User blog:BacaloV/Somewhere Beyond The Sea (Chapter 1)

Chapter 1

The sun hung in the cloudless afternoon sky like the forgotten lantern of a ditzy giant, her only purpose in bathing me, the sea and the beach in a blazing, unforgiving light. I looked down to evade my eyes from the pain, only to get blinded from below, where the white, here and there with pink corals specked, endless sand reflected the sunlight like a dusty mirror.

I thought about the stories that some people would go blind from the light reflected on snow in the northern mountains and asked myself if something like "sand-blindness" had yet to be  discovered. Choosing the least painful direction to set my sight at, I directed my eyes onto the far horizont, which laid at the end of this sheer endless stripe of white, hot sand. It laid before me like a large, empty road, marking the border between the rocky, sparse land, and the ocean, which dispended its army of waves against the beach, creating a constant, somehow soothing background noise of  murmur. This constant noise is often disturbing for those which are not used to it, but the moments were I actually notice it are as rare as the before mentioned outsiders, since I`ve been spending my whole life near the ocean.

Despite me being most of my time outside, my skin has always been pale like the belly of fish, and even the slightest contact with direct sunlight is causing me a painful sunburn, dying my skin in a bright red that would make any cancer jealous. Forced to wear clothes that cover the whole body, the sweat ran from my forehead into my eyes, from my chest into my pants and from my legs into my shoes, where the sweat from my feet is merrily awaiting it. Of course this kind of situation is a given if you live at the southern ocean, but my present-day occupation took the uncomfort to a new level.

The fire in the lighthouse needed a fresh supply of oil, and and it`s my job as the lighthouse keeper to buy and transport the oil from the village to the actual lighthouse, which was a walk of an hour by foot, but turned into nearly the double amount of time, if you`re forced to drag a sled, loaded with two barrels full of oil  in back of yourself. I sighed an gripped tighter in the ropes trying to make sled move again, an effort that turned out to be completely fruitless.

Apparently the weight of the barrels caused the sled to sink into the sand in regular intervalls. Having no other means but to dig it out again, I kneeled down and began do shovel the hot sand away with my bare hands. Noticing that this was already the fourth time I did this, I cursed sleds, sand and my ancestors, who where apparently inable to build a lighthouse somewhere where it could be reached by dray and not so far off from any civililzation that the oil-merchant asked me if it even existed in the first place. When I had dug the sled out, my hands felt like I had held over a hot oven, but luckily the rest of the way turned out to be free fom any kinds of hindrances.

With the sound of the wooden barrel banging on the wooden door of the lighthouse, this uncomfortable journey of mine came to an end. I rummaged about after my key, and opened the door, dragging the two barrels into the soothing chilliness of my home. I couldn`t bring myself to drag it all the way to the top, and stored it for the time being aside the pile of worn out nets, baskets and other stuff that wasn`t exactly broken but also not in a shape anyone would consider as "good".

I climbed the stairs to the first floor, opened the door and entered the room. Given the large, round shape of the lighthouse, which was built to restist the heavy typhoons and large waves of the storm season, the room seemed a bit empty, nearly lonely. It contained my bed with the often patched sheet, a chest with a variety of tools and cabinet to store my clothes. Additionally I had carried a small oven up here to cook water or to heat the room.

The rest of the room looked even emptier with the three large windows, allowing the fading light of the afternoon to fall into it. I grabbed my fishing gear from the chest, what caused a cloud of dust to rise, since I would usually just buy something to eat, but thanks to buying  the oil I had no mony left over. I left the room, went down the stairs and  unlocked the backdoor, which opened to the small landing stage that reached into the sea.

The stage was built along with the lighthouse, but has been repaired countless times since then, which was owned to the waves, storms and the young boys of the village. In an attempt to impress their female counterparts they would sneak near the lighthouse at night, and remove one of the planks with more or less subtlety.I had no intention of stopping them, since the eldest of the village paid for most of my expenses, except for the oil. I discussed with them the benefits of an oil-fueled lantern compared to the old, big fire, but they only agreed to pay the lantern, not the oil.

As I walked over the creaking planks something in the corner of my eye caught my sight. The setting sun was right in front of me, at the horizon of the ocean, bathing the world in a comforting, red light, that was far from the unforgiving, white world of heat this afternoon. Where the water reached the land, right under the landing stage, a strange object reflected the fading light.

No, reflecting didn`t describe it right, it was more like it caught the light, and glew and flashed, according to the movements of the ocean. I walked closer and as I kneeled down, I saw, that resembled the fish of a fin. It was slightly transparent with a  glim of pink, but it lacked the typical sharp shape of the fast swimming fishes in this partof the world. It had a far more rounder shape, almost like this iconic drawings of the human heart, and grew out from reddish-pink tail, which owner seemed to be hidden underneath the stage.

Considering their size, with a width as my outstreched arm, the rest of the fish must be at least two or two and a half meters long. I sat down and thought what to do. Surely it was a big catch, but I had no knowledge of fishes this big in this part of the ocean, which meant its must come form further away, making its edibility questionable at best. I also had not enough salt at home to conservate it, or the gadgetry to smoke it, and it would probably begin to rot until I had reached the market in the village.

I took another look and suddenly questioned myself it was even dead. According to the stories of some sailors there were predators who pretended to be dead to lure in their prey. Before anything else I had to confirm at least if it was alive or not. Laying my gear on the ground, I had never that much luck with it anyways, I jumped down into the water to take a better look under the stage, where the rest of the body hid.

The word "bewildered" described my feelings as I looked under the stage far more accurate than a simple "surprised". My guess that it had to be fish was only half correct, the other half of it was a woman or rather a girl, since her face and her body looked rather young to me, not that I had that much experience with female bodies

. She laid on her back, half in the water and half on the sand, it looked like she had been washed ashore here rather than she laid herself down for a rest, guessing from the sand all over her face and hair. The fish part was roughly  two meters long, and seemed to grow the girls hips downwards. At the left and right part of her hips were layered fins growing in the same heartshape as th one on the tail. She had a slim, but muscular body, like someone who swam for her whole life.

Here breasts were round, looked soft but at the same time bouncy, and not too voluptous, like they were exactly the size to be slightly too big for a mans hand. Those beautiful objects of every mans desire were held by  a fragile looking construct made of leather straps, pearls and two creatively used shells. I got aware that were staring at them for a while before i pulled myself together and took a closer look of her face.It was the face of a normal, yet incredibly beautiful young girl around the age of twenty with a well-shaped nose, a small mouth and big eyes, which were closed fo the time being. Curly, shaggy, light-pink hair fell until her chin, and some flicks of hair fell also in her face, resembling seaweed. She was all in all the most female being I had ever the luck to cross my sight.

I realized that, despite  of giving no signs of being conscious, she could have noticed me and decided to stay silent, faced with my utterly rude staring. I cleared my throat and tried to think of something aplogising which made her at the same time understand that I had no intention of harming her.

"Er...Ahem...Are you awake, miss?", was what came out of my mouth.

Fortunately, from my point of view, she didn`t respond what caused me to worry about her state of health. With a look at the sun I confirmed that I had still some daylight left, I crawled under the stage to take closer look. I noticed that her breathing was flat, and that blood stained the area around her back. I bit my lip and thought of what to do. It was obvious that she was seriously injured, given her unconsciousness and the blood. There was no way to tell how  much blood she lost during the day, since I could only say that she hadn`t been here this morning. I could leave her to die here or kill her off myself, but I wanted to kick myself for even thinking of something so inhuman.

It was finally impossible for me not to help her, but I had to take some measures first. I ran back up the beach, into the lighthouse and up the stairs. Entering my room I headed for the rope I fixed on the wall between the two windows on the right. Ripping it off of its holder, a large, iron  tub came rambling down from the ceiling. I threw out the few books filled with dirty stories I hid there and ran back down the stairs, grabbing two buckets and sprinting outside into the ocean.After filling both of them with water, I headed back and filled the tub with it. I repeated this until the tub was roughly full to the half, dropped the buckets and went back outside under the landing stage.

The next problem coming up was  how to carry her into the lighthouse. While I fetched the water as fast as I could, I didn`t want to deepen her wound by dragging her too rush or without the necessary care. First I had to get her from unter the stage since, it wasn`t high enough for me to stand an the fading light made it harder to see. Kneeling down over her seemed to be the best course of action, and so I picked her up by laying her arms over my shoulders and putting my hands under here butt. I felt how I blushed by feeling up her soft yet firm butt, and reminded me to concentrate the task right before me. Her breasts squished against my chest causing me to nearly drop her because my heart seemed to skip more than a few beats. Her upper half was warm like a human`s and it was quite revealing that I got more and more aroused as I dragged her out of the shadow of the landing stage.

I took the chance and gave the wound on her back a look while I had put her down. It seemed to be caused a sharp wooden object, indicated by the a few shards still stinging out of the injury. With this the next stage proved to also quite difficult, since carrying her on my back, like a human girl was out of the question due to her lack of legs and her inability to actively hold onto my neck. To bear her on my arms would cause me to rub her wound and that was the least favorable thing to do. Finally I deciced to put her over my shoulder, letting her hip rest on it and having tail and main body hanging in front respectively in back of me, making sure that neither her arms nor her tail grinded on the floor.

With this rather embarassing position, for her because her butt stuck out into the evening sunlight, and for me since I had now two warm parts of a female being simultaneously touching me form behind and the front, I managed to drag her into the lighthouse, up the stairs and into the tub. Coughing heavily I managed to put her onto her belly, making sure to keep the wound out of the water. With cushion shoved unter her head, the whole matter was nearly solved, leaving just the wound as a main problem. I noticed that my heavy breathing came rather from the sensation of being so close to her alluring body than from the actual effort to carry her all the way from the beach to the first floor.

It took me a few moments to calm down and with a look out if the window I noticed that it had gotten considerably dark. Checking if they contained enough oil, I lighted all of my lamps in order to get as much light as possible for the upcoming task. I collected some clean rags, heated some water on the oven and dug out a set of pincers which I had bought a long time ago, for god knows what purpose. They looked relatively clean but I still rinsed some hot water over them, just to be sure. Using the cloths soaked with hot water I began to clean wound carefully, to not cause any pain to my guest, altough she showed, aside from breathing weakly, no sign of live yet consciousness.

After the blood and all visible dirt had been washed away, I started to pull out the splinters from the wound, which took quite some time. I noticed that it was way past sundown, when I finally got the last one out, and my eyes began to itch, but I made sure to rub some disinfectant herbs on her back and put some clean sheets on her back before I threw myself onto my bed and fell asleep instantly.