mistaking cardiac arrest for butterflies
The Sugar Tide sways gently in her berth, the hush of the harbour settling like a lullaby over Torchline's port. From the outside, the boat looks still—untouched, undisturbed, just another vessel resting after the chaos that had bled out onto the beach. But inside, something moves. Cupboards creak open on their own, a drawer slides out with a soft rasp, and a half-empty bag of dried mangoes lifts from a shelf before being discarded with quiet impatience. The galley light swings slightly, casting shifting shadows across the compact space, but no footsteps echo on the wooden planks, no breath disturbs the air.
It would be easy to believe the Sugar Tide was haunted.
Invisible and still humming with adrenaline, Flora moves through the lower deck like a whisper with intent. Her heart is still hammering, not from fear, not exactly, but from the high that lingers after violence has passed and the world hasn’t yet remembered how to settle. Her fingers, unseen, pry open a small cabinet beside the stove. She finds what she’s looking for on the second shelf: two small glass jars, mismatched lids, tucked behind a forgotten tin of cocoa.
They clink softly as they’re set down on the counter. Nothing dramatic—just the faint, practical music of someone gathering tools. The daggers come next. Drawn carefully, reverently, their golden hilts flash once in the swinging light before vanishing again. The blood on them has already begun to dry, a dark crust at the edges of the blades. With deliberate, meticulous movements, Flora begins to scrape it off, letting the flakes fall into the jars. Her motions are smooth but not detached; there’s purpose in every pass, tension in every angle of her wrist. No muttering. No dramatic monologue. Just the quiet scrape of blood being collected in the dark, by hands no one can see.
It would be easy to believe the Sugar Tide was haunted.
Invisible and still humming with adrenaline, Flora moves through the lower deck like a whisper with intent. Her heart is still hammering, not from fear, not exactly, but from the high that lingers after violence has passed and the world hasn’t yet remembered how to settle. Her fingers, unseen, pry open a small cabinet beside the stove. She finds what she’s looking for on the second shelf: two small glass jars, mismatched lids, tucked behind a forgotten tin of cocoa.
They clink softly as they’re set down on the counter. Nothing dramatic—just the faint, practical music of someone gathering tools. The daggers come next. Drawn carefully, reverently, their golden hilts flash once in the swinging light before vanishing again. The blood on them has already begun to dry, a dark crust at the edges of the blades. With deliberate, meticulous movements, Flora begins to scrape it off, letting the flakes fall into the jars. Her motions are smooth but not detached; there’s purpose in every pass, tension in every angle of her wrist. No muttering. No dramatic monologue. Just the quiet scrape of blood being collected in the dark, by hands no one can see.
