Plastic Sea — What's Left, Page 3
By Inkroost · Published
Transcript
The bag of water bursts over Roka's face in a starburst of sunlit spray. He jolts awake on his back against stacked yellow crates, eyes wide, arms flailing. Roka: 'GAAAH!'
Image description
The water bag bursts on Roka's face in a sunlit explosion of spray as he jolts awake shouting.
About this chapter
In the dark at the bottom of the sea, something is counting. On Candyreef, a candy-coloured island of floating trash, Roka wakes to a water bag in the face from his street crew, lifts breakfast from the old woman who would have fed him anyway, and tells the kid who follows him that he doesn't owe anybody. Then the gulls lift all at once, and a Maw eats half the island. A day and a night alone at sea later, the Garden Ship fishes him out and orders him to walk its treadwheels for fish heads. Roka is nobody's slave, so he goes looking for something to steal instead, and breaks into a barnacled case dredged from the seabed. The silver dust inside climbs into his arm and says hello. It is polite. It is curious. It wants every human dead. And it has just started counting again.