The Triton

Chapter 1: Vivien

Everyone fears the ocean.

You're taught to never turn your back to the waves, to worry about bloodthirsty sharks with razor-sharp teeth, rip currents that suck you from shore, never to relinquish its grasp until you're drowning.

We've put men on the moon, looked back into the history of the galaxy with great big telescopes, climbed the highest peaks of every mountain, built enormous things and built roads and airports to connect every city on the planet.

Still, we do not know what lurks beneath the total blue expanse of the ocean's tides.

Yet my earliest memories lie here, half-buried in the sand, my mom clutching my hand as some tiny wave rushed towards us, seemingly bigger than the world itself, chasing after me, lunging out to steal me away in its bitter grasp. I'd shriek as she'd lift me in the last possible moment before the water would surely claim me as its own, and I'd laugh as she held me aloft, until I begged her, relentlessly, "Again, again!"

This beach was an old friend, its waves familiar, the stairs that led down, as were the throngs of people who lounged and watched and bathed in the sun.

The lifeguard's tower was always hot, always, though I didn't mind. Mostly tangled, corded headphones played softly in my right ear, the other dangling loosely, limp in the heat.

I noticed but didn't watch the families, kids squawking and shrieking, couples holding hands, some reading, some playing, some sleeping. It was, in every sense of the word, just another day. Leaning back, feet up on the counter, legs exposed to the sun, I did what I did every day at the beach: I watched the waves.

They'd been nothing short of perfectly average, 5-6 feet in height, forming barrels I was dying to ride as they crashed towards the shore. Surfers were never the issue: they were usually good swimmers, and often attached themselves to their boards at the ankle. I watched them anyway, and besides the rare tourist taking lessons, they were typically fine.

The change was abrupt.

The waters pulled back, the shoreline dragging further and further away. Where once tame, slow-paced waves pushed surfers towards the shore, an almost angry 8-footed beast pooled, building, coalescing and twisting in on itself, furiously slammed into the shore. It crushed sandcastles and soaked towels and sunbathers in previously safe locations.

Something pulled at me, deep in the back of my brain, deeper than I could ever reach. It felt like fear, almost, burying itself deep

I jolted, shaking away the feeling. Parents jolted into action, pulling children in reassuringly and forcefully, pointing towards the waves.

My brows had crossed, eyes focusing as I sat up. A questioning pang clenched at my core. Unsure what exactly felt wrong, I pressed my palms into the counter, squinting as I scanned the shore and its waves. These were the waves after a storm. The sky would be gray and heavy, not this too-clear blue.

Another wave had already struck, larger than the last, snapping umbrellas and reaching even higher, rolling nearly to the base of my tower. In only 2 waves. That was...wrong.

A silent order of retreat had spread. Most pulled at their things and began pulling back towards the stairs.

But not all. As the third wave built, stretching nearly 15 feet into the sky, I saw a surfer paddle steadfastly into the break, catching it perfectly, standing and cutting her board down. She expertly navigated the pace of the wave, watching the barrel form and cutting perfectly into it. It crashed wickedly over the top of her, a tremendous barrel forming above her. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief as she pushed out of the barrel, then faded back into it once more.

The wave pushed, almost as strong as it was the moment it broke, its barrel reforming as it pushed down the beach. It left nothing but foam and mess and roiling water in its wake.

I waited for the surfer to emerge. The wave pushed deeply onto shore, further than the ones before.

I might've been the only one still watching. When panic strikes, no one else cares for anyone but their own.

Her board was gone. Her board. Where was it?

I'd known surfboards to break, but that came from falling, the tip snapping in a wave, bottoming out, and you'd still see the pieces of it float up.

I felt my heart begin to rise in my chest. The logical part of my brain knew she was fine, surfers, especially under big waves, can spend upwards of minutes trying to fight to the surface. I'd seen it on occasion in this very post.

But that wicked feeling in my stomach, the tightness that had formed at the start of the set, it gnawed at me, pulling at me. It made me step outside the frame of the stand, grabbing the surfboard that sat there. It pulled my feet from their flip flops. It made me forget.

The first thing you do with a drowning person: you radio. You get additional resources to begin their paths towards you, so the second you get anyone to the shore, they have the help they need, from anyone who can provide it.

I forgot. It just never crossed my mind.

20 seconds. It weighed on me, a century's worth of worry piling. She'd gone into the barrel of that wave and hadn't come out, it was better to be out there, I told myself, maybe, maybe I could find her.

I sprinted towards the water, sizing up the next wave already looming offshore as my foot met water for the first time.

I threw my board ahead of me and tore into the waves.