and bitterly laughed. Two people who have no memories of their past, someone who got injured, taking the memories away. And someone who has a demon that took his past from him.
Sharing the same circumstances, no memories to tell and share. However, one who desperately wants to find the past, while the other did not care.
Axel feels the colors of jealousy feeding his bitterness, thinking how it would have been better if he too couldn't remember his past.
Then maybe, he wouldn't be haunted about it this much.
The moon light followed the captain's figure as he walks all alone the deck. The soft breeze calming him down but his mind stayed at the sickbay. On his way, Axel pushes the bitter jealousy that made him loathe those who can't remember the pain of what is the past; unlike him.
Instead he chose to force himself to think hard about the stowaway. Asking anyone who can hear him, the reason for such familiarity in those hazel eyes that he can recognize. And determining whether the stowaway is indeed not a man.
He can tell, the stowaway is a woman and he can see the hostility in his combatant's eyes when he mentioned it. Most importantly, Axel can't forget the eyes that captivated him.
He saw it again, the emptiness in her eyes behind those fear and panic.
It is still empty.
He wonders why.
[ Why does he holds so much emptiness? ]
And in those eyes, the emptiness that Calev can't see.
In her hazel eyes, all he sees is the fear and sadness inside it.
How her eyes shines with the tears that are spilling out as she begs, the fear that sparks the unexplainable feelings inside him, wanting to protect the woman that he barely knows. And if he can't understand that such an enigma is capable of making him feel this way, his demon had been recognizing those hazel eyes all along.
[ Is it because we share the same circumstance?
Is it really pity that I feel? Knowing exactly what it feels like to remember nothing? ]
Calev wonders.
She watches Calev closes the door and locks it, securing them both with no one to interrupt. Her eyes are curious of his every move, but she remains cautious and prepared.
She remembers how this man tried to feed her while she was tied up. He was the only one who was allowed to actually get near her, in those two days he never showed any kind of hostility but still he was brooding enough to scare her.
However she will take him in a room than to have the presence of the captain himself.
"Drink this."
The combatant ordered, she immediately took it and did what he said, fearing it might tick him off.
[ Water. ]
The taste of the water fills her mouth like life. She gasps for air after gulping for another one. She feels so much better, her head still hurts but no longer deadly, the nausea no longer threatening.
She wasted no drop of the water, treating it as a blessing, pouring it to her body like a miracle. She needs that, after all the refusal he gave Calev for two days in order to prevent the a greater problem, she finally tasted the water.
"More?"
Calev asked, looking at her desperately savoring every drop.
She nods almost immediately, her desperation lingers in her eyes. He hands her another mug and she quickly drowns in it. Without anything to care, she pours the liquid down her throat.
Spilling some of it in the side of her mouth. The water drips to her white clothes, damping it and making it stick to her skin like a tissue. Her upper body is visible to the man in front him, completely unaware as she drinks away.
"A wench." He whispered, looking away from her exposed chest.
She heard him and looks at him confused, he glances back at her only to land his eyes to hers. She follows where his eyes went, only gasping in horror at what state she is in. Without thinking, she hugged herself to cover her upper body as the mug in her hands flew and hit the combatant straight to his face; or at least that's what she thought.
In a good timing of reflexes, the combatant is able to catch the mug before it can hit his face. His eyes meeting the scared hazel ones from her, tears almost spilling her mouth quivers.
[ I'm going to die. ]
She silently cries, hoping for mercy from the stoic man. Calev stands up and walks towards the nearby drawer to get a blanket, before handling it to her. She looks at him cautiously, searching a sign of anger but found none.
Reluctantly she reaches for it and slowly put her body in the warmth of the fabric. She has too many questions, wondering if this man is the one who changed her out of her clothing. Her eyes examine the clothing, wondering too loudly about its owner.
"It's mine." Calev said, taking his seat nextv to her once again.
She nods in response, she looks at the surroundings while anxiously ignoring the man gaze fixed on her all the while.
The room is somehow decent for a pirate ship, three empty beds are laid beside her. A row of herbs and other ailments are organized thoroughly in the shelves and bedside table.
Near her bed is a huge desk full of paper and other herbs, some grinded and mixed, some still inside a bag. She searches every corner with her eyes, catching everything in her gazes.
"Why am I here?"
She asked the quiet man beside her, no longer looking at her instead he was grinding some green herbs.
"You had a fever, needed to treat your wound."
He shrugs, not sparing her any glance. She watches him grind the herbs. Her eyes travel to his exposed arms, flexing every muscle as he works.
"Did you bring me here?"
She asked another question, Calev just nodded at her. She presses her lips into a thin line, feeling this whole room turns into an awkward silence.
"You were severely injured and had a high fever, why didn't you tell me anything?"
Calev glances at her for a moment before turning his attention to the herbs again. She clears her throat before speaking.
"I'm a prisoner."
Calev chuckles for a bit, shaking his head in disbelief as if what she just said is funny. She does not say anything or comment over his amusement about her being tied up there for two days. Although she feels offended by his laughter, she remains silent.
[ Did I ever heard him speak this much or even laugh before? ]
The stowaway finds it curious that this scary man who only speaks firm words and tones while she was tied up, she heard him laugh. She feels like it is out of his character.
"Our ship doctor would whack our captain if an injured boarding this ship won't get any treatment. Prisoner or not."
Calev said with amusement shining in his eyes, remembering how Zeki made the two most authoritative people in the ship fold.
[ He's acting so different from before. Is it becasue he found out I'm a woman? ]
"Thank you."
It sounded foreign in her lips, uncertain whether she should be thankful after all they were the one who made her condition worse. To Calev however, it sounded genuine. She might not be aware, but she emits purity around her.
"Can I ask you something?"
She raised another question moments afterwards, Calev hummed in response.
The stowaway tentative voice meekly followed. " What do you mean by wench?"
Calev almost immediately raises his head to look at her, who is already staring at him with curiosity. His mind wanders to when he called her that earlier, almost remembering the exposed chest he saw before completely brushing it off of his mind.
"You."
"Me?" She was curious, not understanding the whole concept.
"A woman." Calev informed her, not thinking about the clueless woman in front of him.
[ A woman, I know that much but what does he mean? ]
Depriving her of any further explanation, she did not press the topic any further instead she told her another thing.
The most important thing.
"I still have no recollections of who I am." She whispered, looking at her own hands.
She prepares herself for her demise upon his reply, already seeing the future of being tied up in one of the masts or being thrown away.
They might have treated her and let her rest in a proper bed but there is nowhere of knowing what they will do once they find out she still can't give them any information about herself.
"You have suffered a head injury, that is why you can't remember anything." Calev told her.
[ Head injury, why and how did I get this?]
That perhaps explained the huge throbbing headache she felt for two days, she is surprised she is still alive.
[ I remember having a gunshot as well, just who the hell am I? ]
"You will gain your memory back, at least that's what the doctor said."
[ I will get my memory back? ]
She is delighted by the news, at last a hope she sees after all the suffering she got. Will she have a good memory, will she have people waiting for her? She wishes for a fast recovery, she wishes to tell this pirate who she really is so she can be free.
[ What if I'm truly an enemy of them? ]
A sudden thought took her by surprise, her hopes washes off, taken from her hands from just one single possibility. Is it better not to remember anything at all? She can't stop thinking about it.. There is assurance that she isn't considering no one knows who she truly is, not even her.
Calev pulls her back to her senses when he starts to clean her wound and replaces the bondages in her legs. As she watches him her mind is on a frenzy. Her thoughts traveles loudly, almost triggering a headache. But she can't stop it, she just can't.
She realizes that she is under a situation where finding an exit is too impossible.
A lamb in a den of lions.
She can't help but sniffle a cry as she thought about everything.
What could she do wrong to be punished in this way?
Her unremembered life, is it worth this situation?
A life she could not regain, what kind; family and friends, people who know her, do they exist?
A life before this. She holds back her tears feeling the self pity finally rests in her heart and soul; a name—she does not have any at all?
She is just, nothing..
Contrary to the fact that she is nothing, in her conclusion that renders her as nobody. She feels like there is something that she is supposed to do.
In the midst of feeling the certainty of not being able to explain the circles of her questions and abundant curiosity, she feels that her life is meant to be somewhere else.
Despite not remembering anything, she feels like there is something waiting for her. And in the quiet sickbay where only her breathing are heard, she can hear the waves calling for her. She can't remember but the sea feels oddly familiar.
Calev hears her battle as he continues to dress her wounds. A cry, only to stop midway and to be swallowed down in a harsh and determined manner dominates the whole silence.
He doesn't say anything as usual, or even asks what is bothering her. Calev understands her confusion and fear, who wouldn't cry in this situation.
Her constant breathing as she calms herself tugs something in him. That pull once again is felt, the feeling of distraught as he watches her struggle with the unending battle in her mind.
Along with that, he can no longer bottle the raging demon inside him. The demon that recognizes something he can't. And that demon wanted nothing but to serve the protection that can assure her.
Calev feels it, as if pulling him hard to the point of not doing anything will lead him to complete insanity. By the way she tries her best to sniffle her cry, yet the fear is clear in her small voice. Calev feels like his whole heart is being pulled.
The pull is getting stronger