30 Day Writing Prompts

2

2. Float

The sun shines brightly onto her face. She squints her eyes, raising an arm to shield her vision from the harsh light. The water rolls in waves around her, tickling the curves of her body with icy coolness.

Voices can be heard from the shore. Distant, but not too far. Were they yelling? She doesn't care though, so she neglects to raise her head. Floating further and further away, trying to get lost in the deep ocean, she sighs a breath of relief. Moving her arms in slow, flapping motions, she pushes herself away from the shore, the shouting voices becoming muted as water splashed in and around her ears.

Clouds cover the sun, sparing her from a blinding light and enabling her to gaze up at the almost clear azure sky above her.

As she floats further away, the waves begin to fight against her. She doesn't struggle though, she invites the water to spill over her face. The salt stings her eyes, bringing tears to the brim but she doesn't cry.

It's autumn, just past summer, but it's not cold at all. The sun beats down like it usually does during the summer, but the water is still cold and the air still has a chill to it. Somehow, she's still warm, the water relaxing her. The warmth envelopes the girl as she floats atop the surface of the water. She knows by now that she's drifted too far from the safe shores to swim back now.

The waves are becoming violent and constant; crashing against her body. The wind has become stronger, giving her slight chills as ripples roll over her stomach.

"Float, you have to stay afloat," she whispers quietly to herself. To herself. No one can hear her out here, the echoes of water crashing against the jagged rocks near the shore deafening any calls for help if she even bothered trying.

There weren't many people on the beach this morning, not like most days in the summer months. It's not summer anymore, however. It's now August, moving on to September in a couple days.

No one was strolling across the shoreline this morning when she stripped her clothes off, the mix between chilly and warm air swirling around her body, changing her temperature for a few moments before she dipped into the water, feet tingling as wet seaweed knotted itself around her toes and ankles. As she floated a little further away though, she could've sworn that she heard barking. A dog, obviously. Possibly the old man that lived at the end of the street who would always walk his dog down the shore in the morning. She didn't recall the time in which she left her cell phone lying on the sand, though.

The water begins to tug her down. The currents are becoming gradually more vicious, pulling her under and pushing her back up. The tide pulls her further away, cold water beginning to seep underneath her skin as if it's trying to possess her.

The girl begins to struggle against the intense current. She begins to panic wildly, the sudden horror and realisation sets in that she is going to die out here. Of course, it occurred to her before that she couldn't float forever, but as the events play out, she begins to become more and more anxious as she awaits her death.

She's pulled over to a large group of intimidating rocks; jagged and pointed like swords and knives. Crashing into the circle of rocks, she can almost feel the bruises forming on her limbs and little cuts tainting the water with fresh blood.

"Help!" She manages to choke out through mouthfuls of water, rising up and taking a hungry gasp for breath before she's dragged back under.

Frantically, the girl tries to swim away from the rocks but it just pushes her backwards, forcing her upside down and forcing her face first into a rock. Almost immediately, blood begins to spiral through the water, the painful stinging of a broken nose as saltwater seeps its way into a new wound.

The girl suppresses the urge to scream out, forcing herself to calm down so that she doesn't drag more water into her dying lungs. Gripping the rock so hard that her nails dig into the solid, she pushes herself upward in a desperate race for air.

She doesn't bother wasting her breath attempting to call for help. The old man who walks his dog will be long gone by now. It's too cold to come down to the beach. Although summer is barely over, England's cold weather has already taken over the sunshine and warmth and replaced it with dreary, yet typical weather. For once, it hadn't rained. She had almost sprinted down to the beach, stumbling down the stone steps and tripping over washed up branches and seaweed as she made her way to the shoreline.

"I have to float!" She screams, her voice cracking midway through but she didn't mind.

Again, the harsh currents slam her back into the rocks, paralysing her for a single moment before the waves swallow her whole.

"Float..." she whispers to herself, though, a watery grave is all that awaits her.