The Ocean Burns

by Thomas Stewart

My wife’s running straight for me, our daughter clutched in her hands. I look at her feet,
and I see her legs turning a bride crimson shade, blistering and cracking. Steam is rising off her
body.

Behind her, the tide rises well above the heads of several hundred people lagging behind
her. I can hear them all screaming, all in a horrible mixture of horror and sheer agony. All of them look like they’re melting, their skins peeling and falling off their bones like flypaper. Hell, by now, most of them look like half-sinewy skeletons, all screaming, all running, and nearly all of them falling onto their faces, swallowed by the tide.

She keeps running, her muscles moving like they’re being powered by 1,000 horsepower
engines. My legs twitch, wanting to run to her, but I can’t. The tide is reaching further and further into the shore.

I look over to my left. A boy tries to run out, reaching and crying out for his girlfriend,
who he and I both watch get swallowed by an unusually large wave. Most of the waves now seem to be trying to grow into full-blown typhoons. As soon as the boy’s feet just barely touch a little of the water, I have to cover my ears to protect myself from the ear-splitting screech that blasts from his mouth.

In seconds, I watch the flesh from his feet sizzle, pop, and peel from his bones, exposing
every bit of the sinew and raw muscle underneath. The boy drops to his knees, cradling his leg while the tide continues creeping up on him. His screams somehow manage to stand out among the rest. Maybe because he’s right beside me, or maybe because he’s just so young, it just sounds that much more painful!

The creeping tide comes upon him, covering more and more of him, taking more and
more of him away with each recession, until all that was left was a meaty skeleton whose lungs tore in half, screaming to no one who’d hear him. When I looked down at my own feet, I realized the tide was almost on me, so I jumped back.

When I looked back out towards the shore, she was only a foot or so away. Taking care
not to step forward, I lean forward, reaching out for her. Her eyes find my hand, and begin tucking our daughter under her arm to reach out. Just before our hands can meet, a wave rises up behind her. I lunge forward, risking some of the water touching my foot, just to snatch her hand and jerk her forward. The wave starts to come down just as I get her onto land with me.

When I look at her feet, I find them cleansed of flesh. As soon as she touches the sand,
she falls on her face. I try to drag her further onto land, only to find her feet detaching from her legs. The sinew sticks to the sand, and the muscles just fall right off the bones with them. The tide was now over halfway on the shore, and well above everyone’s heads.

I continue trying to drag her along. The tide rushes in quicker than I can blink, engulfing
her. She manages to reach our daughter out towards dry land, where I can grab her just before the sea takes the rest of her. My little girl is wailing, and I can hear her crying for her mother.

My heart melts, but the rising tide causes me to bury my feelings and clutch the wailing baby tight and turn, making a beeline for the boardwalk.

My legs were on fire, screaming out with just as much pain, just as much agony, as the
poor bastards behind me. I can’t see, but I can hear, the tide rushing up behind me. The very sand beneath my feet is starting to heat up. What should’ve felt soft, if maybe a bit rough, with all the broken seashells, now feels like I’m running across a frying pan over an open flame.

I feel some of the foam lick the soles of my feet, getting a leap out of me. I’m starting to
lose grip of my daughter. My knees are starting to buckle.

I know I can’t keep going. Not like this. I won’t survive, but my daughter…

I reach about three feet from the boardwalk, where EMS is standing by, like cheerleaders
at a finish line, when my knees finally give out on me. In less than seconds, the tide engulfs my legs. Searing pain shoots all throughout my body, and my reflexes send my baby girl flying through the air, landing about a foot away from me on my left. The water recedes just as she’s landing, engulfing her in an instant. Faster than I can blink, the burning tide strips my infant daughter of all her flesh, reducing her to a screaming, wailing mound of muscle and sinew. In another instant, even this is taken from her, leaving only a few of her small, fragile bones behind as a grim memorial.

I look back out over the horizon, where I’m met with a tidal wave looming over me,
moving at a snail’s crawl to tease me. When I look over at the boardwalk, I see the EMS still standing there, still waiting for me to make it, but I can see their faces. They, like me, know thehorrible truth.

My wife didn’t make it. My daughter didn’t make it. None of the hundred or so odd
nameless others ever made it, nor would any of them ever.

I’m not going to make it, either.

The tide creeps further and further upon my legs, taking little by little away from them
each time. Blood has now forever stained the sand. Then again, I wonder if it’s the blood that’s stained the sand. For these are Hell’s waters, the ocean burns.