BLUE BROWN

Chapter 1

The little boy stares solemnly into the deep depths of the water. Waves gently lap against the wooden platform connected to their small house,spraying the air liberally as they go. He longs to submerge his hands into their once crystalline surface and feel their coolness on his skin.
Except a few months ago,when he had ignored the water's new unsightly brown waves and done exactly that,there was nothing cool about it. It had burned him so bad he had screamed for hours after,drenched in the sweat of his agony.And no matter what he and his mother did,they couldn't stop the pain from worsening,tearing apart his hands.His mother had to call the doctor to get the liquid poison out of his skin. She then forbade him from ever nearing the ocean again.
Even now,she appears at the door,tanned arms crossed,contrasting starkly against her white dress. She glares at him and jerks her head towards the house's interior,warning him to come in.
He holds up one finger silently. A second,the small finger begs.
She comes up behind him. He doesn't dare to look at her as he speaks.
"It hates me," he says sadly. And though he couldn't see her face,he knew it was softening. She would reassure him. Of course not,she would say. No one could hate you. And he would love her for it but they would both know it was a lie. Everyone hated him. Because he was poor. Because he was scary,with his silver eyes and hair and abnormally pale skin.
To his immense suprise,his mother doesn't counter it. She crouches next to him and stares at the ocean as well,taking in the repulsing brown waves and the sharp acidic smell that hangs above it. The look on her face is the same one she had when the news reporter had informed the world that the million tons of garbage in the ocean had finally become irreversably fatal to all of Earth's living creatures. The plastic had dissoluted into various chemicals,releasing the poison in their wake. Millions of sea animals had died that day,and the few that survived had hidden deeper inside the ocean where the armageddon hadn't reached yet. The look on his mom's face when the news reprter had summarised all of this in a voice as flat as paper,surrounded in the demise of what had once been an ocean was-devastated. It was the only way to describe it. Now,she runs her hand over his shock of white hair and leaves.
The mistake he makes next,a small mistake that should not have claimed any life.
He leans on his toes unconciously,spurred by a small habit.
Tips.
Falls.
Screams. The piercing kind of scream only the pain of death can bring. He can vaguely hear his mother yell his name from the house.
The ocean screams with him.