El Timonel

"Fear not those sea beasts, my prince charming, the princess is to the rescue!" She yelled a childish voice on the deck.

"I died…" Paulo murmured without hesitation, hearing the voice on the deck.

"Without pain, without feeling anything, so peacefully?"

But no one answered, only the sounds of a girl playing could be heard from the deck.

"This is the spirit world? It feels the same as the real one..." Paulo muttered calmly.

Paulo looked around, everything was the same, so he stopped and looked inside the cabins.

Lucas looked at him from his net, it seems that his murmur had woken him up.

"Are you dead too, Lucas?" Paulo asked, trying to understand what was happening.

But the boy did not respond, he only looked at him with fear and tears began to stain his face.

The boy stood up and walked to the middle of the room towards the door where Paulo was.

He walked very slowly, until he was next to her, his face was staring at her face as if he wanted to imprint an image on his heart.

The boy began to move his mouth, but no words came out.

"Who is Lucas, you evil sea beast, there is no Lucas on board this ship…" Said the childish voice from above.

Paulo calmly turned to look upstairs, but he couldn't see the person who pronounced those words. Se turned to see Lucas again to ask him what had happened.

But the cabin boy was no longer in the cabins. Paulo got scared and went into the cabins to look for Lucas, but no matter how hard he looked, he couldn't find anyone.

"It seems that only I died... Better this way, if they only have to sacrifice one per day, they will manage to get out of these waters" Said the helmsman with a peaceful smile on his face.

The childish voice from above didn't speak any further, there just seemed to be someone running around the deck.

Paulo got tired of searching and went to the source of the noise, he didn't care to watch the door of the cabins, he was already dead, now he just wanted to meet the people upstairs.

When he was leaving, he could see a girl about 8-12 years old playing happily on the edge of the boat, when her eyes met, the girl got scared, slipped and fell into the water.

*Splash*...

"Fatima!!" The helmsman yelled at the top of his lungs, completely forgetting that he was dead.

Paulo grabbed the life preserver and ran with all the strength that his old body could offer towards the end of the boat, where someone could be heard trying to swim. On the way he tripped over a rope and his face smashed squarely on the ground, blood came out of his nose and he cursed the sailor who had laid the rope.

Regardless of the hit. He lifted the old body from him and continued to run desperately.

Arriving and looking down, he noticed the girl waving her arms violently, trying not to drown in the water.

"Hold it!!" Paulo yelled, throwing the life preserver overboard.

The girl held onto the life preserver tightly. Her drenched face and rapid breathing scared the helmsman, but what scared him most was the look of hatred and rage in the girl's eyes.

"What's up sea beast, are you coming to get me too?!" The girl yelled at him, somewhat scared.

"Fatima, it's me, Paulo!" The helmsman replied, somewhat shocked by the girl's words.

"I remember that name, but not who you are!!" The girl yelled, as she struggled to keep her hands from letting go of the life preserver.

"I'm your father, Fatima!!" The helmsman yelled as tears began to flow down her face.

"Don't you remember me?..."

"Of course I remember you beast, I will never forget that you kidnapped my prince!!" the girl yelled.

"I never kidnapped anyone, Fatima!! I'm your father, not a sea beast! Remember when we used to go on adventures from island to island, trying to find treasures together!"

"Of course I remember, of course I remember you dad, and I'll never forget those islands…" The girl said as she burst into tears.

Seeing that her daughter finally recognized him, a fatherly smile appeared on the helmsman's face, "don't cry, my daughter..." The helmsman said, trying to make sure his daughter wouldn't cry because of her death, but was interrupted by the cries of the girl.

"As I'm going to forget them, dad, I could never forget them..." The girl said crying even harder.

"You're the one who doesn't remember them!! You forgot about them and what really happened in them"

When Paulo heard that, he tried to remember with all his might, but only happy moments from those islands came to his mind.

Noticing that Paulo's silence lengthened, the girl gradually decreased her crying and her gaze became colder.

"He doesn't remember…" Fatima muttered under her breath, as her eyes gradually lost their sparkle, as if the last trace of hope in her had been extinguished.

"I remember the sacrifice, but it wasn't on the islands!" The helmsman shouted desperately, seeing the empty eyes on his daughter's face.

Deep in his heart, he didn't want to bring this up, but he had to stop running from this mistake and if she couldn't do it in life, it would be in death.

"But I had no control over my body, the church was using me, I had no choice!"

"I could never do anything bad to you..."

"During the whole ritual, I was always crying, but those church bastards controlled me like a puppet..."

"Only when I raised the dagger and saw your body on the table... I was able to free myself for a few seconds to hold us together before losing control again... and he will sacrifice you"

"Fatima, do you remember what you said to me while you were hugging me?..." Paulo asked, with some happiness at being able to get rid of that weight in the spiritual world.

The girl didn't answer, her eyes were increasingly empty, she didn't even look at Paulo anymore, she only looked at his arms holding the life preserver, hesitating to let go of them.

"...there were no trees on the island... There were no animals on the island... there was only sand and a puddle of water... The island was not very big" Said the girl, while her head was hidden between the arms holding the life preserver, staring into the water, as if afraid that the person above would see his face.

"I had to find a treasure... In order to get off the island..."

"The hunger began to hit me... I begged you to take me out... You just looked from the boat... As if it was the great show of your life... Seeing your empty eyes looking at the island I knew that if I didn't find the treasure, was dead"

"I didn't want to die... So while hunger hit me, I dug all over the island... Since there was nothing to dig with, I could only use my hands... From the boat, you watched how I was losing all my fingernails and my hands were tearing apart... But you just had a smile on your face as everything was going according to plan"

"Days went by... My hands had stopped feeling them a long time ago, and my body almost didn't respond to me... I remember that you were getting more and more nervous, you feared that I wouldn't be able to find the treasure... but when all the ribs of my body could be seen from the boat... A big smile formed on your face"

"Because I had found the treasure... In front of me was a beautiful box... Decorated with a beautiful set of precious stones forming a sun and a moon at both ends... Like the days I spent on that desert island... With all the enthusiasm in the world, I opened the box..."

"But inside there was only sand... I looked at you with the last trace of faith I had for you, dad... And you also saw me with a big smile on your face... I had made it, I had found the treasure... But you kept looking at me expectantly, as if there was a final step"

"I understood, the box wasn't empty... The real treasure was buried inside it... With desperation and illusion, I began to take the sand out of the box... But there was only a rusty weapon inside... I looked at you with hope for the last time. .. I really thought that gun was the treasure... But the minutes passed to become hours and the hours to days and the days to weeks... but you only watched from the island more and more nervous ..."

"Interestingly, the treasure, if I manage to get it off the island..." The girl said, raising her head to look at her father, but the tears running down her drenched face were not normal, they were bluish like the ocean.

"It doesn't matter if you managed to remember or not, how I died, dad..."

"I only ask you to remember how Maria died" Said the girl, releasing her hands from the life preserver.

The girl slowly sank into the ocean, not fighting for her life.

Paulo watched in silence as the girl's body was swallowed by the darkness of the ocean.

When nothing could be seen, she stood on the edge of the ship and threw herself from the deck.