“Lily,” he grunted, but I continued my dementia.
“I hate you, Radcliff! I wish I had never met you! I wish I’d never—”
I stumbled backward, losing my balance. It all happened so fast. The void invaded me. Radcliff shouted something in slow motion. My heart stopped beating through my descent to oblivion. I couldn’t escape my fate.
One… Two… Th—
I hit the merciless ocean. The aqueous grave swallowed me whole, welcoming me to the Cimmerian darkness. It took me deeper, until I reached the aphotic zone with no hope to escape.
It made my lungs ache.
Blood pounded in my head.
My throat burned as if a sword had plunged into it.
I was stuck inside the river of Styx, at the crossroad of Elysium and Tartarus, wondering where I’d land. The air was being sucked out from my body. I didn’t want to die here.
My body fought for every last bit of air, swimming toward the light. I emerged from the darkness, struggling to keep my head above water. But raging waves barreled toward me, attacking me. They crushed me again and again, throwing me back underneath the water. The salty ocean gushed down into my lungs, and I couldn’t breathe.
The battle was lost.
Engulfed under the water, I used the last of my strength to peel my eyelids open.
I saw Radcliff’s shadow through the light standing above the hole.
Before he disappeared, leaving me alone in the darkness.
Itold her I wouldn’t jump.
I told her I wouldn’t save her.
I gripped the rocks around the hole with force until the pebbles pierced my flesh. Drops of blood flowing like a dried-up river of lava were no match for the stirring pain inside my body.
The firm waves crashed against the shore like thunder in a storm. I couldn’t watch her eyes frantically searching the area anymore. No one would rescue her on time. It’d be too late.
She’ll drown.
There was no escape from the gates of hell that were swallowing everything whole. It demanded to be nourished.
A sacrifice.
I went rigid with a throbbing ache in my bones. That memory was too familiar. Pain ripped through my chest.
It hurt.
It tore me apart.
It was eating me alive.
My eyes glowed with savage fire at the memory of my mother’s body crushing on the hard rocks. The blood melting with the ocean. Her ghostly eyes looking heavenward. The waves stealing her from her world. From me.
Make it stop.
I witnessed it all, and I was powerless. I was just a child, with a father that didn’t care. Sorry, she said. Sorry, she haunted me with. Sorry, she cursed me in a loveless life. I had never swum again since that day. I never even dared to approach the water nor that hole.
Lily is going to die.
I clenched my teeth, no longer ignoring the agony I was facing. I felt. I fucking felt. All these crippling, weak, and somber emotions, they had a hold on me. I couldn’t save her. It was suicidal.
