Chapter 3

How had he come to this? He didn't remember choosing this tiny raft, or how he had even gotten to the sea. Did he even like the water? How then did he get to this hopeless place? He rolled over on to his hands and knees and looked to the horizon. The blue of the water met the blue of the sky in an almost indiscernable line that seemed a thousand miles away.

As he looked out across the expanse of water seeking answers to his questions, the overwhelming weight of his life crushed in around him. He shoulders stooped even lower and his breath caught in his lungs. What did it matter how he got here? It only mattered that here is where he was, and where he would stay. Hope was pain.

He looked down at his hands displayed underneath him against the wet wood. His hands that had once brought him so much joy, creativity and expression, now were bloody and broken, like the rest of him. He brought a trembling hand up in front of his face. He stared at the shaking fingers, once so delicate, now bruised and shrunken from lack of food and water. His hand disgusted him. It was useless, a hand not talented enough to make him smile, not passionate enough to tell his story, and not strong enough to save him from this hell.

His lips turned to a scowl as he slowly and painfully bent his fingers into a raw fist. With all of the strength he had left, a strength that betrayed his weary condition, he brought his fist down and struck the wood beneath him. The skin of his knuckles scraped off on the dense wood, and he felt an echo of pain stab through his mind. No sooner had the blow landed on his raft with a dull thud, then he brought it down again...and again. With each strike his body rose up higher, gaining strength from his rage. Soon both fists pounded into the wood, sending out a dismal rhythm into the air.

He barely noticed the red stain beginning to form on the wood under the torrent of his fists. He wondered if it was his blood, or the blood of whatever demon held him trapped here. The man slowly started to realize the pain that was creeping into his subconscious. Something, somewhere in his brain was telling him to stop, that he was hurt, but it was too far, too deep to hear.

He struck the wood and heard, rather then felt, a loud crack come from his wrist. With a loud cry he collapsed into a heap on the bloody wood. With his good hand he felt his wrist, already knowing that it was broken. It was then he heard a sound traveling over the waves. A sound he didn't recognize. He strained his ears to hear it, wondering where it came from. He tried to raise himself up off the wood to listen, but as soon as he put weight on his injured hand he collapsed again in a fit of pain. It was then that he realized the sound he heard came from him. His anguished cries dissipated into the air, and the nearly inhuman howls of misery were soon lost to the neverending blue around him.