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Thunder.
Now Odysseus was sure of what was coming over them. Their ship wasn't too far from the shore, but what good would do going back anyway? Was there a place in the world where the King of Gods wouldn’t reach them? Had he ever stopped before any obstacle once he was set on a prize?
The leaden sky had stained the sea in black, and the ship pitched to the choppy waters that hit the sides, mixing its saltiness with the taste of rain. The Captain commanded the crew to gather the oars in the hull.
Then the Voice started rumbling in his head. It was both thunder roaring in the air and a distinct thought, separate from his own. It spoke words the king didn’t catch, about pride and atonement, as the wind quickly turned into a squall and the flashes of light showed faces full of fear.
A big gust of wind made the ship bury its nose in the water. The only sail ballooned with a threatening crack of the mast. Odysseus ordered Eurylochus to get it loosened from its foot, yelling so hard his throat burnt, so they wouldn’t lose it in the wind. The crew swarmed around him, their screams deafened by the wind roaring in his ears and Zeus’ voice echoing in his head. The sail, now free, started flapping violently over them. The cargo rolled in the hold, he could feel it under his feet, as the ship's hull straightened up.
Odysseus knew this would be a short-lived victory. But what else he had left but trying to save whatever he could?
The rain intensified to the point it was difficult to open their eyes, the water collected in the ship coming and going as the mean would be tossed around, and that voice rumbling even harder in his head.
A faint scream reached the Captain. One of his men had fallen from the side as the ship rolled. Eurylochus immediately gathered six of his men to help him. But the waves took him away immediately and the man got swallowed under the seafoam.
Odysseus looked around: thte storm had dragged the ship far away from land into the ocean. There were nothing but black clouds touching the crazed sea, the horizon raising and sinking, everywhere the eye touched.
“And suffer a gruesome death to the Thunderbringer”
A flash blinded all of them as a cracking thunder boomed, leaving behind a pungent smell in the air. Ears ringing, the Captain felt the hair on his arms rise, a strange animal uneasiness shrinking his heart, and he barely had time to realize something was coming before a second thunderbolt ignited the mast in a blinding blue and orange flash.
Time seemed to stop for a split second, and then as the world returned to its actual course, the mast fell down. Slow but unstoppable, with a nervewrecking crash, the mast toppled over the stern of the ship - taking down part of it in its fall, along with another of Odysseus' men.
And that damned smell.
With the fall of the mast, the very spine of the ship had been cracked. The boards would separate and join again, like mouths that opened and closed to let the salty water through them. The hold was probably underwater by now.
Odysseus knew his ship must be groaning in pain by this point. But the storm, the thunder and the voice inside his head wouldn't let him hear nothing else.
“You or your crew?”
“Please, don’t make me do this” the man begged aloud, knowing it was a lost cause.
He didn’t know how anyone, either he or his crew, could survive in a ship this broken, even if the god of Thunder was to leave them alone. But he had to believe, right? He had to believe there was a way and this wasn’t just a game for the god, just to leave them to drown in the end.
The stab wound on his belly hurt, open back from the exertion of fighting the squall. Odysseus' head throbbed and he felt weak after days of hunger and dehydration. He didn’t want to keep going. Everything was useless against the gods.
Time seemed to go slower, or maybe he was fainting. Anyway, he didn’t care.
In his last moments, Penelope’s voice started singing to him. Take away this suffering. Please just end this suffering. Tears ran down his drenched cheeks.
But.
They had gotten this far, his own words floated back to him. He had sacrificed so much, just to go back to her. He couldn’t give up. It wasn’t his right. And his crew… They couldn’t survive without him anyway, the first thing they had done without his leadership was give up and defy a god, for nothing more than hunger. They had made their choice.
He, he had to make it back.
“But we’ll die”. Those were Erylochus’ last words for Odysseus, his Captain. He had brought all this over themselves yet he dared to feel betrayed. But hope in your last moments, hope against all the odds. Wasn’t that deeply human?
A powerful gust drew a huge wave, rolling the ship and throwing Odysseus into the water. Another one pushed him deep. He twirled underwater and kicked, the surface so dark that he couldn’t know if he was swimming up or down.
The pain of his wound was intense, his chest clenched with his last jerky exertion to reach the surface. He desperately filled his lungs with air once he got his head out of the sea, coughing up and swallowing salty water.
His ship now floated aimlessly too far away to reach, even if he hadn’t been so exhausted. Zeus had lied to him. There was no hope. A second wave slammed him from behind, giving him no time to gather in air. Confused, he found himself paddling again to the surface. Struggling to survive. He would do everything to survive.
The ship still resisted somehow, buoying like a dry leaf even farther away from him than before. Odysseus’ arms and legs were starting to give up.
The sky lightened a last time and the clouds and the dark sea suddenly flared yellow. The static image of lightning flashed twice over the ship, making it jump in a hundred pieces through the air. Odysseus sunk in the water, this time on purpose, to shield himself from the projectiles raining everywhere. Pieces of the ship plummeted from the sky, leaving thick trails of bubbles twisting all around.
When once again Odysseus raised his head over the water, there was nothing but random pieces of wood floating around on the choppy surface.
He clung to what remained of the keel and floated away.