Thirst

It was a mistake. I knew that, I knew it. And still I'd decided to keep going. Six days ago I was scheduled to turn back, nearly out of food and running low on water. I was, in fact, starting to make preparations to come about when I'd heard it. The eerie sound of crying drifting across the water, triggering goose bumps up and down my arms as though it were the first time I'd heard it, not the hundredth.

A storm was fast approaching, I was in treacherous and unknown waters and the air was already thick with mist—every instinct screamed at me to turn around. But still I'd kept going.

And it had been a mistake.

In the end I didn't even save them—they hit the rocks so hard they almost instantly broke up. I heard it, but by the time I found them they were lowering someone in a life raft. Almost immediately a wave came out of nowhere and capsized the raft, and on pure instinct I dove in after the body I saw going under.

Only six days, but it seems like an eternity. The thirst is intolerable. And I'm slowly sinking, we're slowly sinking.

And he's out there. I can feel him. Lurking. Waiting.

— — —

The first time I saw her I was sitting on the bluff, as I often did in the evenings. Looking out at the sea, wondering what lay beyond that horizon, wishing I could venture out. I'd never been past our tiny, safe harbor, though I'd spent countless hours bumping against the protective reef, staring out at the endless expanse beyond.

When her sail came around Rocky Peak I thought it was one of the derelicts that occasionally pass, abandoned and barely afloat, destined to sink at any moment. Surely no one could be sailing such a wreck. But as it came closer the details became clearer and I made out a form slowly paddling. The sails were badly torn, barely enough material still hanging together to catch the slightest breeze.

I watched until I was sure where she was headed, then got up to run as fast as I could to the harbor. I stopped only to grab a bottle from the well, assuming from the look of her ship that she'd be in just as bad of shape. And I was right. She took the bottle gratefully, sank down on the dock right where she'd sort of stumbled off her boat, and proceeded to suck the bottle dry.

"Thanks, I really needed that." Her voice was rough.

"No problem, I saw the shape your boat was in and thought you would need some right away."

She laughed and raised a hand to pat the boat affectionately, "hey now, don't knock her, she's kept me alive for years!"

— — —

"Out there they call it the Pain."

"The Pain? What does that mean?"

"Well, here you just call it thirst. That's because you've been taught since birth that when you're thirsty you walk down to the well and grab some water, a very simple fix to an uncomfortable feeling. But it's different out there where a lot of the time they've never even heard of water, let alone tasted it—where what they feel is so far beyond simple thirst they had to make up a new name for it."

I had trouble believing that. "Everybody knows when you're hungry what you need is food or when you're cold you need another blanket—every need has a solution. How could you be thirsty and not know there was a way to quench that?"

"Oh they try to quench it—trust me, there are all kinds of painkillers out there. But even if they've heard of water, or at least the myth of water—and a lot of them haven't—they don't know where to find it. That's the whole point."