Short Stories

Water

I went to the beach with my best friend walking until my feet had touched the sand, I looked at the view in front of me, waves coursing back to the shore and people playing or laying around the water. The sun was bright, bringing my sunglasses from my head to the front of my face. Carrying a chair in one hand and a beach bag in the other. I look back at my friend and her boyfriend giving each other a slight peck. Turning my head back to the beach I plop our things onto the sand, taking off my flip flops in the process and setting up our things. Putting up the umbrella and placing chairs and towels out. Starting to take off my cover up, revealing me in my bathing suit I heard a yell almost I thought.

Squinting my eyes across the distance seeing a bunch of people, until I looked over to my left I saw a boy? Or man? I whipped my glasses off onto the sand looking over to see a man had looked like he was drowning.

"I can't swim" I heard the voice faintly, not one lifeguard was around so I started running towards the man. "Someone, please help me!" he said, as I made my way to the cold river water. Slowing down as I got deeper in the water, I slowly approached the man. Grabbing onto the closest arm, I start dragging his body to the shore. He then became dead weight as we got to the shallower areas. I realized the man had not looked conscious, I grabbed him from under his armpits pulling him to shore.

When we finally got there my friends finally realized the situation and ran towards me and this unknown man, who looked very well in his late teen years maybe 19 at the most. His eyes were closed and I knew for sure, if he was drowning he probably got water in his lungs.

"Do CPR or something Daniel!" I yelled at my friend,
"I don't know how too, you know, do you?" He asked back,
"I don't know for sure"

"Do mouth to mouth or something?" Jennifer said,

"I Don-" I couldn't protest when Jennifer interrupted,
"He's going to die if you do nothing!"

"Okay, okay!"

I went on my knees and did twenty chest compression's and then lifted the boys chin and opened his mouth and attached mine and blew in my oxygen, going back to chest compression's, and back to giving air to the man. Nothing was working feeling his pulse slower, and then it clicked to me. I put him to his side, and patted his back because I wasn't quite sure if I was doing anything right, but I knew I must have as I heard the man in front of me start coughing. Water escaping from his mouth, he was coughing but I felt relieved knowing that the man was alive. I let go and grabbed onto the ground to try to keep me stable, I took deep breaths and I went back to the man going around him to see his face.

His face met mine as I looked at his, and then I was suddenly attacked with a hug from the boy. "Thank you so much, you just saved my life," He said. I didn't know what to do at that point so I just stayed there as the unknown boy had still continued to hug me. I think he came to the realization that it had been a weird act he had done so he had let go of me scooting a centimeter away from me, saying a slight apology under breath. I smiled at him, then I started giggling.

"What is the name of my savior?" He said in a joking tone

"It's Emma, and probably too old for you?"
"I just turned 20 two days ago, but my name is Ben. What about you?"
"I-m um 19"
"So my savior thinks I look like a baby?"

Then from there we became friends, until then we slowly became boyfriend and girlfriend. It all just started from there and it started growing from there. Well that's what I thought would have happened if I had made another choice that day.

That wasn't exactly what happened, Yes, I went to the beach with my friends and we just started summer break and when we had gotten to the beach I did see a man. He was drowning, and there weren't very many people around 10 at the most, but none of them had been a lifeguard. I looked straight at him, as he yelled for help asking for someone to help him but it was so faint but I knew he was the one who needed the help, I knew he was the one calling for help.

What did I do when I saw him? I was scared, and I saw that he was helpless and needed help. I watched as he was struggling to keep his head up from the water, but I did nothing about it. I watched as the man slowly stopped coming up for air and I watched until he stopped coming up. The water now free from people looking as if there was no one out there.

What I did next? Call the police? No, I told my friends that we should choose another beach because this one didn't look as nice as the one we went to before. So what did we do? We left and went to a different beach. Then what I did, I pretended that man had never existed and that I had never seen him in the first place.