The sea had never been his dream. Elias had wanted color, movement, and sound—the brushstroke of paint on canvas, the trembling lift of a violin bow, the silver flicker of film spooling in a projector’s glow. He wanted afternoons of gallery dust and evenings in quiet cafés, watching the world unfold like a reel he could pause and rewind. Instead, he found himself inside a gray iron belly, rocking endlessly on the waves. The warship was a city of metal: narrow halls, bulkheads that groaned with each shift of tide, and the smell—diesel, sweat, steel. His bunk was a slab of canvas stretched over a frame, tucked into a stack of strangers. Sleep, when it came, was shallow, broken by klaxons or the groan of engines. The officers were sharp, voices like knives. Orders barked, boots pounding, discipline measured in curses and punishments. Elias flinched at each command, not because he didn’t understand, but because he always felt half a beat behind, like the wrong note in a symphony. Everyone else seemed born to it. The sailors laughed in their rough voices, tying knots and climbing rigging as if they’d done it all their lives. They cursed and smoked and played cards, shoulders pressed tight in the mess hall. Elias sat apart, hands restless. His fingers itched to draw, but paper was scarce, and ink scarcer still. When he managed to steal a scrap, he would sketch in secret: the slope of a jaw, the sweep of a wave, the heavy shadow of machinery. If anyone caught him, they only shook their heads. “Not the time, kid.” But what else was he, if not someone who saw? At night, the ship darkened to silence. No lights on deck, no sound but water rushing along the hull. Elias would lie awake in his bunk, listening to the creak of metal, the breath of the man above him, the sigh of the sea. He would close his eyes and imagine himself back in a theater, the screen flickering with light, or in a concert hall where violins rose like wings. The dream of it pressed against his chest, so fragile it almost hurt. Fear was constant. Each day might be the last. Depth charges echoed like drums beneath the waves, and once, when an alarm sent them running to stations, Elias froze. The others moved fast, confident, automatic. He stumbled, heart hammering, until a hand shoved him forward. “Move, damn you!” The shame burned hotter than the terror. He told himself he was a fraud. An artist pretending at sailor. A dreamer in the wrong skin. But then, one night on deck, he caught a moment the others didn’t. The moon broke free of clouds, turning the black water to silver glass. The ship cut across it like a blade through silk, and for a heartbeat, the war fell away. Elias leaned against the rail, his breath fogging in the cold, and thought: If I make it home, I’ll paint this. Exactly this. The thought was enough to carry him through. He never grew hard like the others. Never became fluent in their language of cards and swearing. He kept to himself, a quiet shadow in the belly of the ship. But each scrap of paper he filled, each scene he stored in memory, was a promise to the part of him that still belonged to art. A promise that if he returned—if he survived—he would never again mistake who he was. Because even in war, even in steel and silence, Elias saw beauty.