Writing Project

Theme: Ocean

Writing project for GayMultifandomChild , Lee_13_ , Strangehamstergirl . If you aren't one of these you're welcome to read it and leave some feedback but it's really nothing to do with you 😂😂

My abdomen is hurting, I realise. I don't question it. I don't question much of anything, mostly because I can't think too well. I just accept that the world is dark and green and that somewhere far above me, sunlight flickers on the surface of the ocean.

There is a ringing in my ears and my lungs burn. It doesn't feel as bad as it should.

I probably shouldn't be down here. It probably isn't safe, to be so far from the sun and the sky and the people in the boat. I will probably be eaten be something large and monstrous and never take a breath of air again.

I do not particularly mind that right now. The weight of the ocean is comforting, and I wonder why I haven't done this before.

Panic grips me, briefly, as a shadow darts beside me, but it does not take long for the numbness to set in again. I think I smile.

What had the people on the boat said? 'Don't lean too far to the edge without a lifejacket, you'll fall in'? Surely not. Who would ever want to stop someone from coming down here? Who even had the people on the boat been? My parents, maybe? I had a family at one point, but they are so very far up in the sun and I am down here, drifting slowly to the ocean floor with the whole weight of the world pressing me down.

Perhaps I could stay here. I don't think I could find in me the energy to get up now if I had to.

"There's someone over here," a voice says, distorted not by the water but by my fading consciousness.

"Too late," another says. "We didn't get here in time. If they hit the ocean bed, they've been down here too long."

"But sometimes-"

"The ones who can go this long without oxygen are never the ones we want."

The shadows move again and there is silence. I should have reached out to them. They could have saved me.

I am drowning.

The realisation doesn't hit as hard as it should. I am drowning, but I am miles and years beneath the ocean surface and there's nothing that can be done about it.

Something touches the small of my back and I flinch away from it as best I can, rolling a couple centimetres across the sand.

Silence comes crashing down like a wave and there is a human hand at my wrist.

"I'll save you," the same voice whispers. "I'll save you, even if I'm not supposed to."

And in seconds, I can breathe again. My vision clears. I right myself in the water, searching for my saviour.

I should not be able to breathe this far underwater. I do not question it.

"Go," the voice urges. There is a hot breath on the back of my neck and two hands under my legs, shoving me towards the surface that still only seems to get farther away.

"Who are you?" I try to ask. My voice comes out as bubbles and there is only a quiet laugh in response.

I don't want to go. It is safe and dark here. If I go back to the surface there will be bright lights and screaming sirens and I don't want to go back to that at all.

"Go. It will be bright and loud but there will be stars and music. That's what you're reaching for."

I can see the stars from here; there is music enough in the swirl of the tide, I want to say, but I cannot.

"Why do you save me?"

"I will save you because the wrong people saved me," the voice says.

It does not say anything else. Instead, it pushes me again towards the surface and this time I do kick. Weakly, at first, but I am moving. I am going upwards. I do not exhale, for fear that the air that is somehow still in my lungs is the only thing keeping me from sinking once again. I'm sure I could breathe as well here as I could on land, if I wanted to. I don't wonder how.

A shark longer than I am tall snaps at the water just below where I was seconds ago and I keep pushing forward. It's so strange to see a shark so far out in open water, though I've no doubt that it was only there because I was.

And before I realise, I am back at the surface, and I am breathing in cold air and people are tugging me onto the boat and crying about miracles and pressing into my hands warm drinks and blankets and the hands of the people who love me.

Stars, I think. I am supposed to look for stars.

Somebody said that, once. I don't know who. I should reach for the stars and the music.

There are no stars. It's the middle of the day. I don't know why I expected there to be any.

Someone, out of my vision, says they can see a shark below us. They say it has red eyes and green skin but by the time I've leapt to the side of the boat it's gone and people are pulling me back.

A faint memory, one of darkness and warm hands and a calm voice. It's gone in the passing of a second.

The shark follows us back to the beach. It rarely gets close enough to properly see it, but when it does, it is watching me.

I do not question the kindness it had in its eyes nor the way it turns human a second before vanishing back into the depths.