Waters Deep

• Joel Cadman, Grade 6
• Short Story
• 2014

I feel an icy cold chill, tingle down my spine as I realize some seawater has entered my wetsuit. I struggle and shake my body, making tiny waves roll around me as the sea water tickles me. ‘Strange,’ my mind queries. ‘How could seawater end up in my wetsuit?’
I turn my head from left to right, feeling the ache and strain in my neck joints, as I search for traces of rain. Finally I swish my arms in the water turning my whole body around to face another angle. I gasp.
Sea water erupts above my head, and then falls down into my gapping mouth. Above me a killer wave rages, throwing sprinkles of salty seawater into my eyes, blurring my vision, as it prepares to clear its path. In seconds the colossal wave is onto me. It pulls and pushes me beneath the ocean surface, trying to drown me.
My mind is dazed as I look up at the rolling waves, watching them bash and blunder about. Suddenly my throat begins to ache and I struggle, trying to shake of the awful feeling. Never the less, it lingers over me, consuming me; slowly draining my life.
Finally I break to the surface, filling my lungs with oxygen. ‘I’m alive,’ I say, shocked by my own survival. ‘I’m alive!!!’ I yell, suddenly wishing that I hadn’t as my throat, not for the first time screams in pain. I try to let go of the pain, ignoring it, as I focus on joy.
Suddenly my ears pick up a coarse sound, like a leaking tap and I turn my head towards the sound.
I gulp. Gliding towards me, like a predator after its prey, is a grey fin, menacing against the calm blue of the ocean. I smell its odour above all things and know that I’m bait on a fishing line. ‘How could my life get worse than this?’… CRUNCH!