Accursed (AO3)
Follow young Heinrix, imprisoned on a black ship, on a day that continued to haunt him decades later.
Excerpt:
Whimpering noises reached him in his sleep, and still dizzy, he instinctively reached out, softly touching the body beside him.
“It's fine… go back to sleep, Elsbeth”, he whispered, with words faintly blurred by sleep and sluggish tongue; letting his youngest sister know he was there, that it was just another nightmare, and nothing bad could happen to her with him at her side. Usually, that was all it took for her to sink back into slumber again.
But the harsh response - his hand suddenly yanked away and an unexpected voice barking at him - pulled him out of his half-asleep state.
“Don't touch me!”
Immediately, he recoiled, pulling back his hand, and with drowsy eyes, he stared into the dirty, angry face at his side - almost hidden beneath greasy strands of fair hair and barely visible in the dim light. The facial features of an adolescent a few years older than him, not yet a man, but also no longer a child.
“Thank you for waking me, you piece of Grink-shit!”
Heinrix instantly winced, his face twisting into a brief grimace as Aldrin's words struck him with a cruel, intentional reminder of the day he had lost everything.
Not that it ever left his mind - the knowledge that he was a murderer.
Accursed.
A monster.
That he deserved what was coming to him, just like everyone had said.