As they were denied the light of heaven, their eyes got opened to the wonders of another world that was not quite hell nor limbo. It was a realm of glabrous flesh, glistening scales, salt and blood and seaweed and crushing bulk of water beneath and above them, in their lungs, everywhere, and they’ve seen things that would make a layman’s wit abandon him and repeal every biblical truth or fairytale lie. Terrors came to life and dreams died one day and swapped their roles the next, planting fear in one’s gut with bottomless maws of ocean monsters and beckoning with golden sheen of treasures, yet the cursed crew had no desire nor fear for either. Corrupted by sorrow and despair like a hull of a ship is eaten by a shipworm, they lived the fate worse than that of a wandering soul, for the pain of flesh still plagued them, their bones whined and creaked, their chests heaved with strain, their eyes grew far-sighted from seeing naught by the distant line of horizon and their tongues craved the forgotten taste of earthly food. They have traded a place in afterlife for eternal deprivation, but oh, have they seen a lot!
The oldest among them, the captain and the first mate, had been granted glimpses of the most, and they watched legends living, moving, breathing. Had their memory not been honed edgeless like a stone on the seashore, they would have the right to say they’ve seen leviathan himself, yet he was not a material beast but rather the essence of the ocean itself, too vast and omnipresent to be understood to its innermost depth. But mermaids, mermaids were not a wonder after everything they’ve been made witnesses to. Merely another unholy folk in the infinite realm of calypso, they could only surprise a green youth or a landlubber who’s just made his first step upon a deck. Maccus saw no semblance of his kin in them, although they too preyed on the bodies of men and bore a mixture of traits of Adam and Eve’s descendants and sea life.
They sought no songs nor trophies when the dutchman had sailed into the waters of the Whitecap Bay, but a tool, akin to the kraken’s hammer that made a call to the most feared beast of the Caribbean, to bring down vessels and harvest souls in numbers even greater than before, for the Dutchman was quick to devour minds and needed new hands at all times.
With a few dubious blessings brought upon them along with the curse, they made a worthy opponent for the predatory fishmaidens, their lungs devoid of the need in air and their eyesight as clear underwater as it would be on land, they glided along with the cold flows with speed and grace to match those of mermaids, stretching a chain of nets across the bay, cutting off a part of the school from the way to escape. The beasties ate and sliced through the threads, clawed at the hideous faces of the captors, slithered out of their grip, but the culling went on and on with sloppiness of a capricious extirpation a child might bring down upon a puddleful of pollywogs. they needed just one.
Her tail was impaled on a harpoon and she was dragged to a boat on a rope, suspended by a slew of strong, cruel hands, as slippery as her own skin. Having reeled a chain round her form, the men of the dutchman secured an iron collar on her throat and in a choir of hooting and victorious yelps delivered her onto the top deck of the ship. still ridden with men lacking experience in the wonders of the sea, the crowed gawked and hummed amongst themselves as the wounded tail morphed into a pair of bare legs, and the men stripped of any pleasure were blinded by the sight of a naked woman that showed no difference between herself and a sentient creature of god that walked the earth on two feet. Someone’s hand darted forward to cover her mouth, fearing the power of the famed syren voice, yet the first mate kneeled and pushed it away, pressing a blade of his ax to the pale throat of their captive.
“We’ll do ye no harm if ye don’t try to fight.”
