Madeline

I remember…. I remember everything. The salty breeze that used to waft across my face, the soft prickles of sand that would scatter across my skin as the wind would carry the oceans mist. The beauty and simplicity of life’s little loves from not so long ago, that was now an acrid shallow image of its former glory. The water was gone and soon so too would I. Tipping my board forward I slid down the bank of sand that used to form the water’s edge. Letting my momentum take me as far as is it could. Closing my eyes, I could almost imagine I was surfing, and that the world was not a sun scarred and mostly uninhabitable during the day. Things had gotten so bad after the war between humanity and my people. After discovering our existence, they chose genocide over coexistence. Their own superiority complex and need to dominate and control everything had led to their downfall and the destruction of their homes. These thoughts alone sent white hot flashes of anger and sadness across my body like roaring waves in the ocean. Looking out at the dry cracked water starved earth I clenched my fist and let these emotions go. They would not help me on this journey, only hinder it. I promised to fix this and give hope to these shallow un-evolved excuses for warm flesh for exactly one reason and one reason only. I could still feel her hand in mine, it moving my hair as it caressed the side of my face and sighed. Placing my hands on my chest I could still feel the necklace there and smell the small hint of lavender and rosemary. It was her favorite scent, and I can still see her smile as bright as the sun anytime I found any that had survived the harsh heat. Slowly I made my way to the tiny hut that now presided at the edge of what was formerly known as the edge of the Gulf of Mexico. When I was younger, I had always been fascinated by this as it was backed up against the Mississippi River and never seemed to mix. Swimming between the two had always been a magical event, for those were strong enough obviously, as others dared not to mix waters, an almost sacred taboo of my kind. Looking back on all these memories I could see the sadness coating my mother and father’s eyes, I had just never quite understood why, until I met the others. Anger again boiled swift and quick inside of me before giving way to intense sadness. Hadn’t we been through enough? Although they were happy with the life we cultivated here they were often reminded of their banishment everyday by just looking out at the waters we lived on top of. My mother being of the gulf side of the water and my father being of the Mississippi side they were forbidden to be together. And when they were caught, both were respectively banished to the edge of their territories only being allowed inland during certain times. We lived here in pseudo happiness for some time until our kind was discovered and then hunted like petty sport, and as each one of us died so too did a portion of the water the earth held. Tears freely fell from down my cheeks, wiping my face I looked at the tears I had thought were long gone and resolved myself for the task ahead. Over the next few days this cycle continued, small melancholic moments that made me think of home or of Madeline. From the dried-up husks of crustaceans, long lost shipwrecks and debris to the cracked earth and fissures that coated the sun-bleached land. Everything made me think of her, that is how much I would like to think, that she made my life better, she made me better. I could almost enjoy living again, getting to wake up and see her face made all this bearable. There is something about walking through abandoned streets and lands that seemed magical so long as she was there. I would like to say you get a unique view of life when you can only go outside during the nighttime. But in truth it was solely Madeline’s perspective of getting to survive that changed how I viewed life around me. Those who had survived knew to leave me be and scavenge at a radius, but she fundamentally disregarded that and chiseled at my walls like they were made of soapstone. After walking for about a week I could see the place I once called home. Walking up I let my hands graze along the surface of the weather rotted wood letting memories assault me like the scalding hot sun had these past few days. It has been so long since water has graced this land, hate was truly a blight that consumed all of humanity. And for a while I had let it consume me and wanted nothing more than to watch it all burn away. They did not deserve the peace and comfort my kind afforded them. I had the power to change it but none of that mattered as I indulged in their suffering and watched their petty world collapse. Once beautiful water ways were now dried husks and dirty reminders of their lackadaisical treatment of the land. It took less than 5 years for the civilization to collapse without water. As the last of it evaporated old shipwrecks and years of built-up pollution became barren landscapes that filled your vision until it was all the eyes could see. It hurt my soul to see something so disgraceful, which only fueled my fire more. I hated them for what they took from me with every fiber of my being until her soothing hand found me. Her touch diluted the hard water of my heart that I had let become putrid and stagnant with a purity I had thought died with the last of my people. Her presence healed deep seated bitterness I held against humanity, and it was for her sake and hers alone that I even dared to stand in the middle of this room. Its cracked old floors, and weathered walls and chipped paint broke the dam of emotions that I pushed down for so long. It was so easy to feel as if I were drowning when I thought of them, when I thought of losing them. As if I was drawn to it my feet took me to the hole in the floor that we had in our home. Its broken cracked edges marker our old watering hole. We would fish from here for dinner more times than I could remember. Crouching by it my hands traced its edges as the memory of my father pushing me into it resurfaced. They had stormed our house and killed mom in seconds, but dad never stopped fighting, until they targeted me. And in a last attempt to save me he shoved me into the water but was shot and killed as he did so, saving me but dying in the process. Selfishly Id wished he had not, maybe then I would finally be at peace with them. This was where it all started and where it would all end. I pulled the locket from underneath my shirt and clutched it in my hand, Madeline’s final gift to me before the heat stole her beauty and essence from the world…. from me, because of my selfishness. My grip tightened around the heart shaped locket that held a part of her ashes. Standing up I took my final last longing look at the trinkets that filled this tiny hut, and all the memories that were robust reminders of a happier time, then turned and left. I walked back down the stairs and towards the dividing line that used to be where the Mississippi River and gulf met and sank to my knees. I let the energy that Id suppressed for so long, overflow and poured the entirety of my essence into the locket. And as it flowed out it charged it with a blue like aura, the last of my kinds magic and essence. I would die here but the beauty of our power is that our energy could never completely be destroyed, only changed. With the last vestiges of my strength, I plunged it perfectly in between the earth that had laid barren for and Innumerable amount of time and collapsed, and finally closed my eyes. The locket being filled with the promise id made began to spread its energy into the land and with a blinding pulse of light started to slowly trickle water that started to pool around me. Hate had killed the last of our kind, my father sacrificed his life to ensure his little girl had a chance at survival, but the love of Madeline’s touch saved it, and soon I would see her again. As the water flowed, the promise I had made to her started to manifest, and I began feeling my body turn back into energy and fade back into the aether from whence it came. As the final flecks of me disappeared I could smell the scent of rosemary and lavender wrap around me as if she were holding me one final time. I smiled and took my final breath and with it the water erupted into a deluge that would restore balance back to this barren world.