Stranded

Writing Prompt: A sad woman is walking on the beach. She has a handgun in her purse.

Blurb: A woman experiences the five stages of grief on a beach.

Genre: Literary Fiction

~ ~ ~

All living things live with the fear of dying. Some just don't know it until they get close enough to breathe its scent.

Normally, the souls of the dead move on, don't they? Well, not me.

The waves beat along the shore in a perfect rhythm. Sea foam inched its way toward the brilliantly golden sand in an endless struggle to embrace the land. It never gets far enough, of course. The land and the sea were never meant to be one body.

The sound of children playing drifted to my ears as I eyed the lone family playing with sand castles in the distance. My fingers massaged the cold metal in my handbag, feeling every nook that rudely interrupted their routine.

I didn't want to do this. I never did.

Guilt and grief gripped my heart as I raised my handgun at the laughing woman playing with her family. I knew everything about her, and yet she knew nothing about me. We had so much in common, but she was naive.

So, so naive. She never saw what was coming for her, and my body ached for the pain she was about to receive.

I pulled the trigger.

I screamed at the heavens for damning an innocent woman whose only crime was to wish for a happy life. I cursed at God for damning me to be her executioner. I watched as her husband and child continued playing by themselves, ignoring the blood pooling around their sand castle.

Oh, that poor, poor woman. Why did she have to do it? Why did she have to condemn herself? I had plans for our future together. Why couldn't she have held out longer for the sake of her life?

Anger flooded me, pushing out the grief within my heart as the handgun dissolved in my hands. I fell to my knees as a terrible pain struck every being of my body.

And the lights went out.

~ ~ ~

The salty tang of the seawater woke me up, and I found myself pacing the deserted beach again. The weight of the handgun in my handbag pressed down on me, as if refusing me to lift it again.

Screams and crying now permeated the air. My blank eyes drifted to the sole family in the distance. The man was now beating the boy with a shovel while his wife cried for him to stop.

I watched as the boy fell to the ground, his head bleeding profusely, while the woman pushed the man away. I watched as the man slapped her to the ground, kicking her in the stomach violently. I looked away, knowing full well the many similar incidents that would follow from this.

Still, I refrained from intervening.

Perhaps if I had never appeared, the woman's life might still be spared. Perhaps if I had chosen to do nothing, the man wouldn't have signed her death warrant. My hands closed around the pistol in my handbag. Perhaps this was the only way I could keep both of them alive.

I put the gun to my head.

If I am to be killed for simply living, then let death be kinder than man.

I pulled the trigger.

~ ~ ~

I left the woman's unconscious body in the car park shortly after waking up again on the beach. I took her place, greeting her husband with a smile. Her son bounded gleefully beside me as we made our way to the sand.

The brilliant gleam of the sun beamed on us as I eagerly built the sandcastles with my 'family'. They never knew better. After all, I was indistinguishable from the woman they once knew. And for this brief moment, I forgot all about the tragedy that was to befall this family.

I barely felt the man's fists rain down on me. Instead, there was only joy in my heart, knowing that I had taken the suffering in place of his wife. She wouldn't have been able to take it, but I could.

If only I had appeared sooner to take her place. If only I had learnt to appease this man for her. If only I had taken the killing blow for his son.

The man stopped soon after, exhausted from his outburst of anger. I let go of his son and pleaded for us to go home. We had scarcely made it halfway to the carpark when I pulled out my handgun.

I pointed it at him, knowing that his behaviour would not cease even after he got home. Knowing that the trigger will still be pulled when they got home.

So let me kill him myself instead. Spare her the agony of what comes after. After that, I swear I'll disappear from her life altogether. I promise I will.

I fired the weapon, and another bout of pain ravaged my body. I sank to my knees as the world warped around me again.

~ ~ ~

Why am I still here? Haven't I done quite enough damage already?

I looked at my hands. They were holding onto something metallic. What do you call that thing again?

Ah, that's right. A handgun.

A soldier's tool for execution. A robber's weapon for intimidation. A human's answer for mercy.

Does it even matter to me at all?

I tossed the pistol into the ocean, a defiant retort to whatever sick deity who decided to strand me in the middle of land and sea. There is nothing I can do at this point to change our fate. Why even bother struggling?

I paced along the shoreline, ignoring the family playing in the distance. Shadows of fishes beneath the water called out to me, luring me in like sirens to a lovesick sailor. I stared at them, almost in a trance. A few steps were all it would take to join them.

But my body had no more energy to move.

I sat on the sand, hugging my knees close to myself as the sun left the horizon and silence filled this accursed Purgatory of mine. But no more. I understand now why this is happening.

I closed my eyes as the terrible pain washed over me for the last time, turning the night sky into dawn once again.

~ ~ ~

Normally, the souls of the dead move on. And it is time I do, too.

I stood facing the sea, free from anything that still dared to shackle me down. Free from the fear of the consequences our actions have wrought. Free from the fear of death.

The scent of salt flooded my nose as a tidal wave rose from the sea, high enough to touch the clouds in the sky above me. It stared down at me, as if beaming all too proudly at me for finally accepting what was to come.

I looked into the distance for the last time. The woman smiled gratefully back at me, thanking me for giving her the courage to break her shackles. I closed my eyes in contentment, knowing that I saw her through her toughest times.

The sea swallowed the beach whole. And as it swept me off my feet, I made out the last words my senses would ever hear.

"Prisoner 01.14.14. Execution by lethal injection successfully carried out. Time of death: 0300 hours."

END

Author's Note

This story is an allegory about a woman grieving over the loss of her own life. It is written from the perspective of a different, more violent personality developed in response to her domestic abuse (Dissociative Identity Disorder).

Inspired by Video Game Director Hideo Kojima's 'Death Stranding', we explore the cyclical, complex nature of every choice we make between our journey from life to death in the slowly dying mind of Prisoner 01.14.14.

She goes through the 5 stages of grief (Anger, Denial, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance), as her alter ego experiments with different decisions to get through the pain of losing her own life.

The story is also peppered with symbolism, such as the land representing life, and the sea representing death. The beach represents the Purgatory where life and death meet, and Prisoner 01.14.14 is stranded there until she accepts that her death happened through no fault of her own.