Cold Waves

• Yuna Kang, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2022

He suffocates in hazy darkness, eyes burning and heart pounding. Remnants of the sun streak the surface, glistening in the ripples of the waves and dot his vision. A distance so close yet so far away. His hand outstretched, he struggles not to sink, the ocean now a twisted mass of malice that bites down on him, weighing him down. He wants to call out, to scream for help. But he knows that he can’t; if he does, if he opens his mouth, water will gush in and flood him before he even utters a word.

He remembers why he is here and the incident that led up to this moment. He had been another juvenile on the street, a barely-alive nuisance. His whole life was entrenched there, his only home since he had escaped from the orphanage. Back then, he had been a naïve young boy who didn't know kindness. He was littered in bruises and lacerations, a soul who took to stealing for a meal. Perhaps that was what made him susceptible to people who wanted to take advantage of him. A stranger had approached him and offered him money to steal valuables from a jewellery shop. Believing that the offer was tangible, he had accepted it.

How stupid he was.

He remembered the murkiness of the dark as he fumbled his way around the shop. The sky that night had been shrouded in a sea of clouds, momentarily disfiguring his view. The moon hung behind them as an ashy smudge. Using slivers of the moonlight from a window, he was prising a jewel from its location when an alarm rang. He had tried to escape through the window only to meet the sheriff. After a short trial, he was sentenced to death by drowning, a common punishment in the past for thieves. He could still recall his heart pounding as he had received that fate.

Now in the present, he reaches out forward, hands a feral mess of despair and urgently hopes that he can grasp onto anything solid. Instead, he finds nothing, and his hands claw at themselves in frustration, igniting blood. Scarlet blooms in a gush, creating tiny clouds of red that quickly disintegrate into the ocean. The acidity of the water sears into his fresh scars, stinging and raw. He squints at his hands through a blurred sight. They are wrinkled with water. He has the sudden thought that he wants to laugh at himself but immediately sobers up. How could he be laughing when he is dying? However, conflict of emotion isn’t the last of his problems; the fluidity that allowed him to float has cowardly dispersed, and his feet desperately paddle to propel him to the surface. Yet, he can feel his movements turn erratic, and a burning panic steeps in. Don’t panic, he wills himself. But he cannot think anymore. His thoughts fade into the darkness and with his sight falls with his body, deep into the shadows.

Gone. Another broken soul.