At one time I read a book on philosophy, or something similar. There was a musing about death—that to die would be like falling asleep. If that were true, as I came back to life, I thought I would be well-rested. That was not the case. Instead death and rebirth were the most arduous process of my day, hours of hard labor that I never fully recovered from and didn’t even leave me with the time to rest before I had to repeat it all over again.

Perhaps her fear of me would have some merit if I were to get some sleep. As it was, I was exhausted.

Today when the pain began to subside, I couldn’t even bring myself to move against the rats. I simply lay staring at the planks of the deck above me, unmoving, unblinking. My chest didn’t rise and fall—though I could sense the smells of the living around me, I didn’t seem to need to inhale to smell them, or even to need to take air into my lungs to stay awake. Curious, I ventured to raise my fingertips to my neck. Would I have a pulse? I hesitated. Did I want to know?

Before I could press hard enough to find out for sure, my fingers brushed the surface of my skin and found the texture gnarled. A patch of my neck, the part that had been torn away when the creature pounced on me, had not healed in the same seamless way that I now healed every night. A scar had formed. I wondered how ugly it must look.

For all that good looks would do me now, I remarked to myself, and the thought almost made me laugh. I moved my attention just a bit further up my throat and pressed firmly into the flesh just under my jaw, finding the place where my pulse should be.

And … it wasn’t.

I was so tired I forgot to be surprised, dropping my hand back down to my side. My movement seemed to have scared the rats off again, though only for a moment. In fact they seemed to be growing quite bold. I felt a weight on my chest and realized one of the bastards must have climbed onto me, thinking me still dead. I knew they climbed on me while I was recovering from her shot every night, just like I knew they feasted on me the same way I feasted on them. I wondered if they knew what was happening to me wasn’t normal.

Ah, well. If my family were to be believed, I had been far from the ‘norm’ my whole life.

The smell of the rat was enough to spur me into action again. I made quick work of the easy prey, snapping it up before it even knew I was moving. I didn’t even sit up to consume it. I only pressed the wriggling vermin to my open lips and bit down. I almost didn’t even have to drink. Blood flowed down my throat and I swallowed, and that was that. Good enough—I hardly wanted to put effort into anything right now.

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Again the blood satiated me, but while the smell had been appetizing, it was no longer intoxicating the way it had been early on into my predicament. I savored it all the same.

Shouldn’t I be disgusted? Shouldn’t I be upset? Worried? Angry? Mourning my own death?

Well … perhaps. Perhaps I would be all of those things, if I wasn’t so fucking tired.

I stared at the ceiling. Where … where, I wondered, was my executioner? Hadn’t I been conscious long enough? Was I healing faster, I wondered? Or did she simply have better things to do than deliver her nightly gift of a musket ball through my skull?

The funny thing was, I had a certain feeling about her from the moment I saw her. This was my first voyage on this ship with passengers aboard, and I’d been curious. Three passengers in total—an older couple and one young woman, traveling alone. I knew the older couple were rich. I assumed that the young woman had to be, as well. When she boarded, with her caramel-brown hair all tied up in a green ribbon, I had tried to smile at her.

She had not smiled back.

I think I’d taken that as my cue to stop trying entirely.

When we’d encountered each other after that it had always been brief and polite. I knew she could laugh—I’d heard her do so with the captain, or the cook, but never with me. To be fair to her, though, I’d hardly tried to make her laugh. If I couldn’t get her to smile, what made me think I could do even more than that and get her to laugh? I kept my distance still. I knew the cook was a bright man with a brilliant sense of humor. I knew the captain was a sharp man with a quick wit. I knew I was neither bright nor brilliant, sharp nor quick.

Likely that she had been lucky I was so slow, then—or, we were both lucky that she wasn’t slow at all. When she had come upon me the night of the tragedy, she had not hesitated. I’d hardly had a moment to look at her before she’d taken the first of many shots at me with that damned musket. I could remember that moment still—how she stood singed and sooty, hair half-scorched and smelling like death even from a distance. And under the soot, I could smell the same thing I did every night that told me she was coming to kill me again.

I could smell her blood.

I wished I couldn’t. It was torture. It was torture even now as I realized she must be near, the scent wafting through the air like a fresh pie in my mother’s oven from the days of my youth.

I had enough energy by now to sit up straight, quickly enough that she started at my movement. The rats scattered. She stood for a moment, dark eyes unblinking.

“Please—” I started.

“Save your breath,” she replied tiredly, her face taking on a steely scowl as she raised the musket to her shoulder.

“You don’t have to do this,” I tried.

“Don’t I?” she said.

That was almost a conversation, I thought, perhaps we’re making progress.

And then I died again.