The Sea That Lays Claim

"You are nothing but a parasite!"

All Maria Javier could do was lay helpless on the ship's floor as her mother Juanita repeatedly kicked her stomach with her steel boot. 

She opened her mouth to say something, but a kick on her face turned her words to a gasp of pain. 

"You filthy, filthy, human!" Juanita yelled, she was now targeting her chest while shouting obscenities at Maria. "I should have aborted you when I had a chance! You took my life!" 

And so the pain continues. 

Maria could do nothing but endure the pain and hope that she will be bored. This has been her life. The constant beatings. It was normal for her. Well, not really. 

She was not treated like this before. She was loved. But, when her father passed, things turned dark. 

It was the darkest that she was in her mother. The side that her mother always hid. An emotion that she dared not to show the world.

Juanita's hatred for her daughter, Maria. 

Maria felt a sharp pain on her scalp, followed by a yank upward. "Who told you to close your eyes, worm?" 

She flinched and did her best to open her eyes. Maria had to blink several times to see her mother in the dim light of dawn. 

Her mom was beautiful. Even though Maria was being beaten to death almost everyday, she can't muster any sense of anger to her.

She was, in fact, feeling sorry for her. 

They share the same features. A deep set of almond-shaped, hazel eyes, fair skin, that looked like it never get sunburned. Long black hair that shimmers as if it had its own life. Red lips and a cute nose. 

Their only difference was their body type. Her mother had a world-renowned model—the size zero type, while Maria was the opposite. 

She was on the plump side. Her hips were wider, and her chest was bountiful. Maria began to wear looser clothes when she noticed how men in their company suddenly paid attention to her. 

The leers she got and the catcalling became too much. So she hid. 

But it seems like it was not enough. 

Maria's mother dragged her on the floor, only to stop at the end of the deck. Her mother might look like a lightweight, but the force she was using on her daughter told the people watching something different. 

The young woman was doing her best to crawl away from her kicks, they could hear the cries that Maria had tried to suppress. 

Her father's long-time bodyguard could only flinch, unable to help the little girl he had protected for so many years. 

"Please," Maria pleaded, in a coarse voice, "Mother, no more." She looks at her mother, tears streaming down her battered face. Her lower lip was bleeding, and it looked like some of her teeth were loosened. 

Juanita only let out a devilish laugh and gave one power kick at Maria's abdomen causing her to scream in pain. Blood began to bloom between her legs as the young woman began to bleed. 

"I was right," the mother said, a smirk on her face. "You are nothing but a --" 

"I think you have done enough damage for a day, darling," a man suddenly said. "You have already proven what she had done, don't you think it is time to end this game?"

Maria could only let out a gasp of pain as she looked at the man standing behind her mother. 

No, it can't be, she thought, but her heart shattered when the two shared a passionate kiss. He never kissed me like that…

When their lips parted, the man gave a signal, prompting two men to step forward in front of her. She looked at his men. 

They were the same bodyguard that had groped her a month before her hell started, now that she was helpless, all she could do was surrender and hope that she would survive. 

Maria heard her clothes being torn from her body, she was expecting rough hands to touch her, but there were none. What she did feel was she was being pushed further to the railing of the boat.  

"How can you bed this filth?" she heard her mother ask the man Maria thought loved her. "Look at her! She is bleeding all over the ship, get rid of her."

In the next instant, the cold water of the Pacific greeted her almost bare body. Maria never knew how to swim, and when her body registered that she was drowning, she struggled to stay afloat. 

But the multiple injuries she got, plus the broken bones that never healed properly made it impossible for her to stay afloat. Add the fact that she was also bleeding, Maria finally gave in.

With her eyes wide open, she smiled. Who would have thought that the sunshine would look beautiful underneath the ocean? 

The cool water soothed Maria's broken body, it also helped lessen the blood flowing out of her body. 

The sharp laugh of her mother cuts through the water. Her hand clenched into a fist as she was slowly claimed by the dark depths of the ocean. 

If fate would give her another chance, she would definitely get her revenge. 

Then again, Maria believed in karma. She would be the one to deliver her revenge.

Maria's mind was suddenly filled with an image of a man she had only seen once. 

Sun-kissed skin, with a dashing smile, and obsidian colored eyes that made her numb body shiver. The way those eyes looked at her so long ago stayed with her. The way he touched her that evening became an imprint she could not forget.

Maria's body was slowly shutting down. As her body took in water, her ability to circulate blood eased and she began to sink. One last plea escaped her dying form. 

"Take me to him…"

A plea that she knew would be impossible to happen. No matter how much she wanted to be with the man who filled her thoughts on her last breath, it will never happen. 

He was a dream. A distant dream. A dream that would never come true. 

As Maria's body sink, a bright light enveloped her. In a flash, the only trace of Maria Jaier was an anklet that her father left, it fell on the ocean floor, twinkling. A vivid reminder of a vibrant woman's life.