Dehydrated, delusional, and downright manic. His veins feel like sandpaper, rubbing, itching, scratching underneath his skin in an angry fire, driving his mind to the brink of madness.

The brink, just the brink, not leaning to one side or the other. Just the brink, you know? Water, endless water, reaching further than the eyes can see. Eyes, only two.

There were more of course, once, but they closed ages ago. Shut and closed forever. Far beyond, across the sea. He’s at the edge of the world, looking over the steep drop. Down, down, down it goes to the depths of all hells.

He knows death awaits him; he can hear death calling his name. Death, death, death, she’s not scary. No, no, she’s not scary, but she’s angry. She’s angry that he hadn’t come sooner, that he had waited so long to join her presence. Water, endless water, tossing the ship back and forth. Rocking the bodies below the deck back and forth. 

They left him long ago, hunger and sickness and dehydration delivered them straight to her on a wooden platter. A wooden platter, much like the deck he was laying on now. How much time had passed? How much time had passed really? How much time had passed since they departed from the golden beaches? 

Oh he missed the golden beaches, very much. He missed them so much and the way it warmed his body. The way it warmed his body was nothing like the brutal sun beaming down on him now. Brutal, very brutal in its scorching heat as it beat down on him. It beat so heavily he felt dry and barren.

Dry, dry, dry, oh how he wished he was back on dry land. Not swishing endlessly back and forth at the edge of the world. The edge of the world. That’s where he was. The edge of the world in the water, the salty, salty water. All this water and still nothing to clench his thirst. His thirst was raging like hellfire, spreading down his throat and through his absent belly. Nothing in his flat and rib-lined belly.

He wanted it to end.

Everything to end.

The pain to end.

And suddenly, he got his wish, the life being sucked from his body at the edge of the world, his once beautiful ship and handsome crew forgotten at the edge of the world.

Then nothing.