'Don't stare too long into the void, for you'll find it stares back.'
The fog is everywhere: you can only see a few meters around you. The small island that stretches a distance from the wharf is the only clear thing on the sea, slowly becoming a silhouette of pikes as the overcast sky fades dimmer. Everything else but the wharf and boats have already become as such to you, a hundred thousand shades of grey blurring the lines between land, sea, and other… Close, adjacent, and distant.
This is one of those days where you wanted to disappear and the weather seems to have read your mind. If not the fog, the upper level of the wharf hid your presence well enough. Like most foggy days, there's no wind whapping your whiskers, but sea salt still tingles in your nose and on your tongue now and again, despite being here... Half an hour, maybe? Clicking open a modern pocket watch from your purple coat confirms your estimation. You wipe some of the air's moisture off of it and slide the clock in your pocket to continue gazing out at what could very well be the edge of the world.
Here, there seems to be nothing… And it's quite comforting. You close your eyes and feel your heart beat to the slow drumming of the waves instead of the ticks of the various timekeepers back in the real world. No schedules out here, no dates, no hurrying, no 'late, late, late'! Not to say you don't try to master time, but sometimes (heh) it seems like you're in some cycle. A crazy cycle where you don't really have any important dates or anything to be late for, but having a schedule seems so important that anyone who doesn't have it is just being a lazy bum who's wasting their time and destiny.
… When you run away here, are you just being lazy? Couldn't you use this time to better your dancing, agenda, or tin whistle playing? The whistle is right there in its green box, beside the wharf's bumper around the edges. You always take it when you come here, but there's hardly a time where the desire to practice is present.
This would seem like the perfect time. You obviously have no natural talent for this, just the hours of hard work you've done either in school or when you are alone in the house. Have them wait until you get the songs down perfectly before you go playing for anyone. That's what you tell yourself. Besides, having people around would probably distract or interrupt you. Scarlet has already bitten your head and tail off on how much she thinks you suck. Perhaps it has made you a little more timid in your skills, but on the bright side, it's made your hearing more acute when playing notes or hearing any strangers wandering by.
Then again, what's the need? There's no music class next week in this world. It's all grey here!
Except for the sea. To anyone looking from a distance, the sea appears to be one huge looking glass to the sky: greys that just ripple from time to time. If they were to kneel closer, they would know better. It's not a mirror, it's a whole other world. Certainly it's livelier than this grey world, but it's somehow voidier at the exact same time, a darkness that filled with emptiness that can crush you.
That's how you see it tonight as you stare into the depths, cautiously leaning over the safety bumper of the wharf. If you lean a little farther you could somersault in. You've foreseen it many times already. If you're standing up on the wharf's bumper, you can just step into the water like when you descend from the stairs. If you're walking along it, you could slip and plunge right in. If you dip your fingers in, they'll disappear, followed your hands, then arms, and the rest of you head first.
It'd be cold, even on a humid summer day like today. Your coat and fur would be soaking wet, your pocket watch would stop at the second you hit the water (well, give or take a minute or two). You would probably see how long you could last in that extreme void before its salty madness pushes its way down your throat and burns into the lungs and you have to make the choice on whether to claw back up to Greyworld or make your new home here and have that ticking stop permanently.
Maybe if you practiced your tin whistle down there… No one but the fish are down there and they don't care much for music as far as you know. The only problem is that there's no sound down there. You'd just blow out bubbles instead of notes and that wouldn't help you at all! At least in Greyworld and Homeland you can make music.
Then again, how do you know there's no sound down there for sure? It's so dark; the residents must have some way to take in their surroundings. In fact, if all you play is bubbles, then you can be sure that no one would come around, eavesdrop on your practicing, and bite off your head. They could even be much more patient, a calm and cool reflection of their environment, provided you don't get too hungry.
You could practically see it all as you continue to stare into the dark, rippling sea, and a projection of hundreds of scenarios, as numerous as the shades here in Greyworld. At the same time, you see yourself staring down at you from up above, wavering from the water's ripples, the seaweed, and each small bubble systemically rising up, stealing a bit of your air, ticking up until survival will ring in your head and having you debate with yourself whether or not to rise up or go to sleep.
… What world are you in?
From a story prompt about water. The setting is based off of the wharf of my hometown. On foggy days it can look like the world's end there. Even though it's a bay, sometimes the sea looks like another world and the urge to jump in can be enticing indeed.
The protag wasn't going to be an animal at first, but I haven't written a story about one yet, so I thought 'why not'? Can anyone guess who inspired the protag? Hint: it's an Alice Allusion.
Critiques are apprieciated- Monos DOA
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