The sound hit first—a deafeningBOOMthat seemed to shake the air itself. Then the shockwave, a physical force that knocked me back a step.
I dropped the crate I was holding, barely registering as it crashed to the dock.
Every head turned toward the harbor.
A ship—three berths down from where I stood—erupted in flames. Black smoke billowed up, thick and oily, an angry smear against the crystalline sky. The wind carried it toward the city. This wasn’t the slow burn of an accidental fire, but an instant conflagration. One moment, the vessel had been whole. The next, its midsection was a roiling ball of orange and black.
Debris rained down.
Chunks of burning wood splashed into the water.
Men screamed and shouted—some on the ship, some on nearby vessels, some on the docks.
“Fire!” someone yelled. “FIRE!”
Chaos erupted.
Sailors and dockhands raced in every direction. Some toward the burning ship, others away from it. Workers grabbed buckets, forming a desperate line to the water’s edge. They passed full buckets hand over hand, throwing water onto the flames.
It was useless. Completely useless.
The fire was too large, too hot, too fast. It devoured the ship like a living thing. Sails became torches. Masts collapsed, crashing down in showers of sparks. The hull cracked with sounds like thunder.
The bucket line shifted, aiming their relief at nearby ships, hoping to keep the madness contained.
I stood frozen, watching the destruction.
Men were still aboard as the fires raged. I could see them—dark smudges moving through smoke, some trying to fight the blaze, others trying to abandon ship. One man jumped from the railing, his clothes aflame. He disappeared into the water below. His screams did not stop when he hit the water. They continued—high and terrible and inhuman—until suddenly they cut off. Whether he drowned or the shock took him, I didn’t know, but the sound stayed with me, echoing in my skull.
The fire spread to the rigging, then to the deck, consuming everything it touched.
I recognized one of the men in the bucket brigade—Goro—a dock worker like me, perhaps a decade older, with a missing tooth and a tendency to share his lunch when he noticed someone going hungry. He had given me half a rice ball just yesterday. He stood third in line, passing buckets with desperate efficiency, his face streaked with sweat and soot.
I could taste the smoke now—acrid and wrong.
“Back! Get back!” the harbormaster was shouting, waving his arms. “The whole thing’s going to go!”
As if in answer, another explosion rocked the ship, smaller than the first but still violent. Something in the hold—gunpowder, maybe, or oil—igniting in the inferno. The shockwave hit the bucket brigade.
Men stumbled. One fell into the water.
The ship listed and then groaned.
The fire had eaten through crucial supports, compromised its structure. Men screamed and leaped, abandoning any pretense of fighting. Some made it to nearby vessels, while others hit the water and thrashed, trying to swim clear.
The bucket brigade scattered, finally seeing the futility of their efforts. Goro ran with the others, his bucket clattering to the dock.
I watched, numb, as the ship—a three-masted merchant vessel that had been whole and functional moments ago—died before my eyes.
The flames reached the waterline. Steam hissed as fire met water. The hull, weakened beyond saving, split with a sound like the world cracking apart. The bow rose. The stern sank. Water rushed in through the breach, swallowing the fire, swallowing the ship.
In minutes—mere minutes—the last of the vessel slipped below the surface.
The harbor churned as bubbles broke the surface, the last gasp of the dying beast. Debris floated—burned wood, torn canvas, objects I could not identify.
And then there were bodies.
One floated face-down near the dock, his uniform marking him as crew. His back was charred and barely recognizable as human. The water around him was dark with soot and ash.
