Children of Sarin

01

Mimi

Unlike Bella Swan, I had given my death a lot of thought. And through living a lot less of life, death and supernatural phenomena than her; I'd come to the conclusion that the best way to go was quietly. In my sleep, after a long life with no detrimental health issues. If, for some reason I couldn't afford that luxury, dying while saving someone else would be pretty heroic. Maybe be immortalised in a newspaper article or on a bench. Never did I think, I'd die for such a petty reason.

The crashing of the waves drowned out any other noises, numbing any anger or shock that I should be feeling towards the boy in front of me. Tobias Thorn was tall, standing at 5'11 he towered over my 5'2, with a lean physique, silky straight blonde hair and a pair of dazzling hazel eyes that shone amber in the sunlight. We stood at the edge of a white cliff overlooking a beautiful sandy beach somewhere in Dover. The day was as beautiful as it could get in the often grey country, with no clouds overcasting the sun reflected in a raging sea. The wind blew strong, whipping my hair across my face and numbing my cheeks, knotting its tresses without mercy. Tobias' mouth moved, his curtain haircut blowing wildly in the wind. I couldn't hear a word he said. His thin lips moved endlessly, telling me something that was, without doubt, important, an apology of sorts,I hoped. It was the least he could do. Still, my ears focused on the sea, on the distance from where we were to the beach, on how much I felt like pushing him off this cliff right now just so he would shut up, leave my sight, and let me wallow in peace.

"You have to understand, Mimi," his voice had finally managed to drag me out of my reverie. "The boys set me up! How could I have known that they'd dare me to shag Jess?" He said it like it wasn't the stupidest thing ever, like just going with whatever the lads asked of him was normal.

"Tobias," I started with a sigh. "Why are we here?" I asked.

The need to just sit down on the scarce, wet grass and mud that made up the top of the cliff was intense. I couldn't feel my face anymore, my hair whipping my cheeks to numbness. My feet hurt from the walk up, blisters already forming at the back of my heels, and although I could tell by the slight sting that they weren't horrible, I was not looking forward to the walk back down.

The desire to push Tobias off the damn cliff grew stronger by the second, and I would've, but the sea was too angry, the tide was fairly low, and I didn't want to take the chance he'd actually die if I did. Although the idea did become more tantalising by the second. Fortunately for him, I didn't want to go through the hassle of faking my own death, changing my identity and fleeing from the law for an indefinite amount of time.

"What do you mean: why are we here Mimi?" his voice raised a little, and I sighed again.

Looking at him exasperated I rolled my eyes and groaned, shifting on my feet. "I mean, why are you explaining anything to me? I don't care about you anymore! You cheated on me, end of story! Are you really expecting me to stick around? The moment I walked in on you two we were done. There should be no words needed. Besides our relationship wasn't that deep that I'd let you get away with it, forgive you, or cry endlessly over you. Am I sad? Yes. Do I feel betrayed? Yes. Will I move on with my life, easily? Also yes. So you should too, I mean you obviously don't give a shit about me, so why are you trying to make me forgive you?" Throughout my little rant, Tobias' jaw gradually fell open in disbelief before letting out a scoff as I finished speaking.

"I-I- I can't believe you're so heartless!" he seethed. His eyebrows conjoined in an angry frown as he stepped forwards, his action making me take a small step backwards in reflex. "Wasn't I a good boyfriend?"

He had indeed been a good boyfriend, he had been sweet, and although distant at times he never treated me badly, I even befriended some of his friends, and their betrayal actually hurt more than his. Our relationship wasn't anything special though, we wouldn't change our choice of university for one another, we went on a date or two a month and the rest of the time we spent together was at school and the occasional afterschool visit to his house where we'd do anything to kill the boredom until his parents arrived. Mostly, we'd make out, get a little hot and bothered and then cool down before doing anything serious.

"You were a good boyfriend, Tobias, until you cheated."

"Well then, why don't you want me back?" he threw his arms up into the air, the furrow on his face growing deeper.

"Becasue, Tobias, you've fooled me once, you're not going to fool me twice. You broke whatever trust we had in this relationship," I sighed the whole sentence out while looking at the sky, wondering when he had become this invested. He had been more intimate with Jess than me already, and they were long-time friends as well, it wasn't that surprising that the boys chose her. The two probably had a spark, something that had long disappeared in Tobias' and I's relationship.

"That's not fair!" he shouted stepping forward once again, I dragged my feet backwards, not looking at his face as I noticed a few grey clouds invading the perfect blue mantle above us. "It was one mistake, why can't you forgive me?!" He stepped forward angrily as I looked at him.

"Tobias what can't you under-" the air was suddenly knocked out of me as the world turned. It took me a moment to realise that I'd lost my footing, I'd walked too far backwards. The grey clouds were completely over us now as if they had expected my doom. Tobias yelled for my name and reached out, but he was too late. My hair and arms flailed in front of me as I tried to grasp something, anything, in the air. Before I could think about how illogical that was, and how I should probably change my position so that I speared head or feet first into the water and didn't break my back from the impact, I was already engulfed in the dark sea. The pain on my back stunned me, making me gasp for air in the infinite liquid. Choking, my body's attempted cough underwater as I fell deeper into the depths of the ocean.

Unable to make any rational thoughts from the pain and panic that suffocated me as I choked a thought pulled through my cluttered mind: The water shouldn't be this deep.

Unless the tide had risen over three meters since I'd last looked at the sea during my conversation with Tobias, I should either be dead from hitting the rocks at the bottom of the cliff, or I should be safe and sound after touching the bottom of the ocean that was close to shore and therefore not too shallow or deep. I couldn't have thought about any of this at the time though, or how weird it was that the sea almost seemed to be pushing me down further and further into its dark depths.

Eventually, the lack of oxygen stole my consciousness as the water pulled me in deeper. As my eyes closed, I noticed the sun wasn't visible anymore, darkness had taken over. And although I should've been overtaken by fear, I was so mentally exhausted that my last thoughts before I closed my eyes were that I should've taken my chances with pushing Tobias off the bloody cliff, and that this was surely a very stupid way to die. Cliff diving hadn't even been on my bucket list.

I wonder how many other people got walked off the edge of a cliff by their cheating ex...