Author’s note: I wrote this short piece as an entry for a flash fiction competition. It didn’t win. But I like it so I am including it here.
~Davanna

Karma Key

Sometimes it’s better to leave treasure buried. 

That sharp, sparkling autumn day I sailed my 27-foot sloop, Foolish Secret, along the edge of a tangle of mangrove islets that line the coastline. Claiming a new terrain as my own undiscovered domain, I weighed anchor just offshore and dog paddled to a slender, white crescent beach that had been formed by the tides. The slip of beach was my own. It was accessible by way of the open Gulf, as I had come. From the mainland, in a canoe, you could follow the sun and eventually break out into the open water of an estuary or the shore of the Gulf. More likely you’d get lost, and wind up spending days and nights in a mosquito-infested mangrove swamp trying to find your way back to the mainland or out to the open water. 

I waded through the tidal pool between the beach and the mangroves. I spotted what looked like the bow of a boat sticking out of the mud. The craft was obviously very old. The edges were worn, and the wood smoothed of any carvings or ornamentation. Could this be the wreck of a Spanish caravel forsaken on these shores half a millennia ago, and now exposed by the restless sea? 

The only visible portion of the wreck was the bow sticking out of the anoxic muck. The rest of the boat was encased in the tangle of mangrove roots and silty mud. Through thigh-deep water I slogged until I reached the edge of the mangroves. I plunged into the forest. With each step I had to extricate my legs which sank knee-deep in the sucking mud floor of the forest. 

I reached the wreck and ran my hand along the graceful lines of the oak bow sticking out from the ground about three feet. I realized that this could be a Spanish ship, since over the centuries countless vessels were shattered and lost—consumed by hurricane seas. 

It was improbable that I would find a coin, but it couldn’t hurt to try. I dug into the muck with my bare hands. I felt a smooth rock. Using my fingers I dug it out of the sludge. It was a casket-shaped box encased in mud.

I went out from the mire into the clear water of the tidal pool and rinsed my find. A shadow came across the sand. As it passed I felt a chill in my shoulders and right into my spine. I looked up and a frigate bird was circling overhead. It’s sickle-shaped silhouette like a dark blade was sinister. The sky flattened to a metallic gray.

The muck clung to the box like pungent green-black clay. The rotting, vegetal smell of the mangrove forest sediment wasn’t unpleasant. It was the smell of primordial ooze from whence life emerged. The box was made of stone. Alabaster. It was like a small ossuary. The lid was seamlessly sealed to the base. Impossible to remove. Letters were carved on the lid. I scraped and rinsed off the mud. Like a stain the black silt that remained in the lines etched on the lid revealed the word—MORTEM.

The revelation of this word so startled me I actually jumped in my skin and dropped the box into the surf. Why would someone, centuries ago, carve this word, death, onto the top of this box? I retrieved the box from the frothing water and took it back up to the shore. I laid it on the ground, sat next to it, and stared at it until I fell asleep. 

In my dream I am lying face down in the ooze of the mangrove forest. The black, viscous silt blocks my nostrils and mouth. Flashes of crimson light burst across my field of vision. As though it were a living entity devouring me alive I am subsumed into the sucking floor of the forest.

I woke with a start as wavelets of the cool Gulf water lapped at my legs which were by now half-submerged in the rising tide. Although she was still where I had weighed anchor, the Foolish Secret seemed further offshore. I grabbed my ossuary and swam back to the boat. 

The sunset was bloodred and deep orange. The Gulf water turned crimson. A cloud of bioluminescence drifted ashore with the tide. It’s red coruscation echoed the sky. I was light-headed and dizzy. A strange weakness overcame my limbs. I went below deck to sleep it off. 

Sleep did not come. I lay in my berth in the stuffy cabin listening to the water slosh against the hull. 

I felt myself getting up from my berth. I looked through the jumble of tools in my toolbox for a hammer. I went back up to the deck.

The box was where I had left it. It was shining in the light from the moon that was setting in the western sky. The moon was a scarlet flower, and the box shone with a faint red glow. 

I picked up the box and set it down on a blood-stained carving board I had on deck for cleaning fish. I raised the hammer above my head and brought it down on the the box which cracked open. Given the strength of my blow, I was surprised. Rather than shatter, the top of the casket separated into three clean pieces. A hissing, black mist emanated from within the casket. I was sickened by the overwhelming smell of rotting flesh. The mist, like a wet web of fungus covering decaying matter floated out and covered my face. I couldn’t breathe. I sunk to my knees and clawed and scratched my nose and mouth. All I could see was the glowing red moon, and bloody water. I felt the consciousness leaving my body through a portal at the top of my skull. I was no more. There was only the sea and sky. This, then, was what it felt like to die. 

The End