This is one of my most favorite things ever written, and I honestly wasn’t going to write it at first. That first line popped into my head and I thought “Oy, that’s a stupid beginning.” Then I tried to fish around for something else (heh heh, pun intended (you won’t understand until you read the story)), and, when I couldn’t come up with anything, just went with the stupid idea.
I loved it.
So let me know what you think!
Prompt
Picture not mine – found here
Story
If you had the power to stop seventeen hundred lives from being destroyed, would you?
What if those lives were all evil?
I had that chance – that choice. And what did I do? I wasted it.
You see, Atlantis was once a thriving city full of the greatest people mankind had to offer: thinkers, writers, architects, musicians – they were all there. Which is why Atlantis became such a symbol of success and triumph and the superiority of mankind.
And then there was me. Small, not very pretty, with nothing to offer the world but a power I didn’t understand. No one really knew I existed – well, they did, but they didn’t care that I did. Understand?
Anyway, after my mother abandoned me and my father for some well-to-do noble (in Atlantis, I might add), and after my father died in the wars of our nations, I lived alone. Alone, that is, except for my faithful pup and the voices of the ocean that kept calling my name.
That’s right – the ocean spoke to me.
More accurately, any water spoke to me, the volume of their voices growing louder with the amount of water there was. Only in the deadest stillness of night could I hear the murmurings of the humidity in the air. The rain was a quiet hiss, rivers a pure song, lakes a powerful shout and the ocean….
If the lakes were a mouse, the ocean would be the elephant.
Oftentimes I had to leave the beach for fear of my head falling off my shoulders with the sheer thundering of the waves as they crashed onto the sandy shore. I heard the spray whispering of abominations and evils done as I was soaked one evening after standing in the path of a wave for a moment too long.
Alas.
If that wave had not borne news of Atlantis, perhaps I would have continued my happy, innocent life.
But it was not to be. The water told me of Atlantis’ wickedness and made my heart burn with anger. So I stepped into the sea and let its power carry me away as I ordered it to be silent around me. Glittering specks of talent swirled around my hands as I dug deep into my gift and used it to control the sea.
As I went, the power stored inside me grew hot with contained energy. My senses tingled with vibrancy – I could see where the ocean ended and the land began, hear the gentle steps of a creature on a beach oh-so-far away, smell the blood of fresh kill many fathoms below me, taste the salt of a millenia on my tongue. And yet the most powerful sensation by far was that of my feelings.
Water surged past my fingertips, connecting me to the entire world. Through its eyes I could see, through its ears I could hear, and through its swirling currents I could feel.
Wrath boiled in my stomach like a ripe tomato, ready to burst at the slightest disturbance. I could hear the tales the ocean had to tell of Atlantis, of its power-hungry leaders and scheming citizens, of the bodies they dumped into the ocean’s caress as a way to cover their crimes. I could feel the pain of the starving, forgotten children and understood the lament of the wife as her husband left her for another. Atlantis might harbor the best that mankind had to offer, but mankind’s best was very wicked indeed.
“Destroy,” I whispered, letting that one powerful word send tingles along my tongue. “DESTROY THEM ALL!”
A wave rose up, higher than the golden spires of Atlantis’ loftiest castle, casting the entire city in a deep, menacing shadow of doom. I sat on my carpet of water to the side of it, watching the people panic as they saw the swirls of light surrounding me and the towering wave of water curling over their city. This was their end, and they knew it.
And yet, as I paused to revel in my righteous fury, the tear-stained face of one dirty child caught my eye. She stared at me with wide blue eyes, terror in them. She wasn’t looking at the wave or at the screaming people rushing around her, but at me.
She understood.
She knew it was me.
She knew I held her life in my hands.
Instantly doubt assailed my mind. Sure, red-hot anger still roiled like a stormy sea in my stomach, but something akin to pity was beginning to quell it.
Water splashed my fingers as I let my hands fall into the sea, the wave still poised for destruction above that evil, glittering city.
Time seemed to still. Everyone was paused in terror, staring at the wave blocking out the sun. Only a little girl was looking at me.
Remember what your mother did, the ocean whispered.
I remembered, and I hated it.
I raised my hands. This is for you, mother, I mentally spat.
And the wave came crashing down.
Now I have to live with the guilt of destroying an entire city in one fleeting moment of passion. I killed so many, destroyed so much, and for what? Vengeance and what I thought was righteous wrath. But the truth is that, while the people of Atlantis were certainly evil…
I was too. Still am. And I’m not in the place to judge them for it, not to mention punish them.
This was my mistake. I hope you’ll learn from it. I wish I had learned this long before the ocean’s rage had captured my soul.
Wrap Up
Let me leave you with this: take courage, pursue God, and remember your wickedness.
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