The twins soon considered the sea crueler than the swamp.
Waves had tossed Elloch and Malek about the makoro for hours and left the brothers exhausted from the fits of vomiting suffered by their stomachs. They had not considered bringing water with them, for it had been easy to forget such a basic need when water filled so many directions. They had not stopped to consider that their journey might stretch more than a few hours. So Elloch and Malek slumped in the makoro and struggled against the temptation to sip at waves of gray water the rolling sea threw against their small craft.
“Does that box tell us how far we still have to go?” Elloch asked for not the first time.
Malek gazed at the floating needle and wondered if those painted notches might have answered his brother’s question if only he knew had to read their meaning. “I didn’t think it would’ve been so far,” Malek sighed. “I can hardly believe our people once travelled so easily, and so far, in these boats. No wonder the outsiders make their boats so massive. They probably don’t even feel the waves rocking them on such large vessels.”
The thought made Elloch hate the outsiders even more. “And I bet they have enough water to last for years on those ships. I could almost catch the attention of one of their boats if they offered me a drink.”
“Be careful what you wish for,” Malek answered as he spotted a pillar of bellowing, gray smoke rising on the sea’s horizon. “You might be granted your wish.”
The twins watched the column of smoke stretch and dissolve into the gray sky. The stacks of one of the outsiders’ massive ships rose on the sea horizon. Elloch and Malek had watched the ships come into their village’s harbor many times, and, like so many of their people, had developed a recognition of the many shapes and sizes that transported the outsiders upon the gray waters. The stacks that rose in their sight belonged to one of the larger classes of vessels, one too large to enter the village’s harbor, so that its crew had to disembark upon smaller craft to reach land. Towering levels of compartments and decks followed the stacks to rise from the waves. The ship’s silhouette expanded, and Elloch and Malek shared a troubled look. The outsiders’ ship, with a great fire at its belly to belch such soot, churned towards their tiny makoro. Though such a distance remained between them, the brothers heard the growl of engines, already smelled its burning fuel, already felt the wake of such a massive ship strike the side of their small craft.
“We better start rowing with our arms if we don’t want that ship to spot us,” Elloch spoke.
Malek ignored the uncertainty of his legs and the rocking of the boat as he leapt upon the steersman’s platform. “I think we’ll be lucky if anyone on that ship sees us at all! Row with your arms!”
“I am brother!”
Elloch plunged his arms into the gray water on either side of the boat. Instantly, he felt the gray water’s toxins burn his skin, and he knew painful rashes would break on his forearms after exposing his epidermis even so briefly to the sea. If left exposed long enough, it would not take much to cause his skin to blister, and then to scar, and then to worsen still in frightening pain.
But the ship approached, rising above the horizon as its shadows fell upon the meager vessel twins brought into the water. Malek released the steersman’s long pole and joined his arms into his brother's effort. They paddled frantically. Yet their makoro hardly moved, and the giant outsider vessel was nearly upon them, the waves cast by the giant ship’s wake tossing the twins up and down as if their craft was nothing more than leaf adrift at sea.
“Down here!” Elloch screamed at the ship as it hulked above them, desperate to be heard over the thrum of the ship’s engines.
Malek cupped his hands to his lips, cringing for the acidic taste that singed his tongue as the gray water trickled into his mouth, and bellowed at the oncoming, iron behemoth. “We’re down here! Take us back to the village! We don’t care! But see us down here! Gather us from the water!”
A massive wave thrown by the large ship struck the makoro at the ship’s keel. The force lifted the craft and tossed it over into the sea, dumping the twins into the foul waters. A cold shock stole their breaths as the water pulled them deeper beneath the surface. The ship’s displacement clutched and hammered them. They lost any sense of up and down. They rolled and gagged on the waters. Their eyes stung and turned blind. Their throats burned.
The outsiders’ gray ship never knew that twins of the local, native village had dared take a makoro into the sea. The ship’s captain could not have seen such a small makoro in the middle of so much water. The outsiders dressed in their gray uniforms never felt the slightest vibration when they rolled over Malek and Elloch.
Elloch felt as if he was on fire as he reached the surface. He twisted about and could hardly believe how far the ship’s waves had taken him from the makoro, which floated upturned in the distance.
“Malek!” Elloch screamed as the outsiders’ ship continued to churn along its course. “Malek!”
Elloch failed to see his brother. A burning pained his legs as he tread water. He shouted for Malek and cursed that the ship’s retreating engines remained so loud. He told himself that the ship’s wake had only tossed Malek in a different direction. He told himself that Malek would soon answer his calling. They would reunite at the makoro; and while their skin might blister from exposure to the foul water, they would continue together towards that once sacred island and find the old medicines that would protect their remaining sisters and brothers from the llungruel’s fever.
But the waters expelled Malek broken and torn. What floated to the surface held enough of Malek’s face to shatter Elloch’s heart. Elloch would not pine upon the shore one future afternoon and wonder if his twin might not one day return to the village after only being separated by the waters. The body that floated to the surface destroyed any doubt, or hope, to as his fate.
Malek had only wished to find a medicine to soothe the llungruel’s fever. The outsiders’ hulking ship swallowed and gnawed his bones no matter the nobility of the intention.
Elloch’s tears helped to dilute the acidic water that stung in his eyes as he swam back to the makoro. The small vessel’s construction proved sturdy and clever, having righted itself after the hulking steamship took its engines and wake further out to sea. Elloch reached the makoro with his skin feeling as if on flame. Hoisting himself into the makoro was painful, but rowing the craft towards his twin’s body and gathering the corpse hurt more. He prayed that Malek’s body would not wake in the night to choke him.
His skin blistered from contact with the water. His eyes itched so he scratched them raw. His tongue swelled and his throat thirsted. His fingertips and toes felt numb. Elloch curled into the boat and cried to sleep, uncaring as to where the waters took him. His soul and body ached. The llungruel’s fever burned him.