Page 96 of Female Fantasy
He snaps his fingers, and it starts all over again.
Stolen life force flows through his veins. His red eyes illuminate, bright as rubies. Someone—another weak, defenseless human—powers those tiny vestibules. The water around us begins to drain away, then swell, filling the negative space without a second thought, the way air did moments ago. My mouth is forced open, and the liquid floods my lungs. I choke back a mouthful of salt water and pray to whatever sea god I am descended from to let me transform.
To let me grow a tail and gills.
To help me fight back.
And when the gods do not answer, I whisper a silent pleato them to end my suffering here and now. To allow me the dignity of a quick and quiet death.
But my luck seems to have run out.
My throat burns. The water is everywhere: wrapped around me, pouring into me, exploding out of me. I am suffocated by it, trapped by its particles. The ocean has turned its wrath on me, and there is nowhere I can hide from it. I know down to my very bones that I cannot survive this. I was always meant to succumb to its depths.
I cannot breathe, cannot think, cannot see. My eyes have begun to shutter, dark spots filling my vision. No blinding light from the heavens.
Only thick, unrelenting darkness.
My muscles seize up in pain as my vitals start to slow and my brain begins to shut down.
I am dying.
There is no mercy, no beauty in death. No forgiveness or redemption. I was silly to think of martyrdom as a hero’s way to leave this plane. The truth is, there is no heroism in death, no bravery or sacrifice. What a fool I have been.
Death has no meaning, no purpose.
Only darkness.
“Tell me, you wretched bag of skin,” Nix barks. “Reveal your rebellious ways or be swept out with tomorrow’s tides.”
I think of my husband’s wrinkled scowl. His limp, long, bony fingers.
I think of the treasure trove. The feeling of rightness the trident gave me. The call of the conch at the creek cottage. I neverexperienced true power before that. How naïve I was to allow it to plant seeds of hope inside my soul. But how sweet it was to believe in something larger than myself, even for a moment.
I think of Ryke.
His teasing remarks and terms of endearment. His eyes of gold and heart that matches. The stranger who saved me from the claws of my fate and gave me the adventure of a lifetime. The man I have come to revere.
To love.
I love Ryke.
But that secret will die with me.
After I am gone, my love will disintegrate into the salt and sand.
And there is poetry in that.
I smile to myself.
I can barely hear Nix screaming at me any longer, his voice merely a pleasant buzzing in my ear as I succumb to the darkness. My body no longer feels heavy but light as a lily pad. And the force of the water destroying me from the inside out evaporates into nothing.
It will not be long now.
My eyelids grow heavy. Behind them, a light flashes.
A sound buzzes below the hum of the darkness.
Then a whisper cuts through space and time, coming from far, far away.
