She was seven years old again and back in her childhood garden. The rambling roses she’d helped to plant crawled lazily up the walls, blood red mixed with sugar pink and giving off a heady scent. As she stared, they began to grow visibly, flowers becoming as big as her head and vines spreading in tendrils out towards her. One snaked through her fingers and up her wrist, while the rest enclosed her in rings that looked like pixie circles. The giant roses bloomed crimson and cerise against the emerald of the grass, and the perfume was intoxicating.
Then the smell became stronger, acrid and burning and clawing her. The air around her began to get hotter too, her skin feeling scorched. The petals began to blister and smoke around her, turning blackened and twisted. She was surrounded in a fog of smoke and agony.
With a start, Aurélie awoke in her bed aboard the ship to find her quarters filled with the same acidic, black smoke that had spoiled her dream. Half-blind, she groped for her heavy robe, struggling to breathe. She swung it round her shoulders and leapt from the bed, eyes weeping and throat constricting as the fumes crawled and grasped their way into her. Pulling the thick fabric of her robe over her lips, she searched for the doorknob. After a few seconds, she found the searing hot metal with her fingertips and grasped it, blistering her palm. When it didn’t open immediately, she grasped it with both hands, scarring them but freeing herself into the corridor.
Trying to remember the way to the stairs, she raced toward what little wind she could feel seeping in from the doorway. She searched for steps leading skywards, and began to hear the fighting, clashes of metal on metal and the deep yells of soldiers. Using this to guide her, she found the splintering staircase where the noise intensified but the smoke began to dissipate and struggled upwards as her feet caught on the mangled wood and made her feet bleed. She felt no pain, as the smoke made her dizzier and she stumbled against the railings, carving up her forearms. She stayed there for a few seconds, trying to make sense of the swaying in her eyes. Gripping the rails again, she used what little strength she had left to stagger up the last two steps.
Finally reaching the top, she leaned back on the opened hatch, eyes shut and trying to get a few sweet breaths in before she faced her situation. Despite her few seconds of respite, the world continued to spin and she gave up trying to fix it. She opened her eyes to survey the situation.
There were streaks of blood coating the deck, and the men they had come from had not landed far off, red uniforms mixed with shabby, sweaty rags. Her gaze swam across the piles of dead men that littered the floor, scattered like common rubbish. She was too addled by fumes to realise that there were more uniformed corpses than there were ones without. The theme that they were losing continued when Aurélie saw that there were few flashes of red remaining in the survivors. She looked up and out to sea, observing that there was a ship flying the Jolly Roger floating alongside; this had been where their attackers had arrived from, then. There were still men on the other ship, loading cannons. A ball from one hit the deck a few metres away from her and the blast took what little strength she had left and threw her across the floor. Laid on the floor panting, Aurélie began to notice the deep scratches up her arms, the blood seeping from holes in her feet and the blistering on her hands. Staring at the shining, weeping burns on her palms, she did not notice that she was being surrounded by distinctly unfriendly looking men.
She was picked up as easily as if she were a ragdoll, and about as gently. Flung over a grimy looking shoulder, she began to panic. She attempted to fight off the disgusting smelling fiend, but discovered she had no energy left. Screams were useless as her throat was so damaged from inhaling the poisoned air that she could barely whisper. Though she continued to struggle, she was ignored. Not daring to look up, she felt them reach the edge of the ship, found herself gripped by the waist and tossed into a waiting paddle boat into the arms of men who smelled no cleaner than the last. Looking up for the first time, she found men with bushy beards, dirt smeared across their whole complexions and leers plastered across their faces.
Aurélie began to hyperventilate again, and felt her consciousness slowly being eroded. She glanced back up at the corvette that had been her protector on the sail from England.
Her eyes zeroed in on the sight of her father brandishing a sword at a pirate in a large hat. Rather than initiating a fair fight, he shot her father square in the chest. It was then that Aurélie succumbed to the black waves that had been threatening her for a while, and fainted.
