The first morning at sea felt unreal.
When I opened my eyes, there was no thatched ceiling above me, no muffled sound of gulls bickering over scraps, no creak of Jiro's chair outside the hut. Only the groan of old timbers, the flutter of patched sails straining against the wind, and the endless hiss of waves stretching in every direction.
The island was gone.
I sat up slowly, back aching from a night spent curled against the side of the deck. The planks were still damp with spray. My clothes clung to my skin, cold and sticky. For a while I just stared at the horizon—blue stacked on blue, sky and sea without end.
It should have felt freeing. It did, in a way. But freedom was heavy too. On the island, I had been bound by tide, by cliff, by routine. My world had been wide, but not endless. Now there was no boundary at all. Every choice, every mistake, would fall squarely on me.
And the sea did not forgive.
I set myself to work quickly. The ropes needed checking, some frayed, others loose. I tightened knots with clumsy, blistered hands, learning by feel more than memory. The sails sagged in the morning calm, so I rowed until my arms burned, the oars dipping and pulling, dipping and pulling, dragging the ship across the glassy surface.
By midday the wind returned. I raised the patched canvas and felt the shift as the vessel caught the sea's breath. For the first time, I sensed the weight of the ship carried not by me, but by the world itself.
Meals were nothing more than dried fish, chewed slowly with sips of water. The salt rasped against my tongue, the flesh turning to paste before I swallowed. Each bite tasted thinner than the last, but I forced myself not to think of how little I had stowed away.
A rhythm began to form. Adjust the rope. Tend the sail. Bail water. Eat sparingly. Sleep where I fell. Repeat. But it was a fragile rhythm, one that cracked whenever the sea reminded me how small I was.
By the second day, my skin burned raw beneath the sun, every movement dragging fire across my arms and neck. I cursed myself for not covering up better, though there was little cloth to spare. A shirt tied clumsily around my head kept the worst of the glare from my face, but the pain lingered, sharp and constant.
The ropes punished me next. The first time the wind picked up, I fumbled to pull the sail tighter. The line slipped through my palms, tearing skin open, leaving angry red burns that stung for hours. I learned to grip differently, to brace before tugging, to wrap the line around my arm for leverage.
Then hunger came. Dried fish and stale water kept my body alive, but not satisfied. By the third day my stomach growled so loud it felt like another voice on board. I chewed slower, let the salt linger on my tongue, and reminded myself that waste meant death.
The sea punished every mistake, but in each punishment I learned. Jiro's words echoed through me: The sea doesn't forgive. But it teaches.
On the fourth night, clouds gathered low and dark on the horizon. At first they looked harmless, only shadows against the fading light. But by midnight, the wind screamed like a living thing. The sails thrashed, ropes straining until they creaked like bones about to snap.
I scrambled across the slick deck, yanking knots, trying to draw the canvas down before it tore loose. Rain pelted hard enough to sting. Lightning split the sky, throwing the sea into a chaos of foam and spray.
A wave crashed over the side, slamming me against the railing. Water spilled into the ship's belly, rising quick and cold. I seized a bucket and bailed frantically, arms moving on nothing but fear and instinct.
For a moment—one endless, blinding moment—I thought the sea would take me. That the ship would pitch too far, snap under the weight, and drag me down into the black depths where no hand could reach.
But it didn't.
I held on. My hands burned, my arms shook, my throat rasped with curses and prayers I couldn't tell apart.
And then, as sudden as it came, the storm passed. The clouds broke apart, stars blinking through the shredded dark. The waves calmed from rage to restlessness.
I collapsed against the mast, chest heaving, face wet with rain and salt. My whole body trembled. Yet beneath the exhaustion, something sparked—not fear, but a fierce, stubborn exhilaration.
I had survived.
After the storm, silence pressed down harder than before. Days stretched into one another, the ship rocking steady, the sea sighing against its sides. I drifted on an endless road with no signs, no markers.
I spoke aloud just to hear something besides water. Sometimes to myself, sometimes to the ship, as though the patched wood could listen. "Good catch on that wave," I muttered once, patting the railing after narrowly avoiding a swell.
When I laughed at the absurdity of it, the sound startled me—rough, unused, but human.
Nights were the hardest. The stars wheeled vast above me, sharp and cold. I lay curled on the deck, ears straining at every creak, every splash, every groan of timber. The darkness pressed heavy, as if waiting for me to break.
"If I can't handle solitude," I whispered into the salt air, "I'll never last."
On the seventh day, something strange stirred.
The wind shifted, sudden and sharp, and before my eyes even caught it, my hands were already moving to adjust the sail. Another time, I braced for a swell seconds before it crested—not by sight or sound, but by some faint pull in my gut.
Was it instinct? Or something else?
I remembered the Panel. Perception: forty. Not yet fifty. Not enough. And yet… the thought lingered, warm as embers. Maybe the next wall was closer than I thought.
By the tenth day, the blisters on my hands had hardened to callus. The ache in my arms felt less like punishment and more like proof of work done. I no longer fumbled at knots. I climbed the mast without hesitation. I read the sails and the sea with eyes sharpened by necessity.
I was still small before the ocean, a dot against infinity, but I was no longer fragile.
That evening, after rowing through a calm stretch, I leaned on the oars and stared at the horizon. The sun had sunk low, painting the waves in red and gold. The patched sails glowed faintly, taut with borrowed fire.
My whole body ached, but I smiled anyway.
"This ocean," I whispered, voice rough but steady, "it isn't just danger."
The wind stirred, carrying the words away.
"It's freedom."
The sea stretched endless before me. And for the first time since leaving the island, I felt not like a man running from the past, but a man chasing something ahead.
The horizon burned, and I burned with it.
To be continued...