by Asta Disasta
I wake up, feeling wet, and panicked. My lungs are heaving, air rushing cool and damp through my parted lips. Here I am. This sudden realization comes as a shock. My mind is now scrambling to recall how I came to be here.
Something has happened.
But what… and where.. I grasp the edges of my arms with my cold hands, feeling for some sense of what was happening. The night air feels thick with the smell of sea salt and rotting bull kelp.
To say it felt like I had had a rude awakening would have been an understatement. Something has happened, and now I feel as if I have had my entire life shifted sideways, deflected from a pathway I thought I knew and trusted, to one more jagged and insidious.
Something has happened.
I feel cold, briny water rushing towards my feet, cascading over my toes and ankles. It is an odd first sensation, but one that brings me back from the edge.
I am on a beach. I am alive, but nothing feels right.
I feel cold, heavy, and damp. I must have been in the water for a long time.
Something has happened.
I am not,and never have been, a swimmer. I live on an island, where the water is so cold that it’s forgivable to live your whole life by the sea and barely swim in it.
I love and respect the sea, but there was a reason I never went in it.
At this juncture, the pain began to set in.
Deep and precise, I feel a pain I had never known before. Slices over my ribs that look like burning scythe blades sting and pulse under my wet white t-shirt, flexing with my inhalations. Blood mixed with sea water pools around me in the shallows of the rocky beach.
There are fresh cuts, deep and precise, through my cold white skin. My wet shirt is hanging, bloodied and torn, but still somehow clinging on to me.
A brief flash of memory lit my mind, then disappeared like mist.
I have to move.
My eyes never leave the roll of the midnight waves as I pull my body up the rocks. I scan the beach around me. The moonlight glints off the smooth rounded stones on the beach, and dissappears into the depths of the heavy coniferous forrest beyond. There is no movement, no sounds, no signs of life, other than the roar of the waves.
There must be someone around here to help me. I want to run and find a safe place to shelter, but the idea of losing my breath running through the forests frightens me more than being stranded here.
Slowly, I get to my feet and steady myself. My whole body feels taut like a wire, and I begin to stumble forward on stiff legs.
Get to the trees, look for someone, call for help. These are the only thoughts I can manage as I turn back to gaze towards the sea. The wind whips down the beach, through the spaces exposed between the rocks and pebbles. Bitterly cold, salty air licks my exposed skin.
I wrap my arms around my waist and stumble forward, holding myself together. My eyes dart from the glimmering shoreline to the shade of the high cedars, scanning for movement, shapes, shadows. I seem somehow to know somewhat I am looking for, though I’m not sure how.
No lights peer back at me through the trees, though I do smell a faint scent of campfire wafting through the heavy woods. The moonlight disappears as I slip into the dirt and detritus, feet padding through rich brown earth.
I’ve got find them. My eyes feel new somehow, like they’re seeing all of this for the first time. It feels all too clear, too detailed. Perhaps it was the fight or flight in me, but I felt as sharp as a razor. I have one mission, one focus, one chance of survival.
As I start to warm up, I notice something out of the corner of my eye. A dark shadow, wide and pointed. It is the size of a man, on the edge of the forest line. It shifts back and forth, as if from foot to foot.
Another shadow shape joins him, further into the forest. It is swaying in time, looking at me. I am struck by their graceful, undulating movements, back and forth, back and forth. Reflective, glowing eyes are trained on me throughout their motions, as if preparing, honing themselves on my position.
I am cornered.
Yet somehow, I feel awoken.
Running now, my feet skip and leap over scattered logs, rocks and leaves. Every breath bubbles up through my exposed chest, with a faint sucking sound following each inhalation. I know I must find someone soon, or I’ll never get away.
Each time I look back, they’re waiting. One slightly further ahead than the other, moving forward in that same undulating pattern, back and forth, back and forth. Their pace is steady, and my vision of them is becoming clearer with each look.
Dark robes obscured their faces. I can smell something sweetly putrid, salty and mildewed. I couldn’t be sure whether the smell was my own or theirs.
The trees are wider spaced now, more spread out. I see the faint beam of some car headlights way in front of me, and the smell of smoke is getting stronger now. Somehow I know these were signs of the people I was with, and they would help me, if I could get to them, but my speed was less than optimal.
My hands are balled into fists as I pull my body along, dragging my legs like weights. It feels as if I am re-learning how to move, my body beginning to almost sway forward with every step. The further I get from the ocean, the more horribly dry I feel, from my lungs, to my eyes, to all of my exposed skin.
I try to cry out as I stumble forward, to catch the attention of someone in the camp. My cry comes out withered, hoarse. It sounds similar to the rush of the wind through the trees.
One leg is really dragging behind now, and the ache in my lungs had become a fire. I throw my arms in the air, desperate for someone to see me. As the small, bright campfire finally came into view, I instantly recognize the shitty van and old PT Cruiser we had come in.
There was Jared, staring into the fire with a beer in his hand, and Katie, laughing and flirting with the new guy. They must know something happened, I thought. They must have noticed.
Just then I felt something slip over my mouth.
Wet, fishy, cold. A wheezing breath could be heard, not close to my ear, but more vibrating into my back as something held me close to its chest.
A thick, laboured breath.
A moment passes, and gradually I recognize my friends can not see me. I am just beyond the range of the firelight.
“You know you can’t go back to them now. They won’t understand.”
I tried to squirm my way out of the wet grip, but something tightens its grip on my arms, squeezing and pulling them backwards.
“Now you’re something new. You’re not like them anymore. It’s best that you come with us.”
No footsteps sound out in the wet forest mulch as I watch my friends slowly disappear from my view. I can hear the sound of the waves lapping on the beach ever louder as I slide backwards, bound in it’s arms.
From somewhere nearby in the forest, the voice of the other whispered, “You must return to the ocean, for your change is not complete.”