An endless void in every conceivable direction filled with infinite dark and endless memories. Gill remembered some. His mother. His father. But he recognised no others. An abbey the size of a small mountain, faces of people his age and far older glowed with the warmth of fondness, but no explanations as to why.

Then there was something else. A short-sword, curving this way and that to form a wave of glowing steel, in his hand and flowing across a plain of bloodshed like a needle through a cloth. A kris blade, a rarity and difficult to acquire, much less use, but it was different somehow. Ethereal and green.

‘What? Why am I thinking about this? I'm killing people!’ Gill yelled at himself, but no sound came out. He felt sick, the endless falling of the void churned as if it were the freezing oceans colliding with a boiling storm. The silence overpowered him, and he curled into a ball to make it stop.

It did. There was no more silence, but the gently bobbing of wood in the water. Then there came the pain. A headache split through the world and broke into Gill’s skull, flooring him once more. But then it was gone, the world was back as it should be.

Quiet, calm, the gentle movement of the water and a warm feeling of his hand being held. ‘Arianna’ He thought fondly and sat up to look at her. He didn’t find her anywhere, much less beside him. Instead of seeing the worn but living deck of the ship, he saw the mast lying in the water. He looked further, confused and his head still fuzzy and spinning. Then he saw it.

Carnage. Carnage and devastation. What Gill thought was the infirmary floor beneath him was a section of the deck barely twice the size of him. Pieces of the deck lying twisted on the surface of the water, bobbing peacefully. The keel slowly turning like a spit, a small sheen of red on the surface the only indication of its movement. The sails bundled and torn in ever tightening ropes and blocks. Barrels and their contents burst like fireworks all over the surface of the perfect blue.

“At least the fish will have a feast” Gill chuckled to himself. He looked over to his left to share the joke with whoever was holding his hand. He was met by green. A glowing green chain wrapped around his hand and flowing out to fuse into a glowing green anchor sticking out of a separate section of the ship.

A great big bar of green, ethereal steel, sharpened to a point, with a curved crossbar moving back and sharpening to separate barbs on the tips. Receding into a solid ring that connected it to the chain, a long mass of unforgiving rings that must’ve been 10 meters long if it was fully stretched. The anchor was over half his height and looked to weight close to a quarter of a ton, but seemed inviting.

Gill ran his free hand over the chain. It was warm, unfamiliar but comfortable, almost moulded to the shape of his hand whenever he touched it. It felt right. He wrapped a few more coils round his hand and whipped the chain, the anchor flying free of the wood and sailing towards him. While his mind was yelling at him to run from the massive object, he didn’t move, he knew he was safe, though it was just a hunch.

He caught it deftly just before it reached his head, as if he'd done it his whole life. Staring down at the magical object in disbelief, he spun it around himself. It weighed nothing. It zipped around him like a fly with a nose for sugar, quick, precise and thirsty for a fight.

At that thought, Gill’s heart quickened with excitement and his mouth twisted into a crazed smile. He span the anchor this way and that, getting a feel for it as if he had held this anchor and fought with it every second of his life. He enjoyed it. The idea that he could tear anyone he wanted to pieces and no one could stop him.

He spotted a target out the corner of his eye and flung his strength through the chain, bringing down an explosion of splintering wood and misting green and red. Gill pumped with adrenaline as he launched the anchor back to himself, looking at the anchor with a breathless pride.

Then he felt sick when he saw the red.

Gill dropped the anchor in revulsion when he realised it was splattered with blood and threw himself backwards, scurrying back in fear of himself, and what he was doing. He stared down at his hands, his stomach tightening and his throat gagging.

‘What are you doing? What is this? Who am i?’ Gill ran his hands over his face and through his hair to try and calm himself down, but he couldn't stop himself shaking as he looked at the red-stained ghost of an anchor and chain that had latched onto his soul.

He looked over to see what he destroyed. He froze. His god-father lay in the crater of shattered and splintered wood, torn open and in pieces. He didn’t look human. Closer to an art piece that imitated a monster. He only knew that it was him because of the unmistakable tattoo of a dolphin and steering wheel bright against his tanned ankle. Gill felt his eyes well up and his chest start to explode. He scrambled to the nearest patch of exposed ocean and prepared to release the revulsion that was so familiar but so much more intense and powerful than he thought possible.

He sneezed.

The sea air blew by as a deafening silence of a calm breeze broke his eardrums and tore through his hair like a hurricane through a Black Forest.

“What?” Gill stared at himself in the calm water, not recognising his eyes. “Why don’t I feel anything?” He ran his hands through his hair and tried to tear his mind out and throw it as far away as it would go. “What happened to me? What is that thing?” The questions rolled out from him like a madman’s ramblings of gods and the end times.

The only thing that kept him from throwing himself into the water and letting the ocean swallow him in a sweet, comforting death was the anchor. It oozed comfort and ease like the haunting miasma of a sirens song. A small voice in his head was telling him it was ok. He did well. He'd killed so many so fast. It was impressive, awe inspiring to be so powerful. He was strong, no, a god to them now. He could kill anyone who-

Gill's scream cut through the gentle breeze as he slammed his head into the remnants of the deck that was his only lifeline over and over and over. His vision blurred and agony soared through his body every time the splintering wood rose to meet his skull, but he continued nonetheless. His head was screaming for him to stop, to keep himself from harm. To run and hide from what was causing him this hurt, but he continued to pound his head down over and over.

He did not know how long he was doing it, but by the time he stopped, so too had the little voice, and and his own screams. His breath hoarse and painful, his head as if it were caught in a hellfire, he looked up to the sky and saw the red run from his eyes.

Bloodied tears ran from his face as he curled up in the gentle sun, seeking respite from this abyss of despair, trying to find solace in the gentle motion of the waves and the bobbing of the wreckage of his life. Comfort soon enveloped him like a blanket of safety, promising to make him better. He smiled through his red tears and opened his eyes.

He was holding the anchor like a baby would hold their mother, the chain wrapping around him like the protective hand of family. He tightened his grip, not daring to let this feeling go away. He was safe now. He felt good. He could never be alone anymore.

Alone. Gill’s eyes snapped open and he sat up like a catapult. ‘Arianna. Where is she?’ He chastised himself for relaxing before he could find her. He unwrapped the chains from him and scrambled free from the anchor as he blinked through the now drying blood on his face. Giving up, he dunked his head in the ocean from the edge of his safe section of deck. He recoiled after a few seconds, his face a map of stinging splinters and cuts, but they could wait. He had to find her. He looked over to a free floating piece of the keel and had an idea. He looked back to the anchor. It was gone.

Gill’s heart sank and his mind shrank back into a corner of fear as he realised that his only lifeline was gone, and he turned back to look into the wreckage, when his hand brushed a chain. He looked down confused, seeing nothing. He reached out and felt the air. There was a chain there, and the anchor. He stared in awe as he grabbed the chain from thin air and it burst into vision with a cloud of green ethereal steel and fell into his hands.

A small smile played on his lips that he barely noticed as he aimed his throw to the floating keel. He threw it as hard as hard as he could manage, and overshot by twice the distance. ‘Huh. I guess I'm stronger that I thought.’ He mused as he reeled in the ever extendable chain.

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The anchor flew twice more, once to reach the keel and pull it in to use as a foothold, the other to dissuade an overly curious shark that smelt the disaster. He hopped from each piece of wreckage to the next, as if the ship were still in one piece and he was changing the sails. Just any other day, nothing different from the usual chores of everyday. Besides the death, destruction and disturbing images and feelings.

He threw the anchor down and used his hands to climb particularly uneven sections of his life, but simply grabbed it out of its ethereal limbo whenever a spar or shark needed smashing. It was easy, fun work. If it wasn't for the crew.

Everywhere, there lay pieces of eviscerated human. Shark bites, crushed beneath exploding wood, tangled and torn apart from the web-like trap of ropes and rigging. There were other injuries that were not so easily identified. Heads and chests caved in from something heavy. Something thirsty for blood. Limbs and torsos split into pieces from something that could not be identified.

But what disturbed him more than anything was himself. Gill’s stomach didn’t turn, he didn’t bat an eye at the blood and gore. The only thing he felt was the sadness of never seeing them again, but the violence was nothing. No. Worse than nothing. It was normal.

Gill’s heart hurt when he thought that. What was he becoming? To not bat an eye at a scene like this.

‘Am I a monster?’ The thought caught his throat, but he couldn't tell if it was a sob or a chuckle. That's what terrified him more than anything. Losing himself to something evil, and hurting those closest to him. But that didn’t happen. Something happened to the boat, something that wanted to destroy it. Gill was going to find out what it was, and make it suffer. Make it hurt. Make it die.

He hit the side of his head to clear these thoughts that plagued his mind. He looked around, only just realising that his thoughts had clouded his eyes like a fog of misery and now he couldn't tell which way he had checked. Gill hung his head in disappointment. He'd let his mind wander and now he was lost amongst the wreckage.

He was about to collapse as the weight of his loneliness began to weigh on him, when movement flashed in the corner of his eye. He raised his head and wrapped his hand around the invisible chain, ready to pull it into reality, when he realised it wasn't just another shark or bird.

Vexa

He lay sprawled out on the same spar that he had been working on, his legs twisted at sickening angles with shards of exploded wood the size of Gillian’s hand jutting from his back and left arm. His only limb that wasn't shattered or pinned by hardcore splinters was his right arm, but it looked just as bad.

His hand was raw and bloody from clawing his way out of the water, deep gashes ran down his forearm from what seemed to be the claws of hungry birds, though there were none left in the sky. His face was red with exertion, soaked from ocean water, and there was a puce stain on his once platinum-blond hair, which had sealed his left eye shut.

Gill stood in shock and awe for a moment, marvelling at how he was still alive at all with wounds as grave as his. He shook the feeling off and began picking his way over the exploded hull as quickly as it would allow him. “Vexa! Hold on!” Gill screamed with his spare breath, just as his foothold crumbled and sent him tumbling into the water. He shook his head to get his bearings and opened his eyes.

He wished he hadn't. Axel sharks. Hundreds of them. Big enough to eat a person in two bites and fast enough to avoid bullets if need be. They turned to look at this brand new morsel in the feast and began unfurling their titanic fins. The perfect size and power to launch themselves and end him in a second.

Gill didn’t stop to think. He grabbed the chain from wherever it was and threw it upwards as the green light exploded into reality. The anchor tangled itself in the twisted sails and ropes, and held on just enough for him to scramble back to the relative safety of the wreckage.

The still silence rolled on for second after second, deafening and oppressive. Gill began to creep slowly over the twisted wood, careful to keep himself quiet. The silence was cut only moments later by Vexa screaming. Gill bolted to the edge to see what had happened, only to be met with his once-rival only half of his former self, the other half taking refuge on the inside of a fleeing Axel shark.

The scream rang out through the wreckage as Vexa’s life slipped away as he stared into the sky, looking for peace in his last moments of agony, but finding only pain and fear.

“Vexa…”. Gill spoke without any other words.

Then he saw red.

Rage pierced his heart like a harpoon in the side of an innocent whale. He didn’t stop to think and assess his anger before he threw his anchor towards the ocean like a meteor, and sent it slicing through the ocean like a dagger through a traitor’s heart. It tore through the terrified shark’s side and lodged itself in its bones in an agonising embrace.

With a scream of bestial fury, he hauled the chain and anchor back, taking the foolish shark with it. The surface of the ocean bulged then burst. Erupting in a riptide of green ethereal steel, grey white flesh and the vivid red gushing from the wound. As it became airborne, it began to flail, trying to flee from an inevitably painful death, writhing in sheer agony and terror.

Gill was beyond caring at this point.

The world moved slower than ever before. Slower than when he fell from the top of the mast and saw the ocean rush to meet him. But this time, he didn’t slow down with it. He was fast. He clutched the anchor with his left hand, it sat like it was always meant to be there, and he intended to use it as much. Gill ripped it free from the squirming beast, shredding its dorsal fin from its slippery body.

His rage turned to power as he brought his right fist down onto the shark’s worthless skull, launching it back into the ocean of its home, filled with its hungry family, who would just as soon devour one of their own as any other worthless morsel they come across.

Gill collapsed to his knees, his breath a raw desert of rage and anguish. He stared at what remained of Vexa, his fury replaced by grief as the ache of exertion began to seep into his muscles as he craved the salty air. He vaguely saw the twitching form of the dorsal fin as it slopped off the wreckage and into the water, joining the rest of the carcass. A small sob escaped his mouth as he cradled his head in his hands.

The small voice in the back of his head spoke again, but this time, Gill chose to listen. Axel sharks, the most feared beast in this side of the ocean, and he tore one up like a rag doll. Made it suffer for what it did to Vexa. He did what was right, what needed to be done, and what felt good. He was strong and nothing could stop him anymore.

A small smile crept along Gill’s face as he relished these thoughts. ‘I am strong’. His sobs turned to a laugh. Salty air and a warm, gentle sun that were flooding his senses changed to a cold, comfortable green haze as he he held the anchor to the sky as if it were a god and the chain wrapped him in a homely embrace as his manic howls of laughter pierced the sky. This was him. What he always should have been. He was perfect here. All his insane glee and mad excitement were shattered at the sound of a quiet whisper in the distance. “Vexa…?” Gill's face froze as a blazing tear rolled down the side of his face.

Arianna.

The Anchor and chain vanished as Gill began clambering up the side of the broken hull and darted his eyes desperately. ‘I forgot. How the hell did I forget?’ He screamed internally as his heart rate soared with desperation. “Arianna!” He screamed without hope. Movement caught his eye and he saw her. His heart stopped. “Oh gods”. The words seized up in his throat.

She was broken. That was the only way that Gill could think to describe her. The silver of her hair had turned into clumps of dried sap and blood, mixing to form the colour that hell would decorate with. Her legs jutting at angles that could turn the devil’s stomach. Her back twisted and cracked like the ridge of a mountain range. Her face a map of open wounds and dark masses of caved in skull.

Her once beautifully pure amber eyes spilling blood beneath her and covered by a thick layer of bubbling red. A nearby plank of wood had exploded, leaving a spike the size of Gill’s arm pinning her in place. It wasn’t easy to tell it was her, and just as hard to tell if she was human. Gill’s throat clenched as he held back screaming her name. The brutality of her body was nothing to the freezing terror and inferno of hatred that lay behind her eyes. Every ounce of it, aimed towards Gill.

Arianna screamed as she reared up, tearing her body apart as the plank stayed firmly lodged beneath her. She swung her bloody and misshapen arms at the wood, desperately trying to free herself as she looked at Gill in a crazed fear. Gill snapped back into reality and began sprinting towards her through the pieces of wreckage that snagged his feet and tripped him up. Her eyes widened as she bit back the agony to beat at the wood, barely making a dent.

“Stay…away…monster” Arianna gasped as she tried again and again to free herself, groaning from the torture.

Gill stopped dead in his tracks, only feet away from her.

“Monster?” He whispered, half to himself.

“I'm not the monster, I didn’t do this.” He told himself.

The plank splintered as it split in half, tearing out Arianna’s side and freeing her. She wailed like a mother losing her child as she bore into Gill with eyes blazing with fury.

“You killed everyone. You did this!” She panted with bloody tears streaming down her broken cheeks. She looked back to an open patch of sea and lowered her head.

“Go to hell, you demon.” She spat quietly.

She threw herself into the crystal sea, polluting it with a sheen of crimson, which immediately exploded as she was torn to shreds by the feasting sharks. Her limbs floated to the surface, and were quickly stolen away by the warring beasts. When the water stilled again, there was nothing but the remains of the plank, and several clumps of once silver hair.

Gill could do nothing but watch. His feet heavier than his anchor, his throat tighter than a brand new chest. His mind reeling as memories began to flood in. The anchor and chain as they appeared. The demonic fury that enveloped him, and how it guided him with his new strength to obliterate everything he saw. Terrified crew mates were smashed into the ground. The mast was an easy target to destroy with a single swing. Vexa earned a direct obliteration for all the jesting he once did. Arianna, tears in her eyes and afraid. She was in his way.

She was right. It was him. He was the monster. He killed everyone. The quiet voice in the back of his head was silent. Arianna was wrong about one thing.

Gill turned to walk away, his head heavy with anguish. A crow cawed overhead, observing the massacre with a curious look. Gill didn't wonder why or how it got there. He lifted his head and spoke with a voice that belonged to someone worse than all of the world’s evil combined.

“I can’t go to hell. I'm already there.”