Chapter Text
Prologue:
The moon was low in the sky, just barely out of reach from the waves crashing onto the rocky shoreline. Outcroppings paved the way down into the depths, through what the moonlight couldn’t reach. Below the surface, a stream of bubbles floated up, escaping the murkiness, while a body sank. Deeper and deeper he went, the darkness swallowing him, and he knew this was it.
The end begins here.
Salt water filling his lungs, and ice-cold temperature piercing his skin, he found himself sinking further into the depths. He was unable to move, unable to cry out, pain paralyzing him as all traces of light vanished and he no longer knew which was was up, or down, other than the small voice in the back of his mind that told him he was drowning.
Perhaps he was hallucinating the fish gathering around him, swirling and silhouetted in the moonlight and he couldn’t help but think of the irony as he was going to be joining them soon. Slowly, one by one, each of his senses faded out. All sound disappeared, all feeling in his fingertips, the ache in his bones, the pain in his lungs, and even his vision as it tunneled into darkness.
All that was left was an intense fear and helplessness that had taken root in him and spread, and he couldn’t remember the words his grandmother said once, her voice drowned out by silence, but he could read her lips.
The water has a mind of it’s own.
And all turned black but for the smallest pinprick of light, a glimmer off something that shone. Red. It was a flash of red, though what red was doing in the middle of the sea, he didn’t know. But he did hear a song.
“O broken hearted one,
Your soul has grown weary…”
It might have been his imagination, but there was warmth nearby, as the song flowed into him. It invoked a sense of strength, and power, though where it was from he did not know.
“Have you turned to the rippling tides
to engulf your lonely tears?”
It was getting closer, more prominent, but he was slipping away and he’d miss when it reached him.
“May the waves embrace you,
Lull you softly to sleep…”
His eyes closed if they hadn’t been already, his body numb to everything but the song echoing in his mind.
“Ease away all the hurt and pain
That you’ve carried through the years”
There was definitely power in the song, in something that was happening, but he couldn’t grasp it.
“But if given the chance,
Would you forget the past?”
The warmth was surrounding him, tickling him, teasing him.
“You and I can start all over”
He was taken, locked solid, and he didn’t want to lose that warmth. Those gentle fingers of it caressing his skin.
“We can love again, my dear.”
And with that gentle warmth pressing on his lips, everything went silent.
If only life had a rewind setting.
I think everyone wishes that at least once in their lifetime.