Consciousness

SPACE You awaken.

SPACE Your eyes seem to have been glued or sewn shut. A wicked light stuns you as your eyelids flutter open. You attempt to rub the pain from your head and clear your vision. A hard white crust falls from your eyes, mouth, and nostrils into your salty hands. Your tongue seems swollen in your mouth and you are tired. Very tired. And the pain raging in your head staggers you.

SPACE Your memory is dim at best, but you do remember watching the masts of Salty Death sink beneath the choppy waves…and you do remember smiling at the sight. The black flag with grinning skull and crossbones, cradled by the huge violet “V” that stands (stood) for Vertigore, slowly dipping down and disappearing, drowning in the briny deep, just like Vertigore himself…and, hopefully, his crew.

SPACE It is a slow and painful process, but you regain consciousness and fight back the dizzy feeling in your head and stomach. Peering around, you find yourself surrounded by a small atoll. The calm waters lapping up against the sandy shoreline hide the horrors of its dark and stormy potential.
SPACE Facing the ocean, you can see debris floating about the small bay-like area. Seagulls call and cry to you from overhead. There are broken trees along the tropical shoreline, mostly palms. The sun is high overhead and its rays glisten off the ocean current. Its shine causes your head to swim.
SPACE You are taken aback by the beauty of nature. In fact, you almost lose yourself in the gorgeous scenery, basking in the thrill of just being alive. You would have sat down and laughed at the notion of your own existance and the haze that envelopes your recent plight with impending doom and your resulting survival, but for the ache and pain of that very survival.

SPACE You are alive, yes.

SPACE And so might many of the other bodies lying strewn about the beach…