Discarded
1012 Words
“I’ll handle Mira,” Ben had replied, his voice devoid of the warmth he used for her. “She’s an orphan. She has nowhere else to go. She’ll stay because I’m all she has. She’s loyal, if nothing else.”
Mira had stood in that hallway for an eternity. She hadn't screamed. She hadn't burst in. She had simply turned around and walked back into the rain. She stayed. Not because she was weak, but because she was waiting for him to choose her. She had let herself believe that if she were "good" enough, "quiet" enough, and "loyal" enough, she would win.
What a pathetic lie.
Crack.
A jagged sound snapped her back to the present. The coffin was no longer floating; it was plunging. The pressure of the Atlantic was heavy now, pressing against her chest like a giant’s thumb.
A thin, icy stream of saltwater sprayed through the corner of the lid. It hit her cheek like a needle.
"No," Mira gasped, the word echoing in the tiny space. "Not like this."
The water rose quickly. It soaked into her sweater—the same sweater she wore when she thought she was safe. It pooled around her waist, the cold so intense it felt like a block.
She clawed at the wood. She tore her fingernails until they bled, trying to find a weakness in the lid. But Tom was thorough. The box was a masterpiece of cruelty.
I stayed, she thought, the water now reaching her neck. I saw him with her, I heard him call me a 'nobody,' and I still stayed. I deserved better, but I chose the lie.
The water reached her chin. She tilted her head back, pressing her nose against the top of the box, desperate for the last pocket of oxygen. She thought of Emily’s smug smile at the gala. She thought of Ben’s cowardice. She thought of Tom’s cold, calculated shove. The box groaned one last time as it reached a depth no human was meant to see. The wood buckled. The seal shattered.
Mira’s lungs burned. She fought the instinct to inhale, her body convulsing in the dark. The pressure crushed her eardrums, a high-pitched scream of physics that sounded like a frequency—the "Resurrection Frequency" she didn't know she possessed.
Inhale.
The saltwater rushed into her throat. Her heart gave one final, violent thud against her ribs—a protest against the betrayal, a final cry for the girl who was too loyal for her own good. Her eyes drifted shut. Her limbs went limp. The orphan girl, Mira, died in the dark, three hundred feet below the surface.
But deep in the marrow of her bones, something else woke up. It wasn't a heartbeat. It was a vibration. A low, humming pulse that pushed back against the pressure of the sea. The water around her body began to glow with a faint, ghostly luminescence. The salt didn't dissolve her; it seemed to bind to her, knitting her back together.
Mira’s eyes snapped open. They were no longer the brown, soft eyes of a victim. They were something else—something cold, something ancient, and something very angry.
The transition from the physical agony of drowning to the weightless silence of the abyss was so seamless that Mira didn't feel the moment of departure. The wood of the coffin broke. The boards, pressurized beyond their limits, splintered outward like the petals of a dark flower. Mira stepped out.
That was her second mistake—the assumption of "stepping." There was no floor, no resistance. She moved through the water freely with a motion she had never possessed in life. Her oversized sweater, once heavy and soaked with the salt of her demise, now drifted around her like a silken shroud, undulating in a current she couldn't feel on her skin.
She turned her head, and for a moment, the betrayal was forgotten. The Atlantic was not dark. Not here. The depths were alive with a bioluminescent carnival. Neon-blue jellyfish, delicate as lace, pulsed like rhythmic hearts above her. Schools of silver-scaled fish darted past, their movements choreographed by a silent conductor. The sand below was ivory, glowing with the reflected light of strange, glowing moss that clung to the jagged coral reefs.
It was beautiful. It was the first time in nineteen years she felt truly unburdened. No Tom to sneer at her. No Ben and no Emily to mock her existence.
"I survived," she whispered.
The words didn't form bubbles. They didn't ripple the water.
"I'm alive," she said, louder this time, a surge of triumph warming her chest. "I resurrected. I’m more than a number. I’m more than No. 7."
She felt powerful. She felt as though she could swim to the surface, walk across the waves, and storm the Blackwood Gala like a vengeful goddess. She imagined the look on Ben’s face when she walked through those gold-leafed doors, dripping with the sea and radiating this new, ethereal light. But then, she turned around.
The remains of the coffin lay settled in a bed of anemones. The wood was dark, jagged, and ugly against the pristine beauty of the reef. And there, nestled in the center of the wreckage, was a girl.
Mira froze. The "stepping" sensation vanished, replaced by a cold, hollow dread that made the ocean feel freezing again.
The girl in the coffin was wearing the same frayed sweater. Her skin was the color of moonlight, her lips were bruised, her long hair, which Ben used to claim he loved, was tangled in the splinters of the wood, floating upward like dead seaweed. Her eyes were open—dull, clouded, and staring at nothing.
Mira looked at her own hands. They were translucent, shimmering with a faint, iridescent glow. She looked back at the girl in the box. The girl in the box was not breathing. Her chest was still.
"No," Mira reached out, her ghostly fingers trembling. "No, that’s not... that’s just a shell. I’m right here. I’m right here!"
- Writer
