Hell Ship

BOOK 8
Jak/Explorer

This place terrifies me.

You made that comment sixty years ago.

It’s been a long wait.

Our patience will be rewarded.

When?

Soon. I hope it will be soon.

Sharrock

They came to mock me.

A female and a male; bipeds both, of my approximate height. The male, I guessed, was the leader. For he stood with arrogant confidence and stared at me with cruelty; and fire spat from his fingertips. Whereas she-well. An evil bitch without a doubt, for she took the deepest joy in witnessing my downfall, and stared at me with old eyes that were full of lust; a lust for pain.

I am in a room somewhere on the ship, I know not where. For I fell into a dreamless sleep and when I awoke I was no longer tied to a stake near the lake, I was terrifyingly elsewhere. Grey walls surrounded me. I could hear nothing of the rest of the ship; my room was bare apart from the magnetic plate on the ceiling, from which they had dangled me by the metal shackles on my wrists.

After I had been left hanging like this for several days, some Kindred arrived with knives. They taunted me, though I could not understand their words, then they flayed my skin off me a piece at a time. They left me raw and bleeding, a glistening body of bare muscle and exposed ligaments and bulging eyes.

The pain was intense, worse than anything I had ever known before; and I assumed I was going to die.

But I am not dead. And my skin is already starting to grow back. My guess is that once I am restored and whole, they will flay me, one piece at a time, all over again.

Water from the ceiling bathes me constantly; I assume this is water from the well of life and it is helping to keep me alive despite my appalling injuries and my lack of covering skin. The aim I suppose is to torture me for all eternity.

Let them.

For the pain-Ah! The pain!

Cling to that Sharrock. Cling to the pain!

You are not defeated. Not yet. Not defeated.

Never defeated!

The pain is my ally, not my enemy.

Embrace the pain, Sharrock! For while I feel pain that rends the soul and rips every nerve ending and fills my head with an agonising howl I know I am

Still alive.

I wondered a great deal about those two who came to mock me, just a few days after the Kindred had done their vile work. For I knew them to be Ka’un. They were dressed in rich robes in a style I did not recognise. Their faces were black and withered. Their eyes stared as if they were looking across to the other end of the universe. Their features were entirely expressionless. Was that a consequence of great age?

How old are these godsforsaken monsters anyway? And why do they do what they do. Boredom?

Perhaps, I speculate, age corrodes the emotions. Perhaps the smaller emotions like irritation and amusement and delight rot away, and all that are left are the huge and richly coloured emotions: like hate, and rage. That might explain why these creatures do what they do.

The male had stared at me for a long time before departing, as if studying me. Why? Had he never seen a flayed warrior before?

I lose consciousness from time to time and I know that this is the prelude to death; but each time the healing sprays revive me.

It is Day the First on the interior world; I know that for certain, for I keep a mental tally. Today Sai-ias will be exploring her world.

I try to-Ah! Agonising blinding pain! Embrace it, Sharrock! Embrace it!

I wonder about what Sai-ias is feeling and doing. Right now. Perhaps she is swimming in the lake?

And perhaps Lirilla is singing as she hovers in the air, her tiny wings beating?

And perhaps Fray is galloping on the savannah; while Quipu bickers with himselves?

And perhaps Sai-ias can feel the sunshine on her moist black hide?

Perhaps.