The Mariner

He realised he was babbling, saying the words over and over again as if it were a chant to banish the dark. Somewhere far behind, carried by the wind, he heard screams of rage. They reminded him of the screams he’d heard long ago, when the Wasp had united every mind for that brief moment of its own difficult birth. But of course these were different. These were the Mindless, sent mad by the loss of their beloved Wasp and eager to tear open another man’s head to try to bring it back.

Sight was gone now, just numbing black. His legs span as he ran, the ground beneath an illusion, imagined resistance in an eternity of space. Ahead, through the darkness, he saw Grace, blood-stained and sad, lip split from repeated strikes of his fist. Tetrazzini grinned from behind, wrapping one burned arm around her torso and pulling her close. The image hovered, conjured by his traumatised, sensory- deprived brain and no matter how fast he ran, it didn’t budge. But it did swirl and change, one minute it was Grace, the next it was Beth relaxing in a bath whilst slicing her arm…

Absinth, dressed in the Oracle’s garb, eyes and nose gnawed to bloody craters…

Heidi, lying back on a bed, calling to him, legs open and inviting…

Isabel, her jaw broken and eyes cold and dead…

And finally his mother, leaning forward with a pillow ready to snuff out the last few breaths in his chest.

The Mariner tumbled, hitting the scrub below, boots sucked by mud and brow torn by bitter heather. Panic stricken, starved and terrified, his consciousness did the only thing it could do in such a situation. Abandon ship.

There is no truth. Only the Wasp.

It did not return for some time.

A wet muzzle probed his neck, quick hot breaths tickling his skin and teasing him awake. An animal was at him, a scavenger trying to eat him whilst he slumbered.

He struggled from sleep, his confused mind already grappling for the word like a light switch. Gradelding! But another phrase pushed it aside, mocking all other possible thoughts.

There is no Gradelding. Only the Wasp.

He woke screaming, thrashing like a madman.

About him the chill moor cut his skin. No Gradelding sat at his side, no huge monster about to feast on his flesh. However there was a small one, equally fearsome in stature, if not in size.

“Blluuuueeeeeeegghhh!” the Tasmanian devil burped in angry defiance, its whole body shuffling back with the exertion of the scream. Once done, it allowed its haunch to drop to the ground, sitting proudly as if having delivered a world-class speech.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, amazed. The reply came not from the devil, but from another behind him.

“Arf!”

Sitting up he saw Grace’s brood gathered around like a small protective pack. Relief brought the faintest of dehydrated tears.

“You’ve found me! How did you — arrgh!” he yelled as a devil angrily bit him on the leg. It stared up, a scowl on its furry face. “I don’t have any fucking food! Look at me! You’re supposed to be rescuing me!”

“Bluuurrrgh!!”

“Arf!”

“Raaaaggghh!”

He collapsed back into the mud, weak and frustrated. “So you found me. But you’re about as fucking useless as you were before! I could never get you to do anything, the only one who could was—” he paused, suddenly realising that he hadn’t seen the devils since that night with Heidi and Grace. “Oh.”

The devils were watching him closely, and although it could have been a projection of his own guilt, he could swear they looked crestfallen.

“I’m sorry. I really am.”

“Arf!”

“What do you want from me?” he yelled through a hoarse throat. “If you’re not here to help, just let me die!” He swung an arm, hoping to scare them off, but not a single beast moved. Instead they continued their vigil, panting short little breaths. “Don’t you understand? We’re in the middle of nowhere!”

As he spoke the Mariner hoisted himself up to get a closer swipe at the stubborn creatures, but the sight before him, and dawning realisation, stopped him in his tracks. The moors stopped just twenty foot or so from where he’d awoken. Beyond them was the brilliant sparkle of an endless ocean.

“How?” he asked, bewildered, looking to the devils, who were appearing increasingly smug.

They didn’t answer. They didn’t need to. A hundred tiny tears in his clothing told the story. They had dragged him to the coast.

The exertion of holding himself up, proved too much to bear and the Mariner collapsed to the ground. For however long he’d been unconscious, there had been no food. No drink. It didn’t take a doctor to diagnose the problem with his emaciated form; he was starving.

“Food,” he pleaded to the heavens, hoping for a miracle. What he got was a half-chewed carrot, dropped onto his chest from the gummy jaws of a devil. He looked at the mangled vegetable, drenched in drool, and after a moment of half-felt hesitation, scoffed the lot.