That Moment
756 Words
The storm came without warning. One moment, the ocean was calm, golden light spilling through the waves. The next, it roared, pulling currents like hands trying to drag me under. I was with Kairo when it struck, chasing shadows of light through a sunken ruin, laughing like nothing could touch us.
But the sea does not forget.
I remember the jewel first. It had begun to glow faintly, trapped coral twisting around it as if alive. Kairo reached for it, his hand brushing mine. “It’s ours,” he said again. But this time, there was hesitation in his voice. I felt it before I saw it — a shift in him, subtle, like a shadow crossing sunlight.
I don’t know when he stopped being the boy I loved. Maybe it was in the way he stared at the jewel, not at me. Maybe it was in the way he hesitated when the currents twisted, when the ocean’s warning shivered through me. I should have run, I should have turned away, but I trusted him. I still do, even now.
The first crack came like thunder. Kairo let go of my hand. I tried to call him back, to grab him, but the currents were stronger than ever, twisting and pulling. He disappeared into the shadows of the ruins, and when I reached the surface, gasping, he was gone. Not hurt. Not trapped. Gone.
For a moment, I thought the sea had taken him. I thought my promise — the one I didn’t fully understand — was already failing. My heart thumped like a drum, wild and desperate. “Kairo!” I shouted, my voice swallowed by the storm. The waves answered only with a cruel echo.
Days passed, though underwater, time moves differently. I searched for him in every shadowed coral forest, every sunken ship, every hidden cave where light barely touched. Nothing. No laughter, no dark stormy eyes, no reckless grin. Just silence.
And then I heard the whispers.
The elders spoke in the currents, voices older than memory. “He is gone,” they said. “Your trust has been broken.” My chest ached so sharply I thought it would tear me apart. “But… why?” I whispered to the waves, and the waves did not answer.
I found him weeks later, not in the deep, not in the hidden places where we used to play, but at the edge of the ocean — on a cliff, staring at the sky, touching the world above. A human village burned behind him with faint lights. His dark hair whipped in the wind, and for a moment, I thought he had come back for me.
But it wasn’t me he looked at. Not really.
I swam closer, hiding in the shadows of rocks, my heart breaking all over again. I heard fragments of his words — promises, but not for me. Deals, bargains, laughter that didn’t include me. I realized then that I had never truly known him. The boy I loved had been an illusion, shaped by my trust, by my longing, by the light I wanted to see in him.
It was at that moment that I realized,all along I was being used by him, to gain his desires,our intentions towards each other were parallel, I can say.
I didn’t stay to confront him. I couldn’t. My chest ached, and the ocean’s currents seemed to pull me away, as if even the sea knew I could not bear it. I fled into the deep, hiding in the shadows of kelp and coral, letting the saltwater burn away my tears.
That night, I made a promise. Not to him — he had proven he was not worthy of it — but to the sea. I would keep him safe from the world he had chosen, even if it meant giving everything I had. My scales shimmered faintly, reflecting the moonlight above, and I swore that I would never let the pain of love end like this again.
It was the first heartbreak, and yet it was also the first step toward my true journey. The sea whispered to me, patient and eternal: it remembers. And one day, it would call me back to what I had lost.
I rose to the surface, letting the wind carry me upward. The human world stretched ahead, unknown and dangerous. My heart was heavy, but it beat steadily. I had survived love’s betrayal. I had survived the sea’s wrath.
And I would survive whatever came next.
- Writer
