Ocean's Rise

Sweat beaded my forehead as I emerged from the humid rainforest. Under the evening sun, an indigo ocean glistened and crashed before my eyes. The sweet sea breeze filled my nose and replenished my skin.

Just over a mile away was my destination: a bridge named Devil's Tail that peaks nearly two hundred feet above sea level. Beneath the bridge is rumored a route leading to unexplored Venezuelan territory.

I walked with purpose along the coast for some time until a glimpse of a purple, shimmering rock stopped me in my tracks.

"Could it really be... here?" I stammered to myself.

I rushed to the site and began digging away the ocean clay with my hands -- hoping I could excavate the stone without proper tools.

As the dig site expanded, the vivid purple luster became more and more unreal to me, and the intensity in my eyes tranquilized my awareness of my surroundings.

"Unbelievable," I said under my breath, "This is it... the sacred Tanzanite... lost to man... the world's most concentrated, sustainable energy resource... I've discovered--"

As I held the stone beneath my grasp and lifted it from the ground, the sky shifted rapidly. A distressed cloud formation overshadowed me and the ocean became black.

"What is this energy?" I internalized.

Something was horribly wrong.

Straying from the ocean, I began to panic and run towards the bridge. My rugged shoes began to soak and chills consumed my skin. Larger waves began to spawn and crash nearer to my proximity.

As I ran, a dark mindframe shrouded me.

"Am I being targeted?"

The ocean began to rise at an immeasurable rate, gaining strength beyond measure and brimming with repressed havoc.

I looked away from the raging sea and witnessed an elderly man fleeing with a toddler on his shoulder. The waves crashed into his neckline and pushed him against a house pillar. I knew a fragile man of his age couldn't survive something like that, nor could the toddler swim.

I kept running and redirected my sprint away from the bridge and away from the waves. The largest building in my sight was a collosal mansion, firmly standing in all its glory. Racing to the manor, I yanked the gold-plated handle and sealed the weighted door behind me into presumed safety.

As I cradled the purple stone, I caught my breath and continued to worry, "Could the ocean possibly rise this much?"

I ran through the house at a stop-start speed. I didn't know what to do. The valuables and immaculate decór kept leeching my attention. The disaster brewing outside had to remain at the forefront of my survival instincts.

"No man can survive an angry ocean," I thought aloud, "...an ocean that wants... his life."

In my pacing search for safety, I discovered a mustard yellow hallway lined with vintage photography between each doorway. A sudden shriek of pain and fear belted from one of the rooms. A muffled woman's voice pleaded for help. Anyone's help. My soggy shoes gurgled beneath my stride as I ran to the windowed double-doors that held her.

"It stings... it really stings!" The voice winced. As I honed in on her location, it became clear that it wasn't a woman's voice, but a child's.

Beyond the glass doors, I saw a lightbulb's array of light illuminating a wrecked storage room. Boxes spilled from the wall line and a small baby doll rested face down on the tile floor. Only the girl's arm and leg were partially visible to me, so I opened the door to rescue her.

Instantly, my hearing updated to the sound of large winged insects. My instincts overtook me and I flung the door into the frame away from my stance. Two massive wasps escaped the storage room into the hallway. I had to leave the girl where she was: trapped.

As I realized her fate, a thick needle pierced the skin of my neck. Immediately, I clutched the nape of my neck and a searing-hot entoxication rushed through my blood. I screamed in agony from pain but shouted murderiously upon my awareness: the wasp was trapped beneath my shirt. I shivered in horror and crushed his exoskeleton under my clothing with a clenched grip. I bolted for some sort of refuge in the hallway and the chaos of the ocean resurfaced as the main threat.

The ocean was still rising. I could hear the wind and water surrounding me. I was consumed with anxiety. I was going to die here in a matter of minutes. Thousands of pounds of water will crush me beneath this roof, and surfacing for air won't likely be an option.

Cradling the purple stone, I skipped steps up the grand staircase and topped the second floor. Searching for higher ground, I spotted a fixed ladder leading to the peak of the building's structure. Clutching the stone to my chest, I gripped the ladder's rungs with one hand and began scaling the narrow wall space. Atop the ladder revealed a modest library equipped with a large telescope. Instinctively, I approached the window and surveyed the devastation below me.

Beyond the thick glass window rolled a furious, sheet-like sea. My heart sank at the sight of the dismal waves now knocking against the manor's third floor. In a flash, the first splash of water struck the dry pane and I flinched into a brief, closed-eyed reprieve. Around me was a raging sea of navy-blue sludge, yet the house's exterior was still withstanding the water's pressure, so being here must have been my destiny.

In seconds to minutes, the ocean began engulfing the windows before me. Stained glass shades of aquamarine danced on the libary's interior. As the ocean's saturation grew grimly blue, my last rays of light struggled to emerge.

I could no longer hear the relentless rage of the ocean, but the mansion walls creaked and strained to support the outside pressure. On the carpet beneath the windows, I drew my knees to my chest and anticipated the building's instant implosion.

I longed so dearly for hope, yet despare consumed my mind and spirit like a vicious cancer.

I screamed at the top of my lungs, "F*cking Tanzanite!"

In an eruption of rage, I clenched the stone from the widow sill and hurrled it angrily across the room. Upon impact, an antique lantern sprayed shards of glass on the floor and the stone rolled onto the carpet. I began to weep with resentment.

"All of this for pride," I reflected internally, "For discovery... recognition... out of sheer greed."

It was then that I entertained the thought of surrendering the stone, though it was much too late.

"Where would I even return it?" I thought rhetorically, "The ocean is forever inaccessible to me."

My eyes continued to pour with streams of self-pity. Several moments passed as the gurgling ocean sounds desensitized me.

I brushed my sleeve across my face to absorb tears and opened my eyes to the stone. The Tanzanite's magnetic purple luster tantalized my mind and resurfaced my desire for greed.

I crawled around the shattered glass and gripped the stone beneath my fingers once more. If my death was imminent, the stone would comfort me into the afterlife.

I rose to my feet and refocused my gaze through the dark blue window at my inconsolable reflection. My bloodshot eyes refused to close.

As I stood in underwater silence, my last hopeful thought was instantly crushed by a streamlined demise.

The glazed pupils of my eyes shrunk in terror and my mind flooded with sabotaging toxins as I fabricated my new fate:

If the mansion somehow survives, the oxygen in the house won't last forever, and my breath-taking suffocation will soon beckon Death's swift scythe.