The Bleeding Ocean

This is a short story I wrote about an old character I came up with a couple years back. It has a lot of my own self-loathing and nihilism in it. Enjoy.

“I’ve been away a long time, Kailyah,” he said, with his back turned to the town. “I never knew how bad things were here before I left it all behind.”

 

Kailyah said nothing. She still wasn’t looking at him, at the young man she had grown up with. They had never really been friends; Kailyah did not think he had ever had a friend. He’s more talkative now, she thought. He’s said more in the past hour than he ever did growing up. Where did he go?

 

“I never imagined anywhere in the world being any different.” He looked at the girl sitting beside him, so slight and slender, even for her fifteen years. “That’s the thing about being a kid, you know. You’re world is so small, and you are so small … so helpless.” The boy turned away from Kailyah, looked at the ground.

 

The two sat for several minutes, letting the silence grow heavy and thick. “Jeklin,” Kailyah spoke at last. Her voice was not enough to break the silence, but at least bruise it. She still did not look at her companion.

 

Jeklin closed his eyes, not liking the way his name sounded when Kailyah said it. Her speech was barely above a whisper, as thin as her tiny frame. It sounded like soft hands on his back, a mother’s touch. It sounded like family, like friends, like a real childhood, spent with people who loved him. Hearing his name spoken in that voice was like watching a nest fall from a tree, hearing baby birds crying for their mothers just before hitting the ground. Jeklin wanted to cry, wanted to scream, but he found himself unable to do either.

 

Eventually, Kailyah continued in the same soft tone. “I know why you left, Jeklin. I understand why you would want to get away … but why would you come back?” Jeklin could see the effort it took for Kailyah to make those words. She looked as though she

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wanted to cry, but had forgotten how.

 

Even so, those weren’t the words she had meant to say, Jeklin knew. Why did you have to come back? That’s what she was thinking. Why couldn’t you have just stayed gone?

Jeklin looked down at the hands in his lap, his hands, he knew against all available evidence, and wondered if they would ever be any color other than red again.

 

“You are the only good thing to come of this town, Kailyah.” Jeklin said, darting a look at the young girl beside him. She still hadn’t moved. “I thought that I could be good, once upon a time. I thought that if I was good, then I could make things better. My mother would love me; your parents would stop cheating on each other; people would stop fighting and stealing from each other.”

 

There was a long moment of uncomfortable silence, then Kailyah said, “How… how did you know about my parents?”

 

Jeklin gave a short, humorless laugh. “My house only had one room. I was there when they were doing it. I can still hear the thump, thump, thump of my mother’s head hitting the wall as your father had his way with her.” He paused, looked at Kailyah. “It’s not something you can ignore.”

 

Kailyah looked briefly at Jeklin, then quickly turned away. “It wasn’t my fault.” She spoke the words quickly, shyly, but her voice carried true pain and spoke of more than just her father’s unfaithfulness and his mother’s apathy.

 

Jeklin glanced over his shoulder at the burning town. Somewhere among the wreckage were Kailyah’s parents, the parents he had taken from her. Kailyah just sat there, silent, her gaze downcast, as her entire world burned down to the foundations. Jeklin wanted to reach out to her, to hold her. He wanted to let her know that, somehow, everything would be alright. “None of this is your fault. I’m the one who made this town what it was.”

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“You didn’t…” Kailyah started to speak, her voice not quite as flat as before, but then grew silent. She had been toying absently with a strand of her long, brown hair, but she wasn’t doing it any more. “What it was?”

 

“I’m the reason for all of the bad things that have happened in this town. I brought evil into the world.” Jeklin was trembling now. His voice carried actual guilt for the first time since he had come back. “I swear I didn’t mean to, and I swear to God I don’t know how it happened, but it has to be my fault. It’s… it’s the only thing that makes sense.”

 

It was a long time before Kailyah could find her voice. “Your fault… How?”

 

There followed a long period wherein the only sound to be heard was the rustling of autumn leaves. Kailyah still stared into the rough fabric of her dress, while Jeklin had slipped into his own, morbid thoughts.

 

Jeklin looked up at the sky, as if waiting for it to collapse in on itself, snuffing out the world: not an unpleasant thought. “I always assumed there must be something wrong with me. I was a monster: something hideous, something ugly and disfigured. How else could the world around me be so ugly? How else could my own mother not even look me in the eye? What other reason could there be?”

 

Jeklin looked down at Kailyah, who now was not only looking at him, but actually meeting his gaze. Her eyes were fearful, and he realized he’d been shouting. He had risen, mid-tirade, without meaning to, and now he was staring down into Kailyah’s eyes, the color of the ocean with the sun sparkling on its surface. He had never considered the ocean to be beautiful before, but he could see waves breaking in her eyes, and he thought he could taste salt in the air. It was intoxicating.

Jeklin wondered if Kailyah knew what the ocean looked like. But then again, how could she? Jeklin doubted she had ever been more than a mile from the village where they were

 

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born. It made him sad for a moment that Kailyah might never know what her eyes meant to him. But his beatific recollection could not last.

 

The salty taste he had enjoyed was replaced by the pervasive stench of fish guts and horse s**t. Jeklin remembered his time by the docks, spent clutching at the sleeves of sailors with trembling hands, begging for coins. His stomach was cramped from hunger. His legs ached from sprinting through alley ways from a group of feral, snarling children, and his body felt torn from the beating he’d received after they caught him.

 

No. Kailyah had been through enough hell already. It made Jeklin wonder how she had turned out as wonderful as she had. And she was truly wonderful…

 

“I know it’s hard for you to understand, Kailyah.” Jeklin whispered. He thought about taking her hand, but didn’t. “But for me, this was the only choice. That place was tainted. The day my mother birthed me, something evil must have come with me. I’m responsible for everything bad that’s happened here. I’m the reason everyone had to die.”

 

Kailyah’s voice sounded flat, almost broken, but there was more strength in it now. “My parents, your mother…”

 

“You stupid little girl!” Jeklin almost spat the words. “You still don’t see it. My real mother died the second she brought me into the world. Your parents were nothing but demons wrapped in human skin. This town has been dead for years. It’s just that nobody ever bothered to bury it.”

 

A pang of regret hit Jeklin as soon as he finished speaking. Kailyah had risen and seemed to be frozen in the act of fleeing. He let his frustration run out of him as a sigh, took a step forward. “I am sorry, for what it’s worth.” Kailyah did not move away, but she was still tense, like a startled hind, and the look that she gave him, half panic and half pity, was enough to freeze his heart and split it down the middle.

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It was then that Jeklin realized what his actions had cost him. Kailyah was leaving, even as she stood, paralyzed, before him. She was going to leave him here to die amongst the

ashes of the dying world: nothing left, just him, just the shadow of a life that had never been his own.

 

“You could stay. I know it’s not ideal, but…” Jeklin swallowed in a dry throat, then continued shyly “But I could take care of you. I could take you where ever you want to go. I could show you the ocean. I would try to be better for you…. Won’t you stay?”

 

Kailyah swayed slightly, shocked out of her paralysis. For a moment, she couldn’t breathe, and she suddenly felt very cold and exposed. This is why he came back, she thought. He wanted… me. “No…”

 

Jeklin shut his eyes, tight, as the beginning of tears began to form. “I can’t lose you…” he whispered. His hand slipped to the leather hilt at his belt.

 

“Jeklin…” Kailyah started to say.

 

A moment passed and Jeklin opened his eyes. Kailyah’s stare lost some of its hard edge and she was beginning to slump towards the ground. She must be exhausted, Jeklin thought to himself, and he helped her to lie upon the soft grass beside the bench on which they had sat.

 

Moisture began to form in the corner of Kailyah’s lovely eye. Jeklin reached out, his hand trembling slightly, and tenderly wiped it away. She was shaking. Jeklin considered giving her his cloak, but the blood was still wet. After all that’s happened, Jeklin reflected to himself, how is she still so beautiful.

 

 

 

 

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“Would it have been any different, had I been born somewhere else?” Jeklin asked aloud. Kailyah made no response. He looked out to the village that he had made ugly and down at the sticky hands at his sides. “It was the only thing I could do.”

 

Kailyah’s face had taken on a dreamy look now. Her eyes were half closed; they no longer held the depth that had captivated him before. “I bet this place was beautiful before I came along. I wish…” Looking out at the flames, the blood, the carnage that was his handy-work, Jeklin did not know what he wanted. He had never wanted this.

 

Jeklin reached down, seized the blood-smeared dagger that was lying naked upon the ground. Kneeling beside Kailyah, he took a moment to look into the mirrored surface,

studying the lines of his face, the depth in his own dark eyes. “I am a monster.” The knife moved downward. So beautiful, Jeklin thought to himself as he fell.

 

Kailyah lye in the cool grass beside the wooden bench with Jeklin’s head resting gently in her lap, the two of them enjoying a tender silence together as the sunset painted a bleeding ocean on the horizon.

Author's Note

I always appreciate constructive criticism. Tell me what you like, what you don't like, what needs to be changed, and what needs to be thrown out and never seen again. Thanks.