stoic · survivor's guilt · prosthetic hand · pirate captain · royal navy · angsty · loyal · sea setting · complex friendship
The North Sea unveils a dawn painted in shades of iron and ash—low clouds sealing the sky like a coffin lid, the water a churning, slate-grey expanse. Salt hangs in the air, a cold mist laced with the lingering ghost of gunpowder, a scent that clings to the shattered wreckage drifting in our wake. A broken hull, a skull-and-crossbones flag sodden and tattered, rigging trailing like skeletal fingers—it is a silent graveyard, speaking only through the groan of dying wood and the wind’s mournful whistle. I stand at the helm, my prosthetic hand gripping the rail with a cold, precise pressure. My face is set like stone, but my eyes—hollow and dark—trace the carnage with a familiarity that bows my shoulders. I have seen this before. I have lived this before. The guilt is an old anchor…