I’ll be the brave one. I’ll take the fear, the agony, and shove it into that box, sealing it tight. I’ll hold it so they don’t have to. I’ll make it so they can smile, even in this last moment.
The weight of it won’t catch up to me, anyway.
Because we’re all going to die.
And just when I can’t breathe, when I’m slipping back under, a voice cuts through the darkness like light breaking through the depths. It’s soft, unfamiliar, pulling me back from the edge.
“Hey, hey… it’s okay.”
It’s okay. It’s okay. The words echo like a lifeline, but nothing is okay. There’s a beast below, waiting, as I drift in this endless abyss. I can’t drown, but I can’t escape either. I’m trapped, holding it all.
Then, the voice breaks through again. “Mr. Madman?” it whispers, gentle, warm. I know it isn’t mine. No part of me could make something so delicate. So real. “It’s okay. Just relax. It’s all okay.”
The weight on my chest eases, loosens, and my vision blurs, sharpening until I’m back. I’m back on solid ground, and there’s a person in front of me, pale and soft against the roughness of my world. Light blue eyes, blonde hair. I know him, don’t I? Right—Vinicola. That weak, strange man, so full of words.
He’s the voice.
I blink, and the reality of it sets in. I’m sitting on the floor, knees scraped against the hard wood. I must have fallen. Vinicola kneels beside me, reaching out with a hand like he’s going to touch my forehead, like his fragile touch could somehow ground me.
But I slap his hand away before it makes contact, baring my teeth in a snarl. Not like an animal—no, I am an animal, as much as those old-world elephants we hear stories about. They carry their pain, just like me, little forbidden boxes buried deep. Once they feel betrayal, they don’t let anyone near. They don’t trust.
“Don’t touch me,” I grit out, venomous, my gaze locked onto his. I know my eyes hold the threat I want them to. They always do. If he doesn’t back away on his own, he’ll learn the hard way that I don’t handle people gently.
But he doesn’t back away. My snarl slides off him like rain on slate. Instead, he drops to a crouch, his hands lifted slowly, like I’m some wild thing he’s coaxing out of a cage. His gaze never wavers. He lifts his brows, gives me a quick, disarming smile, then tilts his head toward the floor beside me.
“May I?”
I hesitate, the snarl stuck halfway on my lips. The rational part of me screams to shove him away, to make it painfully clear that no one should come near me when I’m like this. I’m too unpredictable. Too dangerous. But all he’s asking for is a piece of floor. This damn ship’s deck that, technically, he has as much right to as I do.
So that’s what I tell him, looking away to hide the unsteady edge in my voice. “If that’s what you want.”
To my surprise, he takes it as permission. He settles beside me slowly, the old wood creaking beneath him, and it feels warmer somehow, less like cold, dead planks and more like solid ground. Like land that won’t vanish beneath me.
Ridiculous, I think. It’s the same ship floor as a moment ago.
Vinicola doesn’t say anything for a while. He just sits there, next to me, our shoulders nearly touching. The sounds of Zayan and Gypsy fucking keep sounding out from the cabin, and he just listens in like it’s music for him or something.
I glance at him, catching the way his eyebrow twitches when Gypsy cries out, a little sharper, a little higher. He blinks, and there’s something reverent in his expression, like it moves him. It’s perverse, in a strange, unhinged way that’s worlds away from my own madness.
And somehow, that thought drags me out of my own head, just enough that my pulse begins to settle. My heart finds a rhythm that doesn’t feel like it’s trying to claw its way out of my chest. When I finally turn to him fully, he meets my gaze, his eyes glinting in the dim light, a calm spark of something almost…human.
“What do you see in them?” I ask, breaking the quiet. If he’s surprised that I’ve started up a conversation, he doesn’t show it. He turns and keeps his eyes on the cabin door.
“In this moment or in general?”
He wants specifics. Fair enough, though I’m not sure what specifics I’m even asking for. I bend my knee, resting my elbow against it as I shrug. “Both, I suppose.”
He leans back slightly, considering, and nods to himself, like he’s decided on some conclusion only he can understand.
“In this moment?” He smiles faintly. “I see freedom. They’re lost in each other—sensations, heat, the rawness of it all. Right now, there’s nothing else. It’s… pure, in a way.” His smile deepens, almost playful. “Sure, I’m certain they’re getting plenty filthy back there, but oh, if you’d seen the way they’ve been circling each other these past few days… You’d want to applaud them now.”
He lets out a soft chuckle, and strangely, a twinge of envy stirs in my chest. Not for the act itself—no, that doesn’t matter. It’s for how he can see something so grand in the sounds of a couple tangled in a sweaty mess behind a thin door. I don’t know how he does it.
“And in general?” His voice softens. “I see hope. They believe in each other, and maybe—just maybe—that’s enough to carry them through. Maybe belief is all anyone needs.”
I stare at him.
“Belief?” I scoff. “You see belief in two people fucking? That’s… something else.”
