Another chance

Archive Entry

I couldn’t take it. The heat and the heavy air by air, searing my skin. And at night, the caterwauling of Rahma’s Widows, rising from Telok Penjarah’s black water. The knives. The screaming.

I ran. I’m sorry, but I left my post. Took a Bedar and left my men to die. The forts would have blown me out of the water, so I went east: past Kampong Subur first, then Kelelawar Chamber, until the back of Fort Premie looming out of the fog.

If not for the Bedar’s speed, I wouldn’t have made it here. Here, where I found the body of the Rempahnese trader, still warm by the shore… and the babe crying next to it. She looked at me, eyes wide and trusting, and something in me broke as I dry-heaved into the dirt.

What else have I left? Holland won’t have me, nor the people of these isles. Not after what I’ve done to them. But with the child… there might be something redeemable, out of all this blood and burning.

I will raise her as my own, and give her a life beyond all of this.