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The crashing of the waves of the Ocean Styx swayed the ship, lightning striking as the crash of thunder reverberated in a delayed echo, rain falling in rhythmic pitter-pattering on the exterior of the ship. The ship itself was silent, its tenants, a dwindling number of them, nowhere to be found but within their cabins. The concept of day and night, though long forsaken by Hell’s inhabitants, still had its undeniable hold on habit, and sleep felt like a mercy in the journey to punishment and repentance.
At least, that was what the Ferryman thought in an idle moment, their hands giving a gentle grip to the chisel, skeletal fingers adept in the motions as they struck the stone in front of them. A figure that was yet to be, drawn within their mind. In some way, this reprieve from duty might be the one thing they can do in the advent of the Ocean’s existence, of the duty of transporting what little souls left they can transport within Hell’s reaches.
The cloth weighed a little heavier at the thought.
And what of the cloth, a single reminder for many of the things they have done? The hammer struck the chisel, struck the stone, and they remembered when the storm of Wrath hit them directly, standing directly against the other ferryman, gripping an oar that felt familiar for their first time truly wielding it as their own.
The Ocean Styx was just a river then—almost absurd in its length and size, fractal-like in its distributaries—and the ferry not much smaller than the one they sailed now. Their stance was in some ways amateur, and yet they held their ground. Their opponent simply stood with an oar in one hand, and a rocket launcher in another. They remembered the way in which the other had gripped that weapon with such familiarity. They did not remember a single word spoken between them.
Another crash of thunder hit the ship, closer this time, still rocking and swaying along the waves. This statue was a product of a whim—a passing thought, perhaps. Feeling the junction between the sculpted hand and its rocket, they wondered if their predecessor was much like them. Flayed flesh in a show of devotion.
The feeling of their own hand gripping their flesh as they pulled, and pulled, and pulled, whistling a scream through gritted teeth, tears streaming down their eyes. Sinew and viscera curled and interlaced between their fingers as they knelt there. It was what tied them to their old life, to mortality, to sin. In a way, it was a show of piety. Piousness removed the flesh of sin, and so they must be pious, for the flesh of sin was embedded within the flesh of muscle and tissue.
Was their predecessor like that as well?
They never particularly found themselves adept at the use of a rocket launcher, the weight unfamiliar within their hand as the inanimate husk of the previous ferryman lay bloodied on the jagged rocks within Wrath. They too, were soaked with blood, a mix of their own and the husk across their feet, pooling and streaming down into the marsh. Perhaps it was instinct, a divine act to take the cloth with gentle motions, but as the rain washed the blood away, they called upon the ship—their ship. A skull for the privilege of duty. Unlife for unlife.
The stone continued to take shape under the Ferryman’s deft hands, its excess gathering at the base of what was once a solid block. They never thought that their afterlife could be spent like this, chipping away at stone to pass what time there wasn’t in the passage to the layers. They sat there, looking at the memory they engraved and carved from the stone that was in front of them.
The brush in their hand was as familiar of a feeling as the oar was, but the hammer and chisel gave a different weight to their phalanges than what the other implements did. Unfamiliar and different as it was though, they struck at the stone all the same, carving it into something more discernable. It wasn’t their best work, but it was theirs all the same. Their hand hovered over the carved piece of hellish material, and if they still had flesh, perhaps they could have twitched up in a smile.
Even with its comfortable weight, the brush was a more familiar implement of creation than the chisel was, dragging their arm in an arc as the paint took place on the canvas, whites melding with the yellows, contrasting with the radiant blue of the bones that they remembered their predecessor had possessed. Their figure was still vivid in their mind, despite the time. Perhaps it was embellishment in the way they painted them. Perhaps they were a good ferryman, better than they were? They could never know.
They remembered the blows dealt by the other’s oar, shaking their bones with such force. The oar struck them at their humerus, the wisp of a groan of pain escaping from their teeth. They struck their oar back at the clothed husk without aim, without precision, just instinct dictating a still extant need to stay alive. A sudden pain hit them at the side, burning, impactful. They felt themself be pushed back as their ribs bled. One blow after the other, a rocket missing them as much as they missed their own strike with the oar held tightly with their grip.
A crash of thunder, a bit more distant this time, fell across the waves. The statue was taking shape, a standstill between themself and the previous ferryman. They remembered the other’s oar, a fine, dare they say holy, craft like their own oar—if not the cloth, if not the false halo, then perhaps just the oar as a symbol of what they were now.
They looked back at the unmoving figure across their feet. To call their body a corpse would be a redundancy, and yet there were no other words that came to the ferryman’s mind. Their predecessor’s blue contrasting with the off-white of their own. A cloth in their hands stained with rain and blood. A pair of ivory oars left abandoned by the side. A skull separated from its atlas.
Was it ivory? Bone? Marble? Whatever it was, it had a polished look to it.
The ferryman kept the body, in the end.
Flowers were not something they could easily acquire in their travels across hell, but it did not mean much for the Ferryman. For what little time they knew their predecessor for, for how little their interaction had been aside from a duel to the death, they could not leave their body to the waters of Wrath. They did not weigh as much as the cloth and ornamentation they now donned weighed on their figure. The ship was not as furnished and as intricate as the one they had now, but it was still furnished nonetheless. Loved by its owner as much as it had been.
There was no casket, but perhaps laying them like that was the best they could have done with the most private room they could find within the ship. They lit a few candles within the dim room, the rocket launcher reflecting what little light they gave off as the new ferryman simply knelt on the floor with the candles, hands clasped, silently reciting a prayer.
Whether the prayer was for them, or for the previous ferryman, they could not say.
Thunder reverberated across the ship once more, timing itself with the strike of the chisel. What felt like a warm feeling in their rib cage blossomed, if for a moment as they looked at the work in front of them. Incomplete, still a block at the base, but the scene before them was a reminder of what had come to pass. Perhaps they did not ask for this to be the role they would have in this afterlife, but it’s a role they do as much as they are able to, even with the Ocean.
Even if the obsolescence of their role may come, sooner rather than later.
The pitter-patter of the rain continued as the Ferryman gently set down the chisel and hammer to the side, standing from their seat. Their studio, mostly empty save for the various sorts of materials for their artworks strewn about, served them well enough to pass the time in creating physical commemorations of the memories they have made in this, almost new life of theirs.
Whatever the time of day may be within Hell, if such a thing still existed at all, perhaps it was time for the Ferryman to go back to their duties tending to the rest of the husks. The chimes of the bells tolled for the gates to be opened, and so they left the studio, with an incomplete memory carved into stone.
They could not help but wonder who their predecessor was like, but if nothing else, their memory may live on.