Short Stories

"Discovery"

   "Please, sweetie. Maybe we can play a game. You're going to discover what happens next, and you can tell the world all about it afterwards. A sort of future-finding game. And if your discovery is different to what you think, you have to help us make your favourite raspberry cake, ok?"

"But..." Ava's voice might have cracked, but she wasn't sure. All she could feel was her blood rushing, and her heart squeezing, and the churning storm clouds in her stomach raining ice and anger and tears, because her mother didn't believe her. They weren't going to get out in time.

"Oh, Ava... it was just a bad dream, you know that? Things will turn out ok, don't you worry. You can come and sit on my bed if you really want."

And her face still felt white and her eyes were beginning to sting, and she wanted to scream that no, it wasn't ok, it wasn't ok and it won't be ok — but nobody would believe her anyway, and there was nothing she could do.

So she just... sat there on the bed, the hands on the clock moving steadily forward, and hoped against hope that the only thing she discovered was that there was nothing to discover at all.

10 Minutes Earlier

She seemed to float there, a silent observer in the silent house. Around her, the curtains danced to the glow of the moon, and soft lights still flickered outside the window from where drunken beachgoers couldn't force themselves back home.

Far, far down the sands, the waves stood still. It was as if somebody had taken a snapshot of the world at 01:27 in the morning — the reflection of the stars glittering on the ocean was only broken by the occasional cloud wafting across the sky. Anyone watching would've assumed it was going to be a quiet night.

But then a force pulled her away, and all of a sudden she was in the open ocean hearing a drumroll sound from beneath the waves. And suddenly, chaos had rolled its die.

The thing responding to the call was cloaked in shadow and seawater, but as was the way of dreams, Ava could see the movement of every last drop. It was racing over the sea — the sea which had been so calm, so perfect only a minute earlier —, racing towards...

She felt strangely empty as she was pulled again, far ahead of the wave, and recognised the silhouette of her house on the coastline. Maybe you could only feel when you were in a body. Maybe, she realised as she turned around, it had just taken her a while to piece the dream together. Because as her non-existent eyes (consciousness?) rested on the force of nature not that far behind her, she felt a spike of something that was unmistakably fear.

It had grown in the time it had taken to get closer to the shore. She could see that even without her dream-vision. Whereas before it had barely peeked above the waves, it now lorded over them, towering over the once-proud white horses who now raced to be free of its path.

—And then she was back in her house, looking at her clock — 01:28 — as she felt the ocean roar around her—

A seagull's cry startled her awake.

5 Minutes Earlier

She didn't know how long she sat there, breathing (in, out) and just trying to calm down. Her eyes were closed. Looking outside, seeing the waving curtains and the lights in the beach — it reminded her too much of the nightmare. Being there in the dark with no sounds or sights to distract her was oddly comforting.

It wasn't enough.

Thin nails bit into still-white palms as another seagull called outside her window. She was going to dismiss it as just another sound, an unnecessary fright, but...

Now a third seagull was responding to the the first, the cry reverberating if the walls, and another replied and then another — there was the sound of wings flapping, and— were they running away from something? She'd heard something about birds sensing storms before they happened, storms and disasters, just like—

And suddenly her breathing was all over the place again, and her thoughts were even worse off, because they just had to be running away from something, didn't they? The house was exactly like it had been in her dream. The curtains were dancing. The sea was... she looked over. Oddly far out...

A thought crashed into her, drowning her, the icy impact almost worse than the wave. What's the time?

The answer was 01:23. The clock was laughing in her face.

(A face that she just knew was white and clammy and probably not around for much longer. Why couldn't she just join the seagulls? Why couldn't she just fly away?)

She forced her body up, crossed her room on shaking legs and collapsed against the doorknob. It gave a downwards turn...

Floorboards might have creaked as she stumbled over the floor, but her mind was in a typhoon too large to notice any outside noise, and it was all Ava could do to keep herself from trembling too much and falling over. She was nearly there — she just needed to warn her parents and then everything would be fine (and she refused to listen to the thoughts that no matter the outcome, five minutes was too little to make a difference)...

In retrospect, she should've known better.

Now

"Please, sweetie. Maybe we can play a game. You're going to discover what happens next, and you can tell the world all about it afterwards. A sort of future-finding game. And if your discovery is different to what you think, you have to help us make your favourite raspberry cake, ok?"

"But..." Ava's voice might have cracked, but she wasn't sure. All she could feel was her blood rushing, and her heart squeezing, and the churning storm clouds in her stomach raining ice and anger and tears, because her mother didn't believe her. They weren't going to get out in time.

"Oh, Ava... it was just a bad dream, you know that? Things will turn out ok, don't you worry. You can come and sit on my bed if you really want."

And her face still felt white and her eyes were beginning to sting, and she wanted to scream that no, it wasn't ok, it wasn't ok and it won't be ok — but nobody would believe her anyway, and there was nothing she could do.

So she just... sat there on the bed, the hands on the clock moving steadily forward, and hoped against hope that the only thing she discovered was that there was nothing to discover at all.

The little hands moved for the last time.

And that was when the wave came.

In an instant, the world turned into chaos. The suffocating stillness from before was replaced by equally suffocating ice, except that instead of being still and radiating cold it was moving and wet and rushing everywhere, and it was freezing her vocal chords and bringing the cold right inside her body and everything was so loud and why couldn't she see—

But the rushing on either side of her was growing to a crescendo, and it wasn't something a simple wall could stop. Her tears mixed with the seawater, her screams became gurgles, and the walls fell as the ocean finally, finally came crashing down.

Her 'discovery' had been right, after all.