Shipwrecked

TW: suicide

"Abandon ship!" Oskar heard his brother shout. His voice vibrated. His eyes focused on Oskar, panicking. Why panic?

A pressure wave hurled the young sailor overboard. The fire tugged at his clothes, the flames engulfed his skin. Wood, glass, wreckage shot through the air. The pain rendered him unconscious before the ocean could snatch him up. It rained ashes. Smoke singed his lungs, then the water drowned him. It crushed him, pressed against his chest. The throbbing in his head was louder than the dull shots above him. The darkness beneath him locked him in and closed out the ablaze night.

That can’t be it. Shit, no.

Oskar commanded his arms to swim, he ordered his eyes to open, but the black mist, the pain, the cold were impenetrable. Where am I? Wolfgang. Where am I?

The sea reached for the young sailor, who had entered the service of his admiral only a few weeks ago. It had been an honor to serve his country and to finally fill his family with pride, an honor to stand at his brother's side. He had had no idea that it would end like that. They had circled the enemy near the coast, outnumbered. No one had expected them to attack the fleet from behind and at night. Nobody had seen them coming. But suddenly the sound of detonations had reverberated through the air. The enemy was all around, no escape.

The sea reached for the young sailor and pushed him towards the shore. The waves turned over and broke here. Icy air plunged into his bare skin like a knife.

Oskar opened his eyes. The first breath hurt. Reflexively his muscles contracted until he finally threw up in the sand. Warm saltwater ran down his arms covered in blisters. His fingers clawed into the ground to stifle the tremor that came over his body. Tears streaming down his soot-smeared cheeks, he retched until energy left him again. His arms could no longer carry him. His face landed in vomit, the waves still thirsting for his burnt, pathetic figure.

Here he lay and was forced to witness the massacre. The horror was reflected in his wavering eyes. The lights flashed over him, flaring high into the sky. But the ships were too far away and shrouded in thick clouds of smoke. He could not see which of them were sailing under the crossed flag. He probably did not want to know.

Cannons fired. Men were screaming. A mast tilted menacingly and crashed into the sea with a deafening crack.

Oskar was watching a sea of flames, nothing but devastation and death. He wanted to go home, walk into his mother’s arms, as the sand in his open wounds formed bloody lumps. He wanted to feel his girl's kiss one last time on his torn lips. But he was alone with his crying and lamenting. He felt only the rough sand and the wet strips of clothing that fused with his coaled skin. He wished Wolfgang were here. Wolfgang, where am I?

The tide swelled and carried a shadow. Something touched his leg, weighing up and down on the waves. The silhouette of a human drifted just a few meters from Oskar under the surface of the water.

Oskar blinked the sand out of his eyes. Suddenly adrenaline was rushing through his body, giving him the strength to lift his head.

"Shit."

It was the spark of hope that took a hold of him, that arouse the wild thought, that together they could make it; that forced him to get up on his knees and crawl over to the shadow. He grabbed the man’s arm and pulled him ashore as far as possible. The fire had disfigured him to the point of being unrecognizable.

"Shit, man." The sight stabbed him in the pit of his stomach. But Oskar did not care.

He pressed the heels of his hands into the man's chest. There was no heartbeat, no resistance. With a disgusting sound, he squeezed the charred meat into the broken ribs. There was no breath, yet he shared his oxygen with the dead man like a lunatic. There was no life he could have saved. But he kept pumping. If he gave up, they would have both been lost.

"We’ll stand through this." Oskar was convinced that together they still had a chance. He did not accept that the man did not open his eyes. He did not take that the man did not want to get up. He did not want to believe that all of this had been huge mistake. This mistake to believe that he had the slightest chance of surviving here and bringing honor home to his family; to make his brother proud. Wolfgang, where are you?

"Don't leave me alone here! Get up, asshole!" he yelled at the dead man, who didn't react.

War, this was war. Not the heroic battle he had imagined. Suffering was the reality. Mercilessly. Fear of death filled his every vein. There is no honor in this.

Finally, he let go of the man, trembling with exhaustion, falling back into the sand. The man's blood was glued to his hands.

"Leave. I have to leave here!" Oskar rose, and stumbled. His legs refused orders. He collapsed over the corpse, sobbing and coughing water from mouth and nose. A black claw clasped his heart, pressing and squeezing it.

I can't let it end like that.

They would find Oskar, the enemy. They would find him here and put him in chains. They would starve him, torture him, until eventually he begged for the pyre.

I never wanted it to end like this.

The sailor rose one last time, trembling, corpse pale. He turned his back on the battlefield and directed his gaze up to the sky with a raised weapon. Only the light of few stars sparkled through the cloud of smoke. None of these spirits came to put him out of his misery, to save him from the inevitable. Wolfgang could not make the decision for him this time. Only the certainty that he would be waiting for him with the other spirits and providing a place next to him gave him courage.

He had to take this last step himself.

The shot blended with many, hardly differing from dozens of others not far from the shore.

See you soon.