The dark side of infinity

Chapter 1

If anyone asked me what my biggest fear was, the answer would come to me so fast it could almost burst out of my head before i manage to say it out loud.

The sea.

A mass that covers 70% of the worlds surface but seems infinite. We don't know what's in there and theres no promising we ever will. But dont get me wrong, its not the giant sharks, man-eating squids and Kraken that scare me. It's the "never endingness" of it. The fact that if, on one of my trips back to england to visit my family, my plane suddenly drops out of the sky to land in the ocean, im surrounded by it. There's nothing but water around me, below me, and by the time i start panicking, above me. Miles and miles of water engulfing me, suffocating me, and there's nothing i can do about it.

It doesn't help that some of my earliest memories are from that exact place, the water, or that it's the reason i'm an orphan...Ugh, i hate that word, it makes me sound like a victim. I'm not. I'm the reason my parents are dead. If anything I'm the culprit.

When I was 6 years old (the day of my mothers birthday), the three of us (my mum, my dad and me) went on a boat trip to see the whales and dolphins. It started out a lovely day, sunny, not a cloud in the sky, but an hour and a half in to the trip, it suddenly went dark, the sky clouded over and the waves started growing. I remember the captain yelling at us to sit on the floor while he tried to control the boat by bringing in the sail, but failing miserably as it flung around and nearly took his head off. I sat down, against the bench, between my parents, both of them gripping on to me so that i wouldnt slide away. But suddenly I let go of the blue bouncy ball my dad had won for me on the pin-ball machine just before leaving the harbour. Somehow i managed to jump out of their arms in an attempt to catch it before it went over board, just as a massive wave tried to eat the boat (and us) alive. My parents leaped for me and managed to push me to the deck just in time. As the water engulfed us there was nothing I could do but squeeze my eyes shut to block out the salt and grip on to the railing as hard as i could. It was weird, for the duration of time I was underwater, which could have only been a couple of seconds, it was almost...Peaceful. Not the kind of peaceful you want to feel when youre 6 though. I can only describe it as the peace I imagine you'd feel when you die, as if theres nothing more to worry about, I just need to close my eyes and sleep with the sound of the waves as my lullaby.

And then suddenly it was over, as if it never happened. The waves got smaller and smaller and the sky started to clear sending rays of light through my eyelids as if to say "You can open your eyes now, its safe." So I did. My eyes burnt from the salt at first, but after a few seconds I managed to open them enough to look around me. It didn't take long to realize my mum and dad were no longer next to me. I looked around frantically but soon realized they weren't where they should be. On the boat.

The next thing I remember is a few days later at my grandparents house, standing in the dining room with my ear the door, trying to hear what the police were saying but it was no use, my grandma soundproofed the house after our neighbours and their loud dogs moved in. I'd have to wait for them to tell me. And they did. As soon as the police left, the sat me down and talked to me for what seemed like hours. I cant remember a single word of what they said. Only that my parents had been found and that they were dead. My grandma cried for weeks and my grandad always denies it but i know he did too, in his room, on his own, so that we wouldnt hear him. I never cried, not once.

All of this plays through my head like a movie, watching myself as if I was someone else. Sadly I'm not, I'm me. Maxine (Max) Lilie Nelson. My own parents murderers.