A Change Of Fate

• Sidney Parratt, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2016

“Evelyn, do it!” I stared down at the greyish blue crashing waves beneath the terrifyingly high rocky cliff I stood on, my eyes searching for a way out of this petrifying dare. As my hands shook tremendously I slipped the bracelets off my arm and nodded towards Cassy. “Okay” I whispered. “I’ll do it.” I felt enveloped in fear. I stood right at the point of the rocky edge and tears pricked my eyes but I fought them back. This would be my chance to stand out, people would forever talk about my crazy survival of cliff diving. Suddenly I felt a rush of panic drown my thoughts. What if I didn’t survive? Shivers so violent shook my body which rocked me over the edge. I stepped back and fell in a clumsy heap on the rough ground. “I can’t do it” I dusted myself off and shook my head. Cassy winked at Angela. I could have been confused, but I was too traumatised. She gripped my shoulders firmly and held me on the edge. I tried to move away from the horrible view I faced, but her grip was too firm, too rough. And I wasn’t traumatised enough to not realise that something was up. For a second I thought she might push me. She wouldn’t. But before I was able to change that thought her hands pressed lightly on me. It was light but it was enough to send me splitting through air. I was violently pulled furiously through the icy wind that whipped around me. The insides of my stomach were about to burst but before they did I sliced the surface of the water and I was falling again, but to my death. Waves flushed me around and my throat was stinging intensely with the thick salty taste. This is how I would die. I could feel myself drifting into darkness, my vision disappeared, and I drifted into an eternal sleep at the bottom of the ocean.
Suddenly my eyes flashed open. Sand crusted my skin and a horrible burning, salty feeling choked me and I coughed up a heap of water. I had done it. I’d survived! Childishly I screamed in a crackly voice “I done it!”
“Not exactly” a voice murmured. I sat up and gasped. A beautiful boy crouched next to me. “You were drowning.” I blinked, surely I was dreaming. There is no way someone so perfect would talk to me. His eyes were a perfect dark green that were framed with a fringe of thick lashes that stroked his perfect face as he blinked. His lips curled into a smile that made my heart beat a million times faster. He was perfect in every way and I was mesmerised so much that the furious burning in my throat seemed to shrivel away into nothing. He took my hand and stared deep into my eyes.
Nothing else in my life had seemed to matter, but somehow, he did.