Prologue: Quixotic Purpose

If someone were to save us...
Would we still be meaningless?
If someone spoke to us...
Would we become relevant?
If someone thought of us—
Would we truly exist?

Those soft, viridescent, moldy wood panels surrounded us.
A sorrowful morning dew clung to each petal—
Each stone brick encasing us—
And that soft coastline breeze...
Everything was connected.
Intertwined.

It was our womb.
Our date of birth.

My brother cried beside me that night—
though I don’t know if he remembers.
We were born without names.
Without hands to hold.

Mother and father…
never had a face—
never had a name.
Their bodies... a blur in memory.

But I’ll never forget it—
our reckoning.
The once-peaceful shore—
how it was broken.

— ⊹⊹⊹ —

First, there was caution.
People gathered along the shore—
Each one with their own presumptions.

Some imagined greatness.
Others… didn’t think much of it.
And a few—just a few—thought poorly of it.

Our town was poor.
A little village pressed against the coastline,
Landlocked by a deep, evergreen forest.

We were a peaceful people.
A grateful unknown.

It would be foolish to think
anybody would—

Gleefully.
Shove a stake down our throats.
Tear out our grotesque organs.
Wrap them around each other...

To get perverse.
To grope us.
To lick our virgin bodies one by one.

...

But before that...
Maybe it was the fog—
The fog that blinded our minds.

As that single ship drew closer,
It stirred something.
Arguing.
Controversy.
Paranoia.

No one could say for sure
if that ship carried good intentions.

Outside my portrait window,
it was only a whisper—
Hopes and dreams,
manifested in the shape of a mast.

“My son... he’s finally back home.”
A mother—her son, a marine, gone to war.

“Daddy... you’re finally back home.”
A daughter—her father, a fisherman, lost to adventure.

“That’s my mother... she’s finally back home.”
A son—his mother, a scholar, vanished into the city.

— ⊹⊹⊹ —

But then...

As the minutes pass—
The bowsprit cleaves through the fog,
Becoming visible.

The bow of the ship
slices through the sea—
sharp, deliberate, hungry.

And the foremast...
Hoisting a tattered flag,
Skull and bones embroidered in ash-white thread—
It resembles it:

Death.

The elderly—
with their frail legs...
These veterans, they stand:
Accepting.
Understanding.

The middle-aged—
with their strong legs...
They run,
But refuse to grab hold of the elderly.
And the ones that do—
Never tell the tale.

The kids, the teens—
with the strongest legs...
They run,
But run without meaning.
Their minds don’t know where to go.
They cry to their lost parents:
"Mama... Papa... where are you?"

In what felt like a second—

They sprang from the ship.
Men.
Strangers.
Dripping in treasures of victory.
Rings. Bracelets. Necklaces—
Gold, silver, bronze...
It didn’t matter.

We questioned their motives.
And the city officials—
The few who didn’t run, who didn’t hide—
Stepped forward, trembling.
They shouted:

“If it’s gold you want—money!
We don’t have any!
But we have food!
Do you want food?”

From where I lay nested,
I heard the hyenas laugh.
Their belt buckles struggled to keep it together—
Pressed under the weight of cutlasses, holsters, and bloated bellies.

One man—presumably the captain—smirked:
“Food? Do we look hungry?”
He slapped his gut with a loud thud.
“No... we’re here for women!”

And before...
Before we could say a thing—
They dropped down—
Rope, cutlass, pistol in hand.

Ripping the heads off the men,
Mounting them on stakes,
Crucifying the martyrs who stood against them.

Their path was flame—
Each house burning,
Whether someone was in them... or not.

And it’s that screeching that followed them—
That bleeds into my memory...

A path of terror,
A melody of abuse to females,
It eats at my soul—
And leaves it empty.
Leaves me empty.

My parents... those people...
Never returned to the house.
To our cribs.

— ⊹⊹⊹ —

A few moons later,
Our starving, malnourished bodies called out to them:
This decrepit group of bandits—
Self-proclaimed as pirates—
They salvaged us.

But it confuses me:
They aren’t like them.
Their eyes aren’t like them.
They’re less predatory.
Less fake. Rat-like.
But still, they use us—
Not as humans, but as tools.

It gives purpose to my arms,
But my body is still useless.
My mind...
My voice...
I never use them.

— ⊹⊹⊹ —

They were ragged.
Their cutlasses—broken.
Their lives—barely clinging to purpose.

But somehow,
It impressed me:
That they had one.

A purpose.

Aboard the ship, I stare at the stars while they sleep.
Each splash against the hull—a gentle reminder.
The sea salt scent… it calms me.

Above me, the dark heaven stretches—
A canvas marred by soft blemishes.
It makes me question.
Makes me wonder.
I become fascinated.

But it’s ambiguous, the sky—
It reaches into me.
And I am so small.
So insignificant.

I only stare.
My dry eyes absorb nothing but motion—
Just the ghost of my own mechanical movements.

But while it’s ambiguous,
It shows me my future.
Brilliant. Vast.
Yet distant and unreachable.

So big,
Yet just as hollow.

I believe...
I hope I have a meaning.

They say God placed them there.
That thought only stings.
It’s irony—
Because I’ve been placed here too—
On this ship,
In this space:

Meant to be a star.
A placeholder.
A dim light—
Meant to shine for someone else’s future.

But I don’t glow.
I flicker.
I fade.

...

And still, I look up.

Because even if I was placed here by accident,
Maybe that accident means something.

But for something as artificial as me…
I want a purpose.

— ⊹⊹⊹ —

He stands there, perched above the rest.
A man so divine—
A single man led by the same quixotic thoughts.

In him, I see a parallel—
The closest thing to a living version of myself.
Almost stronger than my brother.
My...

A thought stirs in my mind,
But it never quite reaches out.

It was that moment—
Back on that cursed, abandoned island—
When he brought us into existence.

In us, he saw something;
However small,
However hollow—
He saw purpose.

He saw us,
And we saw him.

First, he looked at me.
“Calder,” he said.

Then he turned to my brother.
“Silas.”

— ⊹⊹⊹ —

Dawn approaches—our cue to clean.
That is our meaning on this ship,
This ship that feels more... motherlike.
A question for tomorrow.

Our routine:
We gather our supplies.
In my hands: a brush and a bucket of water.
Silas takes the upper deck, I take the lower.
We start scrubbing.

Yet, as I scrub the deck, a man approaches.
Then it lands—like poison against a mannequin—spit.

A stab to my empty husk.

Yet it hurts—
Damaging something I never thought I had:
An ego.

I don’t understand it,
So I ignore it—to build an artificial refuge.

— ⊹⊹⊹ —

Preparing to submerge myself in the cosmos again,
I check on Silas.

But Silas isn’t in bed.

It reminds me—
He’s been quiet.
Quieter than usual.

Our conversations have changed.
His eyes don’t meet mine anymore.
And when they do,
It’s with pity.
Or maybe... mercy?

I worry for him.
The others mock him.
Laugh when he’s near.

He’s always had a short temper—
But now, even that feels... hollow.

I’ve watched him.
I’ve wanted to speak.
But my voice drowns in thoughts I don’t want to confront.

I never asked why.

Maybe I was afraid to know.

Maybe...
I was afraid of change.