The Distance of the Stars - Prologue

The Distance of The Stars

DISCLAIMER: I do not own any character from Sena Jeter Naslund's novel Ahab's Wife. I do not own Kit, Giles, or Una. They are all Sena's.

Suddenly I was all discomfort. It passed through me that Giles was looking into the blackness and seeing the future. “We should have sailed for Tahiti,”I said again.

“They should have feared the cannibal within.” His voice was tight with impatience and judging.

-Ahab's Wife, Sena Jeter Naslund



I couldn't move. I knew I should be frightened, somewhere in the back of my mind I was screaming. Yet I couldn't find the energy to be scared anymore. The pain was distant and through my slitted eyes I was blinded.

I saw Kit spitting on the light and a sudden flash, then white. Everything enveloped. I remembered the first time I went blind thinking this is what my father met by “The eternal light”. I thought I was in heaven. Surely a bolt from the sky is God-sent and it enveloped my sight...Eternal Light.

But this light, this light was hell. How could two so similar a sight differ so greatly? Once again the blinding light, but this was painful. I tried to move, and couldn't. I felt heavy. All around I knew there was blue water, but my mouth was so dry. My face and arms blistered by the heat all around, inescapable. My lips cracked and bleeding, begging for hydration.

I leaned over to drink the water and I was pulled back onto the creaking wood. “No, Una!” some one cried, so far away.

A Flash of silver, and red. The color was quick and fleeting but I felt it on my fingers. Liquid and warm. I could not lift my hand nor even cup it to hold the red fluid. I was trying, I really was and exhaustion overwhelmed me. I fell back, defeated.

I felt a finger in my mouth. I knew it was not mine and I knew the first time I tasted blood.



The dream was coming more frequent. Was it a dream? No, just memories. I do not believe the damned can dream. Dreaming is left for the innocent lives of the living. Not me. I haven't dreamed in centuries. Either darkness which is what my life has become, or distant memories of times long past.

If I had tears I would cry. That feeling I had then, the thirst I could not quench, was terrifying and it has not left me since that day on the boat.

There were three of us then. Struggling to live to survive. How quickly we gave up life for this... existence. Why was I fated to be the sole survivor? Was it punishment for defying my god-fearing father? Was is punishment for so readily accepting something so mortally wrong? Were my sins so great to deserve this? Is there a god? And is this my hell? I doubt I'll ever know.

Tonight is the 327th anniversary of my first taste. How morbidly silly that sounds. My first taste, like my first communion. In a way it is, instead of the blood of Christ, I consume the blood of the Devil. If there is a God, if there is a Devil, surely one or the other is laughing at my expense.

All I see on television is commercialized reality. Celebrities, some politics’s, but mostly things that don't matter at all. The world today is oblivious to what is out there. The world forgets, and it must not. There are horrors out there and the general population must be made aware! The age I find myself in now allows me to share my story, and that I shall.