Once upon a summer afternoon, I was basking in the watery sunlight that filtered through my skylight, I heard the laughter of teenagers. I swam up to the skylight and poked my head out. To the east of me, right above the trench next to my home, was a boat.
It was a dingy, but it looked reinforced. It had probably been specially made for the teens trip out to the trench. However, the trench wasn’t what the reinforcements were needed for. The reinforcements were to keep their boat safe from my home.
I lived inside and under an outcrop of very precarious rocks. It was beside a steep cliff, for added security. I chose this place because it was close to my family home in Maine, but nobody would dare sail near the rocks, so I would be safe. That is, nobody would dare until that day.
I swam into the shadows of the cliff and poked my head out of the water to get a good look at the teens. There was two boys and a girl in the boat. One of the boys had on a black cossie and a mask with a tube attached. He had tan skin and a longish black hair. The second boy was pale and had short blonde hair. The girl had almost orange skin and silvery white hair, which was odd because she was clearly young. From my position i could hear their conversation faintly.
“Drew, there is a reason we aren’t supposed to go near the rocks.” The girl said. The second boy bumped into her shoulder, rocking the boat.
“Calm down Lacey. He’s your boyfriend, not your baby.” The second boy told her.So they were in a relationship? She shrugged.
“I just worry.” She said. The boy she had called Drew but his hand on the girl called Lacey’s shoulder.
“I’ll be fine. If you get scared, Adam can pull me up. You trust your brother to do that right?” He asked her. So they were siblings. She nodded and he fell off the edge of the boat backwards.
I ducked under water and swam so I was around fifteen feet away from where Drew was swimming deeper and deeper into the chasm. He had a rope attached to him, presumably so that he could be pulled up. I swam closer to him, giving him a pitying look. There was a reason people didn’t swim down there. After another half minute he realised what it was.
He was paralyzed. The waters in the trench were full of invisible barbs, the sting of which can cause full body paralysis. His friends would pull him back up before he drowned, so I wasn’t worried.
Then I saw the end of the rope floating down to meet him. If he was going to die, I could try and save him, but if i saved him, I could endanger myself. I had to trust his friends to come get him.
I waited, but instead of coming down to get him, his friends started the engine on their boat, and left. Leaving their friend to die.
Being a lady with a concious, I couldn’t let him die. I couldn’t let him suffer the same fate that befalls all who die at sea. I swam down to the boy, aware that I would have to swear him to secrecy, but before I could reach him, he began to float up. Oh no.
