You don’t remember much anymore. The touch of the land, of pale sand…it all feels foreign to you. Lost in some dark unexplored cranny of your mind. You ache to feel the soil, the soft cushioned land and the stillness. Oh, the stillness. You ache to lie back on a land that doesn’t constantly tweak and twitch like a dying animal.

Somedays you find yourself imagining the tree’s bark. Was it rigid like the poles that held this vessel upright? or was it chunkier like the floorboards from where they once scraped a half-sunken boulder? How did they smell? All you know is that at least they did not stink of the salt crusted in the air, or the sweat that reeked from the clothes that never dried.

The ship was silent like a graveyard which had learnt to float.

No land in sight; the horizon bleeds into itself, repeatedly.

And you were there, famished, licking leftover crumbs off the floor of the dusty pantry where food once thrived.

You are not here on a fancy trip. This isn’t a great adventure tale one would romanticize in their journal about. This is a blessing for the villagers of your kin. By their humble offering they’d finally be blessed with rain that has been confiscated by the great gods for about a decade now.

But were they sure it’d work? No.

But did they surely sail 30 young women as an offering to the gods? Yes.

Did they settle it by drawing lots? Yes.

Your fate was decided by a 3-inch piece of folded paper? Yes.

Was your luck to blame? Yes.

Your eyes often blow volumes of piteous rage into the horizon as you curse the people of land, the skies, the preposterous gods, the ridiculously endless ocean, and everyone near and beyond.

You remembered your mother wailing on her knees and your father, on your behalf, being whacked into glistening red by the head villagers for opposing a prestigious decree. Your little brother, refusing to let go of you, tears brimmed under his thick lashes. You took his face in your hands, kissing his forehead but not a single word departed your lips. You remembered the gnawing grief and the devastating punch of the situation in your chest. But now, all you felt was raw and uncensored, hate.

You had dreams. You had plans. Nobody cared.

Everyone on board displays an equal share of this agony. Not a single syllable has passed among you. You all share a fear that one day should one of you attempt to make a sound nothing shall come. Hence, you all await your salvation.

Has it been 6 weeks or 16? Nobody was sure, for none kept quite a track on the sun.

Were there still 30 women? No, they were taken by famine due to the meager distribution of food. Only 19 left.

There was nothing festive about this place. You thought women together would be fun? A lovely departing party stretched till the great beyond claimed you? You thought wrong.

When you think about him. Me, the reaper of souls, you think of nothing more.

But truly, by now, what you fear more is the lack of time I seem to be taking. Making you dangle in false hopes. Maybe you won’t die after all? Nobody is coming…

What can you hear? The whispering sails, flapping like dying wings, the soft scratch of rats dragging secrets in the dark, the slither of ropes, the silken cobweb spinning... twing... twink… like violin strings being grazed by ghosts…?

Even the grand ocean seems to be holding his breath. Can you, in that dainty silence, hear the ocean thinking…?

You’re also silent about the massive bodies swishing through the glassy expanse below. Those beasts with glowing fins and jagged bars of teeth swimming behind the boat, disappearing in the slip stream below. Sometimes you spot large tentacles swirling under a rock ahead and soundlessly warn your fellow misfortunate into getting the vessel to turn. They question you every time and you merely shake your head for you could see through the ocean like a clear glass. Every deepest depth it concealed; your ocean eyes unraveled with absolute ease.

And what you don’t realize more is that you were destined to be here, roaming the seas.

You are special.

Are you scared? Yes, of course. Anyone would be, could they see what you could.

Today, the sea was feeling more stubborn than ever. Even the sun hid her face behind the smoke diffidently.

A shiver climbs up your ashen skin as you watch the ocean and see nothing. You think you’ve finally gone insane when instead of the corals, pesky turtles, school of peppy fishes or devilish serpents, you see nothing. Just an endless black void.

The furious ocean roared and spanked the great vessel; you wanted to scream but the sound crumpled in your throat like damp paper as the rain and wind gobbled your face.

Maybe the gods were finally here to claim their offering? Maybe it was time. And no matter how prepared you might think of yourself to be, no one knew the wrath of the gods.

The void bled with inky shadows, curling into tendrils reaching on the vessel.

Around you, the women you knew only by face and voice began to appear; their contours shredded in fear – restless, helpless, breathless and voiceless marionettes with ripped strings.

You clenched your jaw as you were knocked on your back. No. You did not wish to be remembered like a pathetic offering.

As if the gods heard your defiance. The void shuddered and the vessel bashed against the monstrous tides.

“You wish not to be taken?” A voice poured into your ear, syrupy hot, taut and curious. “Then you must take instead.”

Your heart quivered like a shot Bambi as a blade appeared into your palm, pulsing enigmatic. Your thoughts throbbed harder than that vessel caught in the storm: Why me? What must I do? Why this blade?

You turned to the railing of what little remained of the ship and gazed down at your own reflection. It smiled back as if it knew something you didn’t. But what? You looked down at the reflection which no longer seemed to be yours, then at the blade in your hand and at the poor women on board.

“Take me and spare them.” You hissed, pressing the blade to your heart. But the blade refused your flesh.

You now realize how you were set up in a cruel game.

You had to choose.

Not fate. Not gods. You.

Your fingers trembled like a lover's lips before a confession. The blade hungrily beamed in anticipation.

The world buckled beneath the weight of your decision.

The gods are watching… waiting… appetizing your hesitation.

You feel your soul twisting inside out.

“No, the gods don’t own me! You don’t get to decide what I am to decide.” You say before tossing the blade off into the depths. The void screeched repulsively. “I’d rather have all of us burned than allow myself to kill for gods who savor our sufferings for their relishment.”

You were supposed to kneel, weep, beg... That’s what you ought to do in the presence of gods, isn’t it?

Everyone was tested. They all chose themselves when the gods whispered: “Bleed or be bled.”

Only you refused.

It was all a stage. The test of who’d bite and who’d break the teeth.

The gods fed on the souls who wished to appease them.

But you, untouched by gods, were claimed by the ocean.

The other women dropped on the battered floor beneath them – souls stolen, eyes wide.

But not you. You stood.

The storm calmed, spinning a silence that bruised the air before came a wail – not godly, not ancient, not demonic but something divine.

“Then you shall carry the ocean instead.”

The world convulsed and the void whipped into smoke, screwing itself into your very being.

You were not spared but chosen.

That night, rain came, yes – but torrential and inexorable like the judgment day's first breath.

Even the angels flinched as the sky bled.

The crops drowned, the livestock fled, and the village knelt.

And you? You left into a myth. Somewhere beyond those mountains and the alleys, nestled in the ocean, floating in the breaths of the wind, waltzing at the edge of time…

Your name spoken in those tales at campfires and on bedtime…

Not quite mortal.

Not quite divine.

A girl who refused to play.

And became a goddess anyway.

Who carried the ocean in her chest,

Savior of souls the world suppressed.