Short Stories

Resurfacing

By Lennylena

I emerged in a new world after years in the submarine, after an eternity of only a blinking sonar to keep me company. I was greeted with a combination of crashing waves and twittering seagulls who squawked as if they couldn’t agree on anything. But there it was before me, an island of green so lush and imaginative, so similar and in all the same ways, so foreign. The breeze hummed a song I could not remember, the sky a color I’d almost forgotten. 

The ocean was dark, a blue so forceful it was impossible to find space in it. But the light of the sky, controlled by a sun that continued to rise as if it were being pulled to full mast. Land, but not mine.

The rusted metal of my hatch creaked and chipped as I pulled myself from the depths. My skin burning in action and sunlight alike. I’d drifted through hell, depths unlike anything, and by some sort of miracle I’d been pulled ashore. 

Machinery groaned beneath me as my footsteps peppered the algae coated metal. Slowly and slowly I made my way closer to sand. It calmed my name, a hymn of a religion I’d never heard of. My foot caught a piece of scrap jutting from the smooth edges of the submarine. Slipping quickly from the slick surface, my body didn’t hit solid ground, but rolled over the edge. I collided with the water faster than I’d realized I’d fallen. 

But the cold shook me from my head. The waves, though salty, caught on my lips with a twinge of sweetness. The shock of the ocean had worn dry. I’d stared through a small window into the vast expanse of ocean for hours without end. Frightened by the sights, and even more terrified of what I might encounter. 

But my weightlessness washed away the horrors as they surfaced in my mind. I didn't have to fear what was beneath. I had resurfaced.