From the water arose a vision.
The first thing that Maisero noticed was a body lying in the muck. Slumped over, like the rotting carcass of an old beast. It took him a little longer before the dust settled in his head and he saw that it was his face lying there, half submerged in the ground. He couldn’t see any visible damage on his dead body, but he wasn’t moving. His eyes were the worst part—motionless, pointed at nothing.
There were people moving around the body, some shoving it with their shoes, but mostly leaving it alone. From among them, Maisero noticed a small pair of boots stop and kneel down, open his jacket and pull a few things from it. The figure placed a hand on Maisero’s dead cheek, and left a smear of dirt on it.
“Shut up, goddammit! Get moving and stop shouting!” Faori yelled, snapping Maisero out of the nightmare. The rest of the world had acquired a metallic quality to it, and seemed to shine at him—from a distance. That image of him remained in his mind, albeit fading, but when he looked back at the water (flinching as he did so) he found no sign of it. He fled up the ramp and out of the water’s sight. The sailors on deck watched him wearily.
“Why’d you shout like that?” Sartore asked, looking up at him, a little frightened. Maisero laughed. He noticed his heart beating restlessly, although by now that vision had completely left. A thrill was rushing through him.
“Oh, just a fright that I spotted, nothing in particular.” The words tasted strange on his tongue. He felt now as though nothing in the world could frighten him or challenge him, and yet here he was, admitting to a terrifying scare in the water. What did he even see, to begin with? It didn’t matter. All he wanted to do was run and dance.
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But the feeling was leaving. The cold wind was returning.
“Did you see anything in the water?”
“No, of course not. Everything’s fine—spectacular.”
Now when Maisero looked down at the boy, he noticed a stinging look of suspicion.
“What is your name again, child? I seem to have forgotten, and if we are to be acquaintances, your name would be valuable.”
“Sartore,” the boy said, and smiled. “What’s yours?”
“Maisero S—” then he stopped. “Maisero. Nice to meet you, Sartore.” Now Sartore was laughing. That sound was kind and warm at first, but then it gave Maisero a crooked ache in his head, and he stopped enjoying it. Sartore noticed it too, and stopped laughing.
“You folks can pick yourselves a cabin. Looks like nobody else’ll be joining us tonight,” one sailor told them.
“Alright, thank you. After you, Sartore?”
Sartore nodded, and they headed down. Sartore slipped into the darkness immediately, his eyes wide with wonder as he wandered in the wooden halls and absorbed the stench of its boards. Maisero saw it and sobered up quickly, the last of that toxic drink finally leaving his bloodstream. One small light hung at the entrance, and wobbled with the thrust of the waters. Now Maisero could feel the weight of the water too, and he felt that light happiness in his mind turn to a light nausea, and the small thin line of a throb in his mind. Maisero shook his head and descended.
He followed Sartore’s light steps to the right. From a door Maisero overheard an old lady scolding someone, who wasn’t replying. Eventually he found the cabin of Sartore’s choice. It had a small window, but no other light.
“Is there no lamp here, Sartore?”
“I don’t think so.”
Maisero nodded, and almost left to find a cabin of his own, but he stopped. Sartore had turned to watch the moon through the glass, and Maisero spotted it immediately: small brown boots. That dream roared back to life, and left him sick as he chose the next cabin over, and bereft of sleep when he laid to rest.