Kenopsia

An overcast blanket covered the sky, peaking rays of gold fought for freedom. Swirling murals of greys danced with the wind, mixing with the unmistakable salty scent of the ocean surrounding me. Seagulls sang with the rain that left light patterns on my once clear skin.

Slashes adorned my tail, my ripped fins reminding me of what horrors lie beneath the rock I sit upon. My shaking fingers combed through orchid locks, the colour now dull and plain. Even as the ocean still crashed against jagged rocks, and the whitewater created frosted shadows upon the darkening sea, things were changing.

Bruises snaked around my wrists, splotches of darkness clung to my skin. My tattered fingers brushed the surface of the water, and soon my entire body followed. My soulless, inky irises opened to reveal a sickening and terrifying sight: the waters were deserted, but even those who were left slowly faded into nothingness, like darkness was consuming them along with everything they knew.

One single ray of sun tore through the emptiness of these murky waters, illuminating the ocean to the colour it once was. Cruleans, azures and even a hint of seafoam all merged together into the a mesmerizing display through one single ray of sunshine. I reached out my hand to capture maybe just a drop of fallen sunlight, to grasp onto something that may never come back.

A single whisper broke through the growing silence around me, a pained cry, yet also an attention call. I turned my head in every direction to see floating particles of corals and even clumps of dead seaweed. The more I turned and the harder I looked, the more destruction I discovered; rubbish and pollution grew more plentiful by the second.

The plastic caught miniscule rays of sun that began to break through the surface of the decaying water. Another whisper sounded. It sounded like a pained cry, yet a call for attention. It sounded like a child, a young creature that was encaged in the devastation that now massacred nearly everything and everyone I knew.

A tiny force pulled the tip of my finger. As I looked down a gasp escaped my cut lips as a lump formed in the back of my throat. Next to my hand, with its tail encasing a piece of plastic, was a baby seahorse. I cupped the little animal in my hands, prying away the plastic from it's beautiful strawberry and coral coloured tail.

I heard more whispers around me, voices I once knew, voices I cared for. Faint outlines of whales, fish and coral formed around me, like ghosts as they returned home. A turtle swam past me, its once juniper coloured carapace now faded to a light mint. My fingers subconsciously grazed the rough encasing, delicately as if afraid it would disappear...and it did.

Everything around me faded into another patch of darkness as the seahorse tugged my hand into a place unknown.

Maybe a new home.

Maybe a whole new world.