Scales [ON HOLD]

Chapter One: The Hole

   The sound of the waves drowned out all noise from the outside world and my feet in the golden sand brought back memories, some happy yet some sad. I looked up to the crystal sky and saw a few white birds soaring up above me. Flying in the sky must be so nice on a day like this... having your pearl coloured feathers combed through with crisp, fresh air every second of every day...

   I let the relaxing wind blow my denim jacket out of my warm, dry hands and onto the sand. My head twitched in thought to get it but I did otherwise, there was no-one around so there was no-one to take it. Why waste energy on getting it when you can just leave it and collect it later anyway? I enjoyed looking at the scenic views, even if the sea was a little bit rough. All around me there were a cracked oyster shells, a couple of crabs scuttling towards me but then stopping after I move away (animals just seemed to do that with me), a few strands of seaweed and a big mushy lump of... something... that was a few shades darker than maroon, brown even.

   "Ew." I placed my hands on my jeans and squatted down to its level, only an inch off the ground. I brushed my long, straight, brown hair out of my face, picked up a long piece of driftwood and slowly prodded it. I began to drag some seaweed and algae off it. That was when I noticed it was a seahorse. With its poor, lifeless body being baked in the mid-day sun, I thought about how innocent it was. It probably didn't know what it was doing. It probably just found some tasty brine shrimp and was going in for the kill, for all I know it could have a family! I dug the stick deep into the sand beneath it and flung the seahorse back into the ocean.

   I felt very happy with what I had done and so, for some reason, I gave the beach a very wide grin. It started to feel weird after a while and so I stopped. It was really annoying because the tide had started to come in so I had to be careful where I was walking. I started inching backwards because that was the first thing that came to mind when I told my brain to 'Watch the waves'. As I was walking backwards, my foot pressed up against something cold and hard... and sharp. It dug into my foot and JESUS CHRIST it hurt! It was almost like a stone was being pushed into my skin, but I had broken my bone, and there was a bruise on my foot, on top of a cut, covered in blisters and dunked in vinegar... with a hint of lemon... and DEATH.

   I felt like dying. Literally dying. But I couldn't. I turned my head around, holding back the tears that were about to flood down my face, and nearly screamed at what I saw. There was absolutely nothing behind me, just a big, black, wide hole full of nothingness. What my foot had been digging into was in fact a slimy, salty rock. I bent down and managed to pull my foot off the point, it was pouring out with blood and so I took my sock off my left foot and wrapped it around the wound. That was when I started crying. It may seem wimpy, but when you think about it, well, let's talk about it in eight words;

Broken Bone
Bruise
Cut
Blister
Vinegar
Lemon
Death...
So really I guess it's okay to cry.

   I gazed down at the hole. I would have been looking at the bottom of it, but that was just the thing, I couldn't see the bottom. In fact, I don't think there was one! The stone that had dug into my foot wasn't the only stone there. There was a ring of them circling the entrance, it almost looked like they were all carefully placed with all of the points facing outwards. I bent down to touch one stone, it was quite sharp too, like the one that decided to immigrate into my foot. Then I touched another stone, then another until I had gone all the way around and back to the one that was covered in the blood from my foot. I peered down the hole again and saw a slight shimmer of light. I figured that the only reason I couldn't see the bottom was because of the lack of light.

   I stuck my hands in my shallow pocket and felt around for something, anything to throw down to see how deep it was. In maths and Science (and music for some reason... God knows why) I had learnt that Half x Feet Per Seconds Squared equals how deep a hole is, from a rock drop.

   "Ow! You stupid piece of-" I shouted as I quickly retrieved my hand from my pocket and put it to my mouth as so to suck up the droplets of blood. My mind raced as I tried to remember what could be in my pocket, a needle? A piece of glass? I slowly put my hand back in my pocket and picked out the sharp object. It was as silky smooth as baby skin (while it's still on the baby of course). I pulled it out and looked at it. It was a rounded out piece of glass. I looked at it for a second and wondered how on earth it had gotten there. I certainly didn't put it there. Anyway, I didn't really care at that point. It was in my pocket, so it counts as mine. If I dropped this glass then hopefully I could hear the smashing and calculate the depth of it.

   Holding my hand high over the hole, I held my breath (I honestly have no idea why I did this I just did. I'm weird with stuff like this. Say now I'm crossing the road, I have to do it within four steps or before anyone crossing steps on the pavement. Also I have to arrange the food like Tetris when it goes on the tills. OCD ladies). I let go of the glass and counted how long it took to hit the bottom. It didn't smash but I heard a slight tap, as though half of it landed on seaweed and the other half hit the floor. That took about seven seconds. At the beginning, it traveled about two feet every second. So Half x Feet Per Second Squared. That is Half x 2 (7 secs squared). 49 ft... 49ft! Oh god! That is really deep.

   I was just about to go around the hole when a massive wave hit me on the back, making me lose my balance and fall... into the hole.