JR Mercier

It At The Bottom Of The Ocean by JR Mercier.

it at the bottom of the ocean by jr mercier, jr mercier short story, jr mercier

The brilliant green forest danced around her.

She put one dirty foot down, the cold dirt a soothing balm to her bleeding soles. One foot after the other. One step after the other. An unsteady march as she focused on the rhythm. Further and further away from the tar demarcation that now cut her off from that cruel world behind her. Smoke blanketed the sky at her back.

The forest got thicker and every step had leaves brushing her naked and dirty skin, like millions of little hands reaching out, gently kissing her skin with cool lips. Flowers puffed pollen and artful scents. But all she could see in this green paradise was the red on her body. The red staining her hands, the red on the leaves that she left behind her. The leaves ripped from their choirs to be nothing but a canvas for her horrors. 

The ground gradually rose up, the sentinel trees no longer singing. They watched her pass between them, ancient and Other. 

She dug her bloody hands into the ground, the smell of fresh earth rising as she ascended the hill. She heaved and pulled and climbed and moved through the trees, trying to reach the top. There was an

The sentinels started reaching for her, scratching at her skin, trying to hold her back. 

But for all their reaching, she moved past them, breath sawing in and out of her ruined chest. 

Finally, when the trees were so high they disappeared into clouds and the world around her flickered with wings and hidden eyes and long fingers, only then did she reach the top. 

She gazed at the trees behind her and the open heavens above her. 

And the abyss before her. 

jr mercier, a short story

A gust of wind rattled the trees behind her, their creaking and moaning a symphony of sorrow for the girl that gazed at the abyss with longing. But they didn’t move and the faces and wings they sheltered didn’t either, their curious eyes on her as she walked to the edge. 

A loose rock tumbled over the jagged edge. It was so dark she couldn’t see the bottom.

She threw her head back, her stiff muscles protesting. But she drew in a deep breath, spread her arms wide and dropped over the edge, into the yawning darkness.

Air rushed past her, taking her breath with it. The cliff face came alive, the stone wall roaring and reaching for her but she was too far. And then darkness enveloped her, folding her in its cool embrace.

The darkness was obsolete, a cacoon of nothingness. Until one little light sparked.

It rippled, moving through all the colours of the rainbow and then to colours she had no names for. It shone quietly, one spot of light like a beacon in the dark. 

Beside it, another star came to life. Then another. Another. All around her, the dark came alive with winking stars until she was hanging in a midnight sky. 

Whatever held her vanished and she started falling again, the stars nothing but slashes of light as she plunged down the abyss again.

She had just enough time to see an ocean that glowed with blue fire before she crashed through the frigid surface. The cold stole the breath from her lungs and waves knocked her around, dragging her deeper as she fought to swim to the surface. But she was sinking.

There were waves under the water, cresting under the surface. 

She watched a wave, its fiery surf towering over her. The fire moulded into a horse with a rider that had no head, a girl in a dress running with horror on her face, an old man picking a flower while a mushroom cloud bloomed behind him, and a dragon that roared. The wave broke and the dragon crashed over her, its watery teeth dragging her down to the dark depths of the ocean floor. The dragon darted away, watery tail sparking with rainbows.

The ocean around her settled and the blue fire calmed. 

She closed her eyes and inhaled the salty water, cold hands digging into the ocean floor. The sand sifted through her fingers. For a second, nothing moved. No sound invaded her senses. Until-.

“Children of sorrow are my favourite.”

Her eyes shot open. There was a head the size of a mountain before her. The head’s chin rested on hands so big they could crush a city. Hair that was the same blue as the ocean drifted around its head, reaching all the way to the surface. Its eyes were big and kind but its mouth… Its mouth was stretched into a grin that made her shiver. 

She slowly sat up. Its enormous pinky twitched, birthing another wave with stories at its head.

“What are you?” Her words were lost in the ocean water but it must have been heard because its smile stretched even wider. Its mouth was so red. It made her want to retch.

“I am nothing.” Its head cocked, hair undulating with the movement. “But you are a child of sorrow.”

“Child of sorrow?” She asked, her voice lost in the water. “That sounds about right.”

It nodded, hair rippling with glowing light. “Sorrow was your last birth so that you shall be. A child of sorrow.”

She was quiet for a bit. “I don’t want to be a child of sorrow.”

“We are all children of sorrow, at some point or another.”

jr mercier, a short story

She frowned and looked up at the unnaturally red mouth. ”Even you?” She looked at its hair, the sheer size. “Even gods?”

“Maybe to your kind I am a god but not to mine.” It paused, another world’s history playing in that one movement. “And even gods are children of sorrow, them more than most.” Its smile stretched more, showing rows and rows of too sharp teeth. “What do you want, child of sorrow?”

“What do I want?” She asked.

“Yes. What do you want?”

“I don’t know.”

“Think less and feel more. What do you want?”

She thought of the burning world she’d left behind and her bloody footprints. “I want a new life and not the one I was given.”

“You are no longer alive, child of sorrow. What do you want in death?”

Her face crumpled but her tears were washed away as soon as they came. Her skin burned at the memory of hands she had not invited. Her eyes ached with the remembrance of the tears she had cried as the world ate her up and spat her out over and over again. It washed over her like acid and she scratched her skin.

“I never stopped fighting.” She declared, opening her blood fist. Not even the ocean had enough water to wash her clean. “But that doesn’t feel like much of virtue now. It just feels like I prolonged the inevitable.”

It didn’t say anything, only smiled with sharp teeth. 

She never stopped fighting. But for what? Where did it take her? To a cliff with jagged rocks and memories that would never leave, no matter how many lives she lived. Her body started sinking into the sand, slowly eating at her legs. Blood moved through the water. What did she want?

“What were you looking for when you stood at the edge of the abyss?” It asked her. She drew a watery breath and locked eyes with the head before her. It was patient, waiting with its eerie smile. 

“I didn’t want to fight anymore.” she whispered. A confession. A plea.

Its grin stretched from ear to ear. One massive hand lifted, moving an ocean of water as it grabbed her. Its other hand braced on the ocean floor, lifting clouds of sand. And then they were shooting up, trailing bloody water. Whips of glowing hair trailed behind them as it unfolded to its full height. It flattened its hand and she gingerly stood up, eyes on the glowing ocean of waves around them. She looked away from all the stories they showed. To watch them all would lead to madness. 

It grinned at her and she gazed back, waiting. 

“What now?” She asked, wringing her now clean hands.

“To exist is to fight.” It grinned at her and she gazed back, waiting. “For water, food, shelter, affection, rights – there will always be something to fight.”

“Can’t I stop existing?” She begged.

“The matter that makes up you was there when the universe drew its first breath and it will be there when it takes its last.” It brought her closer. “There is no choice but to exist. But I can give you some rest until you are ready to start a different story. ”

It opened its huge mouth, the ocean glow sparking off its razor-sharp teeth. It swallowed her in one bite. 

***

jr mercier, a short story

The trees swayed in the wind, dancing to their song. A song of sorrow for the sentinels lost and eternal hope for the ones still to be born. Their song played, as it has for aeons, and they swayed. They danced as a small body drifted gently down between their branches. She was laid down between their roots, her eyes closed and her lips blue. 

The sentinels bowed their branches and swayed as the sun set. Then rose. Again and again and again.

They danced while her skin disappeared under slow creeping moss and then blades of grass. Until a small bud dropped onto her mossy chest and took root. They danced as a little sentinel yawned awake.

This story was entered into the Reedsy short story contest #86, Springtime Flowers.

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If you want to read something similar, try That Time You Choked Her by JR Mercier