"Death´s Embrace" by Leigh *Shwin* Erickson

So blessed the touch, a bitter grace...

Bitter.

If Laurette Vonellai had to pick one word to describe life, that was it.

Bitter.

What was its purpose anyway? If she built something up, the world tore it down. If she helped someone rise, they fell again. If she tried, the world shoved everything back at her in unrecognizably contorted images.

Bitter.

It was a good word. She kept repeating it to herself. Its dark essence wrapping around her and melding with her soul, making her aware of what the world was really like. Not the dream world so many lived in.

She snorted at the ignorance of people and pulled her coat tightly about her. The rain was chilling and caused her to gasp whenever it came in contact with her skin. But she would have it no other way. The rain at least shielded her. Not many people came out in the rain. Those that did were usually distracted enough by it that they didn’t notice the battered woman pacing the streets.

The sunlight was too cheery anyway.

She walked down the familiar pavement, counting the cracks that lined it like a jagged web. She would be there soon.

She sniffed at the plants lining the fissures. What was the purpose of growing there only to be crushed by hurried feet? What was the purpose of living if it was only to be dragged down by the weight of humanity’s ignorance?

She rolled her eyes and forged onward, her tattered shoes now soaked with rain and clinging to her feet, rubbing them raw. She didn’t care. Pain was a welcome thing. It kept her strong. You couldn’t be weak, not in this world.

As if on a sudden cue she turned and walked down a long ally. It was dark and filthy, but she didn’t care. Like this world’s black heart she thought bitterly.

She was walking towards the one place in this world that didn’t embody the dark essence of bitterness. Her one solitude. The sea.

She could smell it in the air, the thick smell of salt and water, and began to walk a little faster if that was possible to do without running.

No one would bother her there. Near the crashing sea and the raining spray she could be finally be truly and completely alone. Not only alone, she corrected, but free from the heavy burdens of the wretched world and of trying life itself.

She made it through the ally and shivered as the stinging rain assaulted her anew. She could see it now, the icy grey, hazy in the froth of the storm. She hopped over the simple guardrail that was between her and her refuge and picked her way carefully over the rocky slope. From one rock to another she climbed, sometimes leaping when she felt confident, other times having to cling to tiny crevices as her feet betrayed her, leaving her hanging over the jagged rocks swirling in white foam below. Always she jumped as the spray fell on her, cringing at the force of the water on the unforgiving rocks.

Many times she nearly lost her grasp. At one such interval, with only thin air the cushion between her and the rage of the sea, she contemplated who would mourn her if she were to fall. Her parents were gone, each taking their own lives. One gone due to personal weakness, the other because of that weakness spreading and poisoning their soul as a result. She shook her head. Not a thought about their struggling daughter and what their deaths meant to her. Friends? She snorted at the thought. No one wanted to be with her “damned soul” that she was. “She’d taint our children’s hearts with her curse. Stay far away from her” Yes, that is what I want to do, taint hearts. Definitely an ambition of mine she answered the hushed whispers sarcastically.

She smiled wryly as the wind tried to pull her down into the foaming depths, boiling not with heat but with turmoil. It seemed the sea had given up on her as well. It was a game; she wouldn’t go just yet.

She continued on her climb until she reached her sheltered “cave”. She called it a cave, anyway. It was more a sheltered place where 2 large rocks came together just above the reach of the sea. Here it was dry, but the chill was well steeped into the rocks and there was little she could do to warm the place. She crawled into the opening and stood inside. Might’s well just stay here for awhile she thought and settling her jacket for maximum warmth sat with her back to the rocks, knees pulled close to her body in cold.

As unlikely as sleep seemed to her, sitting against iced rocks with the occasional ambitious wave there to send a shower of spray on her, it came. She slept fitfully, murmuring broken words to the raging storm. Hot tears fell then, seizing their moment while her consciousness wasn’t there to shame them away. She seemed only a forgotten child in her sleep. The malice and bitterness drained from her still face.

A feared yet longed for precious place...

There was a lull in the storm. The world thought it safe to come out from its hiding, not noticing the fiercesome second half looming darkly at the horizon. The storm struck back with a vengeance, disciplining the silly world for daring to show its dirty head in the face of such an awesome force. Such raw power.

Waves crashed against the immobile rocks with venom spray stinging and spitting all over the dirt. The rain, nearly unbearable in pressure before, made its former strength seem like that of a newborn’s. The lightning shredded the suffocating clouds and the thunder shook through the very heart of the earth. It seemed this storm was made of raw power and pure wrath focusing on the arrogance of life itself. Everything bowed its head and cowered away in some hiding place.

Then something screamed.

Laurette shot upwards, her ears ringing with the voice of the thunder and with that cry of utter terror and helplessness. Where? Where had it come from?

She eased her way to the edge of her haven and peered into the wrathful eyes of the storm itself. Where?

The scream came again, this time weakened, but all the more desperate and choked with sobs. She whipped around, facing into the rain and the sea. And saw the child.

It was a little girl, she couldn’t have been more than 6, and she was caught in the wrath of the sea. The waves tossing her around like the lightest thing, competing to see who could drive her weakening form under the water and into the depths of eternity. Laurette’s eyes widened. The child was drifting near the rocks.

Her bitterness of the world forgotten, she stepped out into the storm. Nearly ripped from her post by the wind’s sharp fingers she shed her coat and with near fearful eyes watched it fall into the sea which promptly shredded it on the rocks and pulled it into its dark void.

With experienced fingers she eased herself down the now slick slope, miraculously finding footholds whose existence she had never known of. She was just above the wrathful sea. Waves pulled at her aching feet, wrapping their tendrils around her calves and yanking her with their raw might towards their blackness. She gripped to the rocks with cramping hands and with great difficulty turned to the storm, trying to see the child amongst the foaming turmoil that was the sea.

A broken sob, now devoid of hope, let her find now limp form. Eyes locked on her target she released her hold on the unmoving rocks and fell into the sea.

The first few moments were chaos. Now in the boiling mass, each wave loomed high above her and the rocks seemed perilously close. She stole a glance at the no longer friendly rocks that had held her to get her barings, and struggled through the mad rush of water towards the child.

It seemed that she would never reach her, each wave dragging her quickly tiring body backwards towards the sharpened rocks. Each lull and she fought forward, struggling to stay even in place as the mounds of rolling water engulfed her. Although it was only minutes it seemed like an indefinable amount of precious time that she struggled in the sea. It was only by some act of God she reached the child in time.

Her form was now limp and consciousness had left her, fleeing the wrath of the sea and its certain death to leave it’s body prone to the mercy of the water. Laurette somehow managed to clamp the child to her in an unmoving grip and started to fight the sea for the promise of land.

There was no chance of surviving if she tried for the rocks, but the sandy shore down the coast would work. Laurette forced her aching limbs to function once more and steered herself parallel to the shore. Waves washed over her and tugged at the limp form in her weakening arms. She nearly lost the girl once, but just managed to reclaim her from the greedy sea.

After another seeming eternity the blessed beach came into view. Laurette turned her attentions now shoreward and let the waves pull her with them in their mad rush to get to the sand, fighting the undertow and eyeing the white tips warily lest they should fall on her.

Getting across the breaking line was madness. She could feel the scrape of the sand shredding her skin and the undertow was near fierce as a riptide. She fought, getting no where for many waves, until finally there was the slightest lull and she was able to make it to the shore.

Exhausted she pulled the child further up the beach away from the breaking waves. She looked around to see 2 people, undoubtedly the girl’s parents frantically running up and down the shore. Their voices brushed the edge of her hearing, torn from it by the wind. It was blowing towards them, she noticed, and taking advantage of this, shouted.

They turned and seeing her, the cursed one, standing by their precious child, started to run towards her. Despite the wind holding them back they made it there with a speed born of desperation and were soon cradling their child’s still form.

They did not thank her, but blamed her rather for the storm and for their child’s disappearance into the raging sea. They knew they shouldn’t have let her play near the hideout of the wrathful demon. It was all Laurette’s fault, they said, and they drove her away.

The end of life’s sweet, anguished race...

Laurette walked near the sea, hoping to get to her cave by climbing over the immobile rocks. She ignored her bleeding body, she ignored the ache, the dizziness, and the pain that washed over her in waves much like those of the sea. Her body was dragging her down, but her mind was screaming. You have to keep moving! You have to make it to safety! Hurry! She forced her way through the gale blowing against her, and made it to the rocks.

They towered over her, but she wasn’t daunted. She had climbed here before. It wasn’t like it was the first time she had been driven from that beach. Finding the familiar footholds, she began to climb. The rocks seemed to slip away from her as her mind played games with her broken body due to loss of blood, the deathly chill, and the sheer exhaustion she carried within her.

She could see her cave, and hope ran through her. She could make it, from here it was easy. Her hands, now numb and cramping fought her drifting mind for handholds, finding them with only the familiarity of memory.

With agonizing slowness she fought the wind and the chill and was just feet from her haven when the waves struck.

Never had they reached up this far, never had she feared them in her cave. But never had there been a storm of this fury, and never had she been this vulnerable.

She felt the firm hand of the wave grasping her, it enveloped her and choked her breath. She opened her mouth to cry out, but couldn’t breathe for the cold. Desperately she clung to the rock face, but it was to no avail. The firm grasp of the wave could not be lifted.

She fell once again into the boiling sea.

She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move. Her strength had been drained from her. She was falling.

It was dark. She could hear the whoosh of the waves above her and the tingling of the bubbles as they moved out in a mad rush from under her limp body.

If she had been on land, the tears would’ve come, but being under water, no tears could fall. It was ending and she was alone... oh so very alone...

Her body convulsed in sobs as the bubbles of stale air escaped her lips.

Shhhhh

Her eyes flew open trying to see the voice, but the sting of the salt forced them shut.

Two arms, warm in the chill of the sea, seemingly dry and strong, encircled her. Dearest...

She felt herself relaxing in the comforting embrace, felt her body convulsing with lack of air and from the aching cold. The voice was warm and accepting, loving even. It cradled her as no being ever had. The arms hugged her closer and the chill was gone. The voice soothed through her and her lungs no longer burned for oxygen.

Love, it’s alright.

She relaxed fully then, letting go of everything, tears in her eyes. Love? She shuddered in a torrent of emotion as the word washed over her. Never had she known love, never had she known acceptance, never had she known a kind touch. The arms held her tightly as she sobbed seemingly endlessly into the kind shoulder, soothing words and whispers dancing over her, massaging her troubled mind and spirit.

Sweet Laurette, you’re home.

Such is the touch of Death’s embrace.