Earth Can't Hold Us All

Clementine's POV: Sinking Ceremony

June 6th, 2080

Everything is silent and hazy. The faces of the angry crowd around me are a blur and the inside of my mind feels empty. It's as if I'm already dying before I hit the water.

My hands are tied behind my back, and my ankles are chained to a cinder block. The tip of my toes reach the edge of the gaping hole in the middle of the town square's wooden ground. The hole has the dark and dirty ocean in it. The ocean that our town floats on, the ocean that I've walked over every moment of my life. Now it looks like this ocean is going to swallow me whole before I even got to walk off of it.

I turn my head to look at my friends who stand next to me. We encircle the hole, waiting for the authorities to shove us into the dark abyss after the mayor finishes his speech.

"These girls have been ravaging our village for years. They've committed many crimes, all of which are punishable by death. We have finally caught all members of the Girl Gang. I am Mayor McCarthy, and I sentence Juno, Camilla, Cyrus, Angel, Clementine, Nova, Lilith, Piper, and Birdie to death; taking effect immediately."

A loud crash of thunder ends his sentence for him, followed by a powerful streak of lightning.
The mayor steps off of his small stool he stood atop of. Some of the angry crowd claps, others shout strong words against him.

I can see my mother in the crowd. She stares emptily at me, tears stream down her face. She wears the look of my father the day I stormed out of his restaurant; the last day I saw him alive. She looks like she's given up at this moment. I meet the hollow glare of her eyes.

Goodbye, mom.

The village sways with the ocean's small but powerful waves that the strong wind causes. The sky is thick with gray monstrous clouds, making this usually bright evening very dark.

Goodbye, sun.

Piper is standing next to me, she is sobbing like a child. Maybe because she is a child; only a year older than me. We're all children, with so much life ahead of us; not anymore.

She calls my name over the loud wind. I look at her, taking in the details of her freckled frightened face.

"Goodbye, Clementine," she says.

I stare blankly at her.

"Looks like you won't be able to run away from your problems after all," she says between sniffles, referring to what I told her yesterday. I told her that I was going to land with Hinge. I was going to run away from my mother, and from this place.

That plan fell into a million pieces when the authorities arrested me before Hinge could bring us to the boat we were going to take to California.

Goodbye, lost hope.

My eyes scan the crowd of unfamiliar faces for Hinge's handsome one. I only catch a glimpse of the back of his jacket rustle in the rough wind. Why is he leaving? Hinge would stay to watch me until my last moments. He wouldn't run away. I know him, he's not cowardly, at least not when it comes to the people he loves. Now I am being proved otherwise. My heart sinks before my body does.

A large guard dressed in black approaches Cyrus, a beautiful ebony girl who was known as the "wild one" in the gang. The guard lifts up the cinder block she's chained to and tosses it into the hole, the chain follows the block for a moment while Cyrus screams. A terrifying second later she's disappearing under the water's surface.

The crowd cheers and lightning casts light on the people's manic faces. I understand that death is a curiosity, but I will never understand how it is an enjoyment.

The guard does the same thing to Angel, our gang's "leader" after the crowd settles down, only to have the crowd react excitedly again. Tears start to roll down my cheeks for the cruel fate that lays only a minute away for the rest of us.

"Goodbye, girls," I say, turning my head to meet eyes with Piper and Nova who stand by my side. "You've all been good to me."

"Hinge won't let us die like this," Nova says, with a wild look in her dark eyes. Her Matt black hair is soaked and shining from the pouring rain. "Nor will my brother Jax. They'll save us."

"Nova, you can't possibly believe that-" Piper starts, but is interrupted by Nova.

"I have hope, Piper. It's all I have left. I can't let it go."

My sinking heart seems to rise up again at Nova's hopeful words and undying stubbornness. Maybe that's why Hinge was running away from here, so that he could save us. But my heart sinks right back down when I hear another loud splash of a girl's body hitting the water.

I look up at the sky as I let my tears join the rain drops on my face. Instead of the gray clouds I see a wave towering above the buildings and above the people in the crowd. This angry wall of water races towards our village from the distance. People start to scream and curse when they see what this village's fate is. Everyone starts to run in every direction, including my mother, who doesn't even bother to look my way one last time. The mayor demands the guards to keep Sinking us, but there is no one left to meet his demands as water from the sea splashes down on us like a powerful hand from a god or a demon smashing us to our well-deserved end.

It is only a moment later until the crashing waves of the angry ocean travel towards what's left of the Girl Gang members, all still chained to cinder blocks waiting to die. We're abandoned from our own death sentence, and given over to the wrath of the weather.

As the strong water breaks the wood beneath my feet and pushes me into the ocean, I keep my eyes open, searching the water for Nova, Piper and the rest of the girls. They are being pulled deeper into the water right along with me. Piper's face holds pure terror as she stares in the direction of her sister Birdie's body, who's encompassed by red, as if her blood is her aura. She must have hit her head when the wave took us down. The rest of the still-living girls flail and air bubbles pour from their open mouths. I feel like I'm losing the world in slow motion.

Air bubbles cloud the sight of my friends dying in front of me. I start to move my body in a panicked way as the last of my breath escapes my mouth. My thoughts start racing and I can hear my loud heart pounding as if it were in my head instead of my chest. I think of everything terrible I have done and I think of everything good I have done. I picture people's faces, people I love and people I care about. I see my father frying something in a skillet with a toothy grin, I see my mother with her stern face and gentle eyes looking down at me. And I can feel Hinge wrapping his arms around my waist. I can feel him hugging me tightly, pulling me close to him. Too close, too tight. I can't breathe, his embrace feels like it is killing me.

My ribs feel like they are being pushed aside as my lungs fill with water. My tongue tastes the oceans salt, and my throat feels like it is being expanded from the overwhelming pressure of the water gushing through me. I just want to go home. I want to curl into my warm bed and escape this nightmare of cold ocean water taking over my body.

I should have been able to choose when and how to die, just like my father did.

My vision is dotted with white spots and strange colors. My body tries to take a breath but I am only filled with more water.

My death is being stolen from me.