Chapter Text
Dark woke up coughing.
Eyes still closed, he pushed himself up onto his forearms, coughing up sand and saltwater. Blearily, he opened his eyes, and glanced around. He was on a beach, the ocean lapping at his legs, and a little farther inland stretched some kind of tropical forest. His clothes were soaked and full of sand and salt, his hair wasn’t faring much better, and he’d lost his shoes at some point as he’d been washed ashore. The little rowboat he’d been in was not too far away…half sunk into the beach, crashed against a rock with a gaping hole in her hull.
Dark staggered to his feet, wiping the sand from his hands off on the remains of his shirt before wiping the debris from his eyes. Well…shit. He grimaced, licking his lips, and spat out more sand. His mouth tasted like he’d sucked on a raw oyster shell fresh from the sea floor, and he was so thirsty from baking out in the sun for God knows how long…
The storm that had washed him up had been a nasty one. Dark had never seen anything like it, waves as tall as buildings crashing against the deck of his ship. He’d watched as more than one member of his crew had been sent overboard, doomed to drown in the tide. He’d tried to shout orders, to keep the ship from capsizing, but then the wrath of God Himself came down in the form of lightning striking the mast, and everything dissolved into chaos. The ship was burning, the storm was raging, his crew was scattered – Dark hadn’t meant to save himself. He’d fully intended to go down with the ship, with the rest of his men, but then another wave had crashed onto the deck of the ship, sweeping Dark’s legs out from under him, and he’d been deposited into the little rowboat of a lifeboat instead of into the sea. He’d taken the message, and set out on his own, watching as the ship that had been his home for years slowly sank into the ocean.
And now, he was…here.
Wherever here was.
Right now, Dark just needed to get out of the sun, needed to find fresh water and food. He staggered for the trees, and collapsed under the shade of one a little ways into the forest. The sun was high in the sky, and the bottoms of his feet were burned from laying out in the sun all morning and trekking across the white-hot sands. His whole body ached. The bits of arms that were exposed when he woke up were also burned, and the back of his neck, too, felt uncomfortably warm. The shade was a welcome reprieve, though Dark’s thirst only grew the longer he sat.
He leaned his head back against the trunk of the tree, and before he knew it, a sob was escaping him. Everyone he’d ever loved was on that ship, he’d worked with his crew for years, they were his best friends, his only friends…and the likelihood that any of them had survived was slim to none. On the other hand, if Dark made it, maybe some of them did, but he couldn’t afford to get his hopes up. His ship was gone, his crewmates most likely drowned, and he…he was all alone on some island.
Dark grimaced, and shakily, he stood, leaning against the tree for support. He couldn’t afford to cry, he needed to find water, and fast. He didn’t know how big the island was, but as he ventured farther through the vegetation, he began to hear the trickle of water. He moved faster, rushing through the trees, and burst out onto the bank of a small stream. Dark practically leapt into the stream – it wasn’t deep, barely knee-height – and got on his knees to dunk his face into the refreshing flow. It was fresh! It was fresh, and cool, and it felt great on his burns, and Dark spent the better part of an hour hanging out in the water, trying to scrub the salt and sand from his raw skin and watching little fish swim by.
Slowly though, the sun began to sink, and Dark’s rumbling stomach became the center of his attention. Luckily, he could see that most of the trees bore some sort of fruit, and while he didn’t trust the ones that had already fallen to the ground, it wasn’t hard to scale a tree and pluck some of the ripest looking fruit. Some of it were things he’d seen before – bananas and mangos and guavas – but some of it were things he’d never seen before, like a fruit with a soft, greenish brown shell with a savory light green center and huge pit. They were good, however, and Dark happily ate his fill beneath a mango tree, licking juice from his fingers and listening to the burble of the stream.
Soon, the sky turned dark, and Dark glanced up at it, watching the stars through the leaves of the trees. They were the same stars that had guided him for years, and watching them in this unfamiliar land…it was a comfort he hadn’t realized he needed. And soon enough, he drifted off to sleep.