Between The Water And The Wall

Prompt from DailyPrompt.com

Growing up, life was bound by simple rules. Play nice. Share toys. Only pet the cat one way. Honour the life tree. Never go in the water.

That one was the easiest. The wall around the shore is unbroken, surrounding the entire island, and even now it’s half again my height. I knew what the ocean looked like, like everyone else I’d climbed trees to see the source of that mysterious familiar backbeat. Watched it relentlessly reach for the wall only to give up and slink home. Over and over.

Never saw the Deep Children. Others swore they had. Paul wouldn’t shut up about it. I didn’t believe them. Thought the wall was just there to keep us from drowning or stop people trying to sail away. You can see the mainland on a clear day. Squatting low to the east. I always wanted to visit. Find out what the rest of the world is like.

But not like this! Not creeping down the shore in the dark, wishing I knew how to swim.

The screams have stopped. I don’t know if anyone else is alive. Whether mum made it over the wall somehow after boosting me, or if the roots got her too, the way they did dad.

Why would the life tree do this? Did someone anger it? Did we not obey the rules?

Copper tang. Sting. Blood in my mouth. I’ve chewed my lip past raw.

I can’t get back over the wall. Even if I could, I can’t I can’t the way they screamed as the roots stabbed through them and crushed them and pulled them under I can’t-

Water laps at my feet. Waves are tugging at me. Trying to pull me in and under, trying to kill me like the roots killed everyone.

I fall to my knees. Trapped between the water and the wall. Nowhere to go.

Despair and the rhythm let me find a trance. I lose myself. Close my eyes and wait for the end. Until I hear the singing.

Moonlight washes the shore now. I must have been sitting here for hours. My legs are numb from cold and stillness. I can barely move. Even when I see what’s slithering towards me.

At first I think roots. A mass of roots reaching to kill me. But the tendril which reaches to tap my leg is… smooth, soft, sticky-yet-not. And I realise there are eyes on top of the bundle, glinting the same pale light as the moon.

It burbles. A greeting? A question? A threat? I don’t know. I no longer care.

My throat is raw and tight. I have to clear it several times before I can speak.

“They’re all dead. I need to reach the other shore.”

For a moment we sit together. The ocean and the creature and me. Then its tendrils wrap around my limbs and pull me forwards. I obey, crawling like I’d only just learned how, clumsy and faltering.

Into the water.

Prompt was “In a world where the ocean is considered a terrifying, prohibited place, describe your character’s first experience of going in the sea.”

[I got lost in the setting again. 😅 Ah well. Managed to get to entering the ocean before hitting the word cap. Part of me wants to write a part two, but I also feel the ambiguity is powerful… not sure.]