Seaborn

Grave of Salt and Water

Seawater filled his lungs with every desperate gasp for air. Panic urged him to push to the surface as fast as he could, but it was pitch black in that terrible coldness, and he had no idea which way was up. He only knew the impenetrable gloom and bone-chilling bite of the water around him. Salt-water, so thick and raw that every mouthful was like biting through snow.

Saul was a dead man. The realization struck him with a suddenness that unsettled him deeply. But with nowhere to go and no air to breathe, what else was there but to accept the cold embrace of inevitable death? The thought alone was enough to make his blood boil.

'This is not how it ends,' he thought to himself, jaws clenched shut, ears ringing as consciousness slowly faded away. His hands clutched at nothing but water, desperate for something to save himself before the end. But nothing came, or at least not fast enough. His fingers finally closed around the thick cord of a fishing net, just as the convulsions commenced. By the time his body was hauled over the side of the vessel his heart had stopped.

Saul was dead.