Maze Runner - Oneshots and Imagines

Epilogue

The rushing waves break at the sand of the beach, each drawing patterns, bringing seashells, fish and algae. When I close my eyes, their sound comforts me. I can't tell if it's the wind that brushes past me, the breeze that touches my face and lets my hair soar, that moves the water so blithely, or if it's the scent of the sea that is so unfamiliar but comforting, that tickles my nose and tells me stories of smells in lands so far away. Maybe it's the melody of the smooth movement, so wild and calm at the same time, changing as it wants, back and forth, or if it's the touch when the water flows to my feet, the sand beneath my toes, when my hands clutch another of those beautiful shells or a fish swims close to my legs, when my hands trail along the surface and dip into the cold.

They call it the Safe Haven.

When I sit by the sea, sand on my clothes and my feet in the water, seashells in my lap and algae all around me, and my hair is braided but the wind loosens strands until they fly through the air, I breathe. For the first time in my life, I feel like I am. I inhale and I exhale and I close my eyes, savouring the feeling of simply and just breathing. Being.

The air burns in my lungs as I taste the salt, smell the ocean, listen to the waves. And I feel free. I feel free when I open my eyes and all I see is water. Water and the sky, unrestrained Forever, unfolding right in front of me. Possibilities. Chances. Nothing and everything before me, so close I can grasp them and so far I will never reach them.

The sea never goes. It stays, always, no matter the time or day. It's here when the sun comes up and when it goes down. It's here at night and at day, in dark and in light, in every moment and every second imaginable, and it will be forever. But the sea is never stuck. It's never the same. It moves and it changes just as it stays.

With the sea, there's no wrong or right. There's life, there's Now. There's signs of the future and the past. The sea means Forever. Life forever, death forever. It's the universes clock. A clockwork no one understands. A clockwork that is, that changes, that moves, one that is now and tomorrow and yesterday.

At night, the water is almost indistinguishably the same as the land and the sand. There's no difference as long as you just see. The difference comes when you start to feel. When you start to hear. When you dip your toes into the water, dig your fingers into sand. When you listen to the wind change. But then the stars come out - and one by one, each and every single one of them illuminates the dark. They start to turn the blackness bright. The sea mirrors them, it reflects the light they spend in the night. It's the most beautiful, enchanting thing I have ever seen - the water catching what is thrown at it and letting it shine back.

The darkness is just as comforting. It takes away everything, but it doesn't scare me. Not anymore. Because dark is always fading. Unlike the sea, the night is not forever.

Combined, the two give me a sensation that I cannot describe. Sitting at the beach at night is the only time that I feel wholly fulfilled. It brings a feeling of freedom, of independence. The sea is Forever, but the dark is not, and still it comes back. Both are Always in a way very clashing. But together, they aren't just yesterday, they aren't just tomorrow. They are Now. They are freedom. The freedom of the present, of the presence, of being. Even though they are so eerie to some, to me, they mean the world.

A world of Forever, of Now, of the future and the past. A world of being. A world filled with me.

When I sit there at night, I am. I breathe. I think.

At any other time of the day, I think. But then, I think about the past, about the yesterdays. I think about the future, all the tomorrows. In my mind, again and again, the same thoughts cross and turn and tangle up. It's like I'm addicted to them. They scream at me, loud and impossible to ignore. They scream into my ears, they shout all the things that happened and all the things that will happen.